4 posts tagged “northern michigan”
I am still higher than shit, coming off what was arguably one of the best weekends Mrs. Chicken and I have had in quite some time.
We decided early last week that we really needed to get out of town. Work has been a little breakneck and difficult for me, and things have been stressful around the house since Mrs. Chicken lost her job 6 weeks ago. Well, she technically quit a trainwreck of a job from which she may or may not have been ultimately let go, but I'm not going to mince details. When you cut your joint income stream by 60 percent, things can get fucking nutty, quick-like. She'd been interviewing with several different suitors, one of whom was in Month Four of a four-month interview process. Let's get the hell out of town, we said, even if it's just for a day trip somewhere.
Thursday she makes a well-placed phone call to her aunt, who offers us her vacation property for the weekend up on Torch Lake, one of our favorite destinations in Michigan. The place is closed down and nobody will be there. Sweet. My boss, who is all sorts of kickass, lets me cut loose from work early on Friday, Kerry picks me up, with the dog in tow, and we head north. I fall asleep and while a-slumberin', the contact person for the big, phat, killer job she wants, the one for which she's been interviewing for an entire season, calls and makes the offer. We pull off the highway and Mrs. Chicken does a little salary negotiation in the parking lot of a church in Ithaca, Michigan, carves out a little more scratch and -- poof! -- we are on our way, back up north. The only thing different is that she has the job she has coveted and the reassurance that, yes, telling her boss to suck it has actually worked out for the best. We got the dog in the back, we are headed up north for a weekend of tranquility and she got the job offer she wanted. This is a good Friday.
We arrive around 7, to an empty but beautiful cottage/home/sanctuary. We are hungry as hell but not in the mood to make something involved. We opt for Starch Fest 2008.
That's right. That's stuffing and mac and cheese. And then we made cocktails. Lots of them, actually.
We would actually get a little twisted. So much so, that Kerry ended up reading a bedtime book to Lamont, who was beat from the long drive up.
That's when we knew it was time to go to pass ou- I mean, go to bed. We slept in a little on Saturday. I fetched some newspapers and then made breakfast, an attempt to counter our not-so-healthy Friday night meal. Whole wheat pancakes with sugar-free syrup and turkey sausage was the order.
We then headed out for a nice three-mile walk. The colors are in the early stage here, but we didn't come for a tour. We came to get out of town.
We headed on down the road by the airfield,
where we promptly ignored the warnings,
in an effort to gain access to some Lake Michigan shoreline.
Lamont especially digs the sandy beach, as was evidenced here,
before he sprang into action. He kind of looks like the Puma logo.
It was a perfect day and a lovely walk.
When we neared the house, we saw some deer emerge. This was about as close as we would get.
We would enjoy turkey sandwiches from Sonny's before taking a well-timed nap. We got up, watched U-M get trounced and then made dinner plans. Kerry's aunt tipped us off to a new-ish restaurant the next community over, so we investigated, and we would be glad we did.
Siren Hall in Elk Rapids is an upscale, American bistro-style dining room done in white with high, exposed ceilings and poured concrete that separates different areas of the room. It's a little mod and kind of Euro in there, but still comfortable without being stuffy and full of pretense. We cocktailed up and had some appetizers. The plan was to make dinner at home after getting started here, but our small plates really did the trick so we were set for dinner. We started with a bowl of chicken and white bean chili, and an iceberg wedge of bleu cheese and bacon. Oh, yes.
We then agreed on these decadent goat cheese cakes that were probably the best thing I've put in my mouth in 10 years.
Sorry about the lighting. This shit-ass Vox application is not letting up upload the PhotoShopped version of these images, despite having been able to do it countless times before. I like Vox and I like how they make this blog easy to craft, but sometimes the hiccups are kind of a pain in the ass.
We would walk the dog around Elk Rapids a bit and then retreated home for lazy TV watching and rapidfire cocktail consumption by me. Sunday we slept in a little, got up, cleaned the place up and begrudgingly headed home.
It was a great weekend. It started off so well, it couldn't help but keep the momentum. Finally, it feels like we caught a break, which is a damn good feeling. Couple that with a perfect-weather weekend on a huge lake in a beautiful getaway and you have insta-bliss.
Torch Lake weekend, as usual, was quite the success. Kerry's aunt's family has side-by-side places on this enormous and pristine inland lake, one of Michigan's biggest. And every year, Matt clears it out for a long weekend of whatever the hell we want. Some of the more prominent names from years past were unable to attend, but it was still very much a solid three days (for us) of much-needed relaxation and imbibinous impulses.
The drive up Thursday was a nightmare. In one stretch, it took us 1 1/2 hours to move about 10 miles. It was a joke.Thankfully, Lamont was a good boy on the ride up.
We arrived late Thursday, hung with Aunt Liz, crashed, had breakfast the next day, took a walk with her, Kerry, and the dog, and then chilled while people started to arrive in the afternoon. Friday night was drinks and bonfires, while Saturday incorporated more of the same. One notable inclusion was Matt's signature rack of lamb, which we enjoyed in a near utopian state on Saturday. No photos of that, only a smile on my face as I recall it fondly.
There was a day of hanging out on the dock ...
... and much of the same on the patio ...
... Scout joined us for dinner Friday, hoping that something would fall to the floor.
I headed out Saturday morning to meet Tom in Leelanau for the annual fly-in/pancake breakfast/car show at Woosley Memorial Airport in Northport. There, single-engine planes fly in amid the breakfast backdrop. It may sound unconventional, but it's actually kind of cool, at least I think.
The food is choice ...
... and visitors can get up close and personal with the aircraft.
Naturally, we've been drawn to the cars in the past. This Jeep was a pretty sweet rig, complete with a mounted outboard motor ...
... as was this bomb Caddy.
Yet another delightful weekend in Michigan's north country, thanks to Matt's incomprable hospitality and some picture-perfect weather.
The Up North Tour continued the weekend before last, with our annual camping trip to the Leelanau Peninsula. As has been custom for the last six years, Tom and I meet up at the tip of the pinky for some rustic camping and a few days of decompressing in what has slowly become one of my favorite places to be.
Seemingly, every year, I come back with the same set of photos, so I've limited them this year. The highlight of the weekend? It certainly wasn't being jammed on one campsite with six other people, three of them children, I will tell you that. No, it was the annual dog parade in Northport, a city more than 100 years old and holding just under 700 people in this picture-perfect northern Michigan community. Every year, around mid-August, they host a themed dog parade that runs through downtown. The theme for 2008 was an Indiana Jones takeoff, something about "Indiana Bones and the Raiders of the Lost Bark." It was cute and whimsical, and a nice distraction for the afternoon.
And while years past have yielded some consistent imagery of wineries, wooded views and assorted shots of peninsula life, the sky above Lake Michigan, to me, never gets old.
It is fall in Michigan, which amounts to my favorite time of the year, despite its all too brief appearance.
The only thing worse than getting robbed by a short fall, is the exit
from said season into five months of bitter cold and dirty snow. But
this weekend, we endured through a long one at Torch Lake with an
overindulgence of food and drink, not to mention some raging
hospitality from cousin Matt and some truly phenomenal company by a
group of people soon to be my in-laws.
We took Friday off and drove the 4 1/2 hours to Torch Lake Thursday night, getting there around 9:30 or so. We had some drinks with Matt and Kate, played some cards (which I never do, I'm not a card person; I don't even know how to shuffle a deck; give me some Yahtzee or Scrabble and it's a different story). We woke up refreshed and comfortably out of our element Friday morning, had some breakfast and tried to formulate what to do with the day. While I thought napping and reading would be the order, I saw Matt was busting his ass in the front yard raking leaves, so I chipped in, at least when he got to the back yard, which is HUGE and runs down to the lake. We did that all afternoon, worked up a fantastic sweat and then I showered and keep smoking. Rian and Julie showed with their dogs, Chloe and Scout, and Casey and Mary would show up later that evening.
Friday morning, Kerry and I made some crock pot stew, left to simmer all day. Julie brought some chicken con queso.
We hung tight Friday night, drinking, smoking and snacking. Saturday we
got up, had a massive breakfast and, again, started to diagram our
afternoons. A small group suggested a hike, so I went with them, while
others hung back at the crib and power chilled. It was a lovely walk in
the woods, probably about a good five miles, through some property on
the other side of the lake which, I think, is owned by the YMCA. They
have some huge camp up there. And a lot of sinks, apparently.
Hey, uh, Ray, what kind of estimate do you give to a rig of this condition?
We also found someone's study — a chair and bookshelf.
They also left behind some jars. I wonder what they contained.
So we kept on, following a map to some sort of fire tower. It was a perfect day, which was not the case the day before or the day after. Luckily, we had one good one, weather-wise.
We finished our hike and headed to Bellaire. Casey and Mary knew of a brewpub there they wanted to check out, so we grabbed a coupla fine beers there.
We made our way back to the house for dinner preparations. We had some garlic mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans, Michigan salad, and Matt threw down some serious beef tenderloin with a horseradish cream sauce.
The rest of the night was equal parts debauchery and hedonism, but with a serious touch of disappointment. The Tigers got paddled in Game 1, but we still had ourselves quite a time yukking it up. The dogs ran around.
We lounged by the fire.
Of course, though, you can never have it that good for long. Driving back in the cold, windy rain on Sunday, Kerry's car started making a funny noise, like it was getting a flat tire. I pulled over. No flat. I kept driving and it was as if the rear driver's side wheel was about to fall off. I pulled over again and pulled on that wheel. Yes, it was a little loose, despite the lugnuts being firmly secured. Just then a cop pulled up and offered help, which I thought was excellent timing and a classic display what the fucking police are there for in the first place. I removed the wheel and even he noticed the drum/rotor had a little too much give in it. He called for us a wrecker from a reliable shop in nearby Roscommon, about four hours away from our home. He loaded up the car and took it to his shop to reveal that yes, the bearing inside the housing there had gaulded itself to the blabbity blah.
Luckily, Matt and Kate had yet to leave Torch Lake. Everyone else was gone. We had to leave the car in Roscommon (where it still is now), while they swooped through and drove us home, with a Jeep full of their bags, two dogs and four humans. We left Torch at noon and got back home at 8:30. It thoroughly sucked.
We had to leave Lamont in the back of the car at the shop, while Matt and Kate made their way to us, maybe about 45 minutes. Our really friendly tow truck driver/mechanic, Derek, dropped us off at local bar where Kerry and I tried to soothe ourselves with vodka and sandwiches. It was tough, knowing Lamont was back in the car by himself (we couldn't hang out at the shop, they were closed; and we surely couldn't take him with us). But I didn't worry as much. He's a good dog and a brave fucker at that, and I knew he would just knuckle down and ride it out, which he did, like a fucking pro I might add.
Driving home wasn't as easy, at least not for me. While sitting in the backseat playing along with conversation, I keep thinking over and over what would've happened had we lost that wheel at 80 miles an hour, with steady traffic behind us. The car would've probably flipped. I don't know, I just keep looking at Kerry and Lamont on the way home, trying to hold myself together at the thought of anything happening to them, that I've made this unstoppable, leviathan-in-scope committment to the two of them and should anything happen, well, I don't know, I tried not think about it, but it's really fucking hard when you have an active imagination like I do.
The thought of her not in my life makes me want to fucking throw up everything in my body, everything between my toes and my neck. But, as I'm sure you're thinking at this point (if you're still with me, you're a punishment glutton if you are; but I quietly thank you), it didn't happen. Nothing bad happened and that's what Kerry pointed out on the side of the freeway. We were safe and that's what mattered.
It seems like a lot of shit is coming with a price these days, at least for me personally. A blissed out, kind of selfish weekend of fun, laughter, imbibing and eating, is punctuated with a brutal little lesson for The Chicken and a triple-shot of scary reality.
I'll take it, though. I'm better for it today.
