Just back from a week-long visit with my dad in Michigan. Here's are the highlights:
Wednesday 7/1 -- The worst airport experience I've had in some time. I bought my tickets from Northwest, months ago, but now Northwest and Delta have merged and they definitely have some customer service problems to iron out.
Normally I get to the airport a good 2 hours before my flight, and then have 1:45 to wander around, get coffee, etc. This morning I decide 90 minutes will be plenty of time....
First off, I look for the Northwest check-in at Seatac and can't find it. It's all just labelled Delta now. I already have my boarding pass but since I'm taking my Bike Friday along, I need to check baggage. I see a sign that says "baggage drop off" so I get in line. After about 10 minutes in this line I find out it's not really a line, but a group waiting to have their names called to come to the counter. I determine that instead, I must get in a different line, one that leads to a kiosk where you enter your flight information, then go back and wait in the baggage-drop group.
When I get to the front of the kiosk line, the kiosk I get doesn't work. I move to another one that works, but when I type in my confirmation number it says "see Northwest ticket agent". I try putting in my credit card number instead, same thing. But of course, "Northwest ticket agents" no longer exists. There is a Delta customer service person wondering around, and she tells me that I should be able to check my bags out at curbside.
Off I go to wait in that line. When I get to the front, the guy looks at my boarding pass and says he can't help me, because it was booked through Northwest. There's another line right next to him for people who booked through Northwest, but that line just leads to another one of those kiosks.
So, I head back inside and get into the long, slow line for people with "issues". (And believe me, by now I DO have issues.) And when I get to the front of it.... the lady says she can't help me because I booked through Northwest, and I'll have to wait in the next line over. At which point I say, no, I have reached my limit, I am not going to wait in another line, make it right. She just looks at me blankly and says there's nothing she can do.
Luckily, the agent at the next line over stepped in and helped me, and was actually able to check my bags. I get to my gate just as they are saying "last call", without even time to grab a cup of coffee.
I had to change planes in Minneapolis, and was heartened to see my Bike Friday bag actually get off the plane and onto a baggage cart there. But when I got to Detroit.... no baggage! Off I go to get in the lost baggage line. The lady there says, come in the back room with me and we'll just check in case it might be there. Thankfully, it was. I guess it took an earlier flight???
Anyway, I am now thinking I may just buy another bike to leave in Michigan.
Thursday 7/2 -- Recovery from flight.
Friday 7/3 -- I'm just settling in to my dad's place in Midland, Michigan, when it suddenly occurs to me that my friend Judy, who is riding from Maine to the west coast this summer, should be just about to Michigan by now. I send off an email to her, and sure enough, she will be passing right through Midland in a couple of days! We make arrangements to meet and possibly ride together for a ways when she gets here.
I met Judy when we rode the Underground Railroad route (Mobile AL to Niagara falls) last year with WomanTours. To celebrate turning 70 this year, Judy started in Maine in mid May and is riding, by herself, across the country. What a woman!
I put together my Bike Friday and rode over to Aunt Dorothy's house for a short visit. Aunt Dorothy turned 89 this year but looks more like 70. She lives only about 3 miles from my dad, and it's been a tradition since I was in high school, that I ride my bike to her house to visit. This may be the last year, since she is finally putting her place up for sale and planning to move to Indiana to live with her son. I promise to take her out to lunch later in the week.
Saturday 7/4 -- The day dawns bright, clear and calm, and my dad and I decide it's a perfect day for canoeing. I get the canoe down from the barn while my dad starts up the 35-year-old Jeep pickup and tries to find the dead thing in it that is making it smell really bad. No luck, so we leave the windows down, load canoe, lunch, and fishing supplies, and off we go. Our launch site is about 4.5 miles up the road, down a steep little hill. My 82 year old dad, who really needs hip replacements but so far has been too stubborn to get them, manages to get down the hill, and I head back up to move the truck. By the time I get back, he's got a bass on the line! In the bucket it goes, and off we go floating down the river.
This is the beautiful Chippewa river, which I grew up on. A totally worry-free float-trip river, rarely more than 4 feet deep. Little paddling required, no rapids, the worst that could happen is you'll drag bottom and have to get out and pull yourself off a gravel bar. Well, actually the WORST that could happen is you'll run into lots of deerflies, which have been known to drive strong men to distraction (one year my dad spent most of the trip hanging off the back of the canoe, mostly underwater, to escape them. And my cousin Kris once abandoned me mid-trip, nearly in tears, to march into the nearest house and call home to be picked up.) but thankfully, we see very few this trip.
What we do see, in spades, is cedar waxwings. Hundreds off them, flitting back and forth across the river, looking for all the world as if someone has carefully dipped just the very edge of each of their tails in neon-yellow paint. There's really no prettier bird.
And jewel-like dragonflies, some with brilliant metallic green bodies and velvety-black wings, others with bright red bodies and transparent wings. A few deer, a few dozen little turtles dozing on river rocks.
We stop for lunch at our halfway point.
Just about the time we're done, here comes about 10 cute little pre-teen / early teen girls in bikinis, and ONE teenage boy, looking very happy. With maybe 3 tubes between them, they pile on, hang on, or wade beside, and start down the river.
My dad lands 2 more bass before we're done.
Shirley cooks them for us for dinner, and I pull and steam fresh beet greens from the garden. Yum!
Sunday 7/5 -- I take Aunt Dorothy out for dinner, and then we drive around to the 3 local cemeteries where most of my Whittington relatives are buried. Mom, grandma, grandpa, and Aunt Letha at Poseyville cemetery. Aunt Onie, Uncle Jerry, cousin Gayle, Aunt Marie, Uncle Jack at Homer. Uncle Pete at Lee. Aunt Dorothy keeps flowers on all their graves and tries to keep the gravestones cleaned.
Monday 7/6 -- Judy made it to down last night and has a room at a motel downtown. I ride in to meet her this morning and give her the quick tour of downtown: the very unique Midland courthouse,
and the Tridge.
We eat breakfast on Main Street and then head off down the Pere Marquette rail-trail. At about mile 20 I must turn back, but how I wish I could just keep going with her! This was I think day 48 for Judy's trip, and she's far from tired of it.
I'm back to my dad's house just in time for a quick shower before we head downtown for dinner. Afterward we stop and visit Uncle John. He and Aunt Dorothy are all that's left of that "greatest generation" of Whittingtons. Uncle John can't drive any more but still lives by himself, and has a tricycle that he rides every day.
Tuesday 7/7 -- Today my dad, Shirley (aka "Aunt Mom") and I head 50 miles NE to Standish, to visit the Hagley side of the family, at the farm where my dad grew up. This dairy farm is now going on 6 generations, and 4 of them are living and/or working there today.
My grandpa and grandma milked maybe a dozen or so cows, by hand of course. ( I can remember having fresh, still warm milk before I went to bed when visiting there). My dad had to quit school early to help on the farm, back when they still used horses to till the fields. My dad's brother, Uncle Louie, took over the farm from my grandpa, and his son Tim took it over from him. Tim's daughter (who now has a baby of her own) now does the milking, 100 ( or is it 200??) cows twice a day, pretty much single handedly, in the new 16-stall milking parlor. The parlor has a 2000-gallon milk tank, which gets nearly full in 2 days.
We pulled in just in time to see Stevie, my cousin Deb's grandson (maybe 12 or 13 years old) drive past on a huge tractor hauling a load of either oats or peas, which go into this big thing that Tim calls the sausage stuffer. The oats and peas get mixed together and stuffed into a huge plastic sausage, 6 feet in diameter and maybe 50 feet long, for storage.
Today I get to see my cousin Mike for the first time in probably 25 years. He has lived and worked near Detroit for many years, but recently was laid off, and is now up working on the farm part time.
Deb takes me out to the vegetable garden where I pick a mess of greens (arugula, leaf lettuce, bok choy, green onions) to take home.
Tim takes my dad and I out to show off the new milking parlor,
much of which Tim bought used and refurbished himself. Tim obviously enjoys what he does and it's a joy to see that. The cows are mooing demandingly and Tim says, shoot, I forgot to do the noon feeding (it's been a busy day), so we get to see his automated feeder, too. It grinds corn, mixes it with sweet-smelling silage, and delivers it via conveyor belt to the impatient cows.
In addition to dairy farming, Tim has gone partially organic in the last few years, as "Saverine Creek Organics". Branching out from this is Deb's business making jewelry from colorful heirloom varieties of corn and beans. It's unique and stunningly beautiful, as Deb has a real eye for design. Check out her website at
http://www.saverinecreek.com/.
Back at the house, we have a wonderful visit with Uncle Louie and Aunt Gin, who feeds us a yummy homemade custard-cake. I get to see a picture of Isobel, Deb's newest grandchild, and to meet Tim's 18-month-old granddaughter Delia.
Alas, finally it's time to leave. On the way home, Dad, Shirley and I stop for dinner at Wheeler's in downtown Standish. This restaurant has been there at least since my dad was a kid. It sill has those cool individual juke-box things in the booths, although with the coin slots taped over.
Wednesday 7-8 -- I get up just in time for a quick breakfast before hitting the road for Detroit. It's a 2.5 hour drive to the airport, made a little longer by the fact that even though I've driven this dozens of times, I somehow miss a turn and end up in a bombed-out looking area in downtown Detroit. A mighty sad looking place. But no worries, I backtrack and make it the airport with time to spare, especially since I am NOT checking any baggage this time, as I've elected to leave my Bike Friday in Michigan for now.
Flights went fine and after a long day of travel, I'm on the midnight ferry back to my beautiful island home.
After paddling out a ways, I just sat quietly and watched the sunset. I kept hearing this strange intermittent sound, like something brushing up against my kayak, or something breathing, or... yeah, that's it, something taking a breath.... Porpoises! A pair, surfacing to breathe, maybe 50 feet away. Then 20 feet, then 10 feet! Wow! 
After paddling out a ways, I just sat quietly and watched the sunset. I kept hearing this strange intermittent sound, like something brushing up against my kayak, or something breathing, or... yeah, that's it, something taking a breath.... Porpoises! A pair, surfacing to breathe, maybe 50 feet away. Then 20 feet, then 10 feet! Wow! 
