Camping Fever

We can not seem to get enough of camping. Amy enjoyed our weekend inspite of the rain. So we decided we need a bigger tent.. Yesterday we went out and got the "Alpine Lodge" by Swiss Gear.. the name just kills me :) But it is a large tent with a built in screen porch.. so that should give us more room when we are in the woods.
So you can't buy a new tent and not go camping... so we are off to Sleeper State Park in the thumb.. randomly selected because they had openings.. but it looks interesting.. right on Saginaw bay near Lake Huron.. there are some things of interest in the area.. including several light houses... we will see if I actually make it to them.
Then the following week is our vacation.. on Wed we leave for a week in the UP. 3 days at Brimley, then 4 days at Indian Lake.. with lots of side trips of interest.. should have a ton of pictures when I get back!

Mackinac Bridge early Sunday morning in the rain. Taken from St Ignace on the Huron side. 

July is flying by

July is flying by and I have not been posting.. A summary... my wifes surgery went well and she is recovering, in fact she started back to work today 1/2 time. Common Ground went better than expected, as each day got easier.. and I am looking forward to that paycheck today. The month has been hot and fairly slow.... so this weekend my wife thought we should go camping.. This surprised me to no end, because I didnt think she would want to, or be up to it yet.. but as she pointed out, she does not really have to do anything.. so I made a reservation at Straits park in St Ignace and Saturday morning we went up there.. camped in a nice spot by some cedar trees right near the water.. so the camp established and went to the beach.. it was a beautiful day and we all enjoyed being out in the sun! Got cloudly later and tried to sprinkle but over all was a nice day and evening..
I really do enjoy camping and as I lay down to sleep could not help but smile as I felt the breeze coming in the tent window above my head. My wife woke me up at some point that night and pointed out it was raining.. yep I could hear it and went back to sleep. In the morning.. must have been somewhere around 6 it was raining steady with lots of thunder and lightening.. still enjoyable.. as I felt the mist from the rain on my face.. The rain stopped around 9 and the day cleared up a bit.. got home to HOT weather mid 90's and really bad humidity..guess they had bad storms here.. some flooding and lots of trees down.. at least we did not have that!
Talking about going to Taquhamenon Falls and camping for Labor Day.. also talking about getting a yearly pass to the Mackinac Parks for next year for $59 we can go to any of the parks for the whole season.. that sounds cool!
I am really enjoying camping... looking forward to my trip to the UP that will be coming up soon! Leaving Aug 3... and I know Aug is going to go just as fast as this month.. the good news is Mitchell we soon be back in school and the childcare fees will go down!

Books 33 & 34

Freemasons - Inside the Worlds Oldest Secret Society, by J Paul Jeffers (33). I have an interest in Masonry, and thought this book might tell me more... It was heavy on the history of Masonry, and details of famous people who were in it (Geo Washington, Mozart etc.) but in the end told me very little about what it is...
I am also reading a book about lumberjacks written in 1976 by a man who was in the lumbering industy in 19-teens.. I am having problems getting through it.. it is very place specific (Camp 33 was where the gravel pit is now) and heavy on the remininsing (when I run into George he still talks about the night we got caught in the snow storm) It is somewhat interesting.. it just isn't well organzied.. It is sort of like sitting about with an older person and listening to stories.. none of them particulary interesting.. and the whole thing isnt really going anywhere.
So I decided I needed a quick fiction book to get me going, so I read Tales of the Wolf (34) by one of my favorite authors Lawrence Sanders. This was like a collection of short stories about Lanihan an investigator for an Insurance firm.. I later read that these were some of Sanders earliest works which had been published as short stories in Swank magazine in the '68 & '69. Sort of amusing.. lots of drinking.. every case has a good looking woman who he ends us with.. but enjoyable stories as well.
My goal is to read a good a week... and it looks like I am ahead of schedule as we begin the 30th week of the year and I am reading my 35 book. A small cushion.. I just need to keep reading!

Brooklyn Bridge (32)

I finished A Picture History of the Brooklyn Bridge by Mary J. Shapiro. It was interesting.. many of the construction techniques are the same as the Mackinac Bridge. I was surprised that when they completed the cat walks for the cable spinning.. that they opened them to the public.. something that would never happen in this day and age. The final picture of the book was from 1983 aprox 100 years after it opened.. It was taken from Brooklyn looking toward Manhattan.. and there very prominately on the skyline is the World Trade Center.

Common Ground

I made it through day 1 of Common Ground. Not nearly as busy as I expected it to be.. Got done around 9, which was also nice, as I expected to be there until after 10. Lots of upset students who did not want to pay for parking, sigh.. The City is not good at customer service.. so I got the brunt of it.. This is going to be a long week.. but the upside is that I will have a lot of hours this week which will help the bank account. The down side is 14 hour days and not getting anything else done. But things went well at the house last night.. everybody is feeling better so that is a plus. We will see how the rest of the week goes. I am thinking there will be problems at some point.. but prehaps I am too pessimestic.. and things will so smoothly.
I am still not feeling 100% and am not looking forward to work as I usually do. I am hoping tonigh has less problems and that will give me a better outlook for the rest of the week!

Back to hetic

It has been a wild couple of weeks. The week following the UP camping trip was very short with my wifes surgery. The end of week and weekend went quickly and the next week just slipped away. The surgery went fine.. although the following week she started running a temp. Everything seems find from the surgery and it appears to just be an unrelated bug. It seem that everybody in the family has gotten it, including me... in the midst of this I was SO tired all I wanted to do was sleep.
I feel better but not great.. this week is Common Ground so I will be working late all week, which is good from a $ standpoint, but I know it will be a long and trying week.

Mackinac Books

Bridging The Straits (30)
By Lawrence A Rubin
Written by the Secretary to the Board of the Mackinac Bridge Authority. Lots of background on the financing of the bridge and the politics. It was the bridge that nobody wanted.. they had a lot of problems selling the bonds that will finance the bridge... very little on the actual construction of the bridge.

Mighty Mac (31)
By Lawrence A Rubin
This is largely a photo book about the actual construction of the bridge.. a very cool book with great photos and decent explainations of how the bridge was put together.. it starts to fill in the gaps on how it all came together. Includes a forward that talks about the history of the Straits going back to the Indian wars of the 1600's and the French, British and American occupation of the area.