Dune Day

Off to the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore for our annual Dune Day! Luckily enough, it was also the weekend of the Oneida Fair, so we had a big day.

We started with a stop at the Visitor Center in Empire, and I bought a CD which narrates the tour on the Pierce Stocking Trail - a good investment! Look at the size of that cougar!


Lunch was at Art's in Glen Arbor (you just have to love Glen Arbor!)

Next stop was the Oneida one room school house where a very competent teacher was using volunteers from the audience to illustrate subjects and problems from one hundred year old schoolbooks. Dylan went to the chalkboard to solve a math problem. He's more accustomed to writing on a white board! That's new even since I retired.

We walked around the World War II and Civil War camp exhibits, and toured an old house.




It was a lovely cool day, so when we arrived at the Dune Climb we were sure that nobody would be stricken with heat stroke! The Gillespies all went up and hiked around for quite a while and returned still happy and healthy!



The driving tour of the Pierce Stocking Trail is a perennial favorite, and today was the perfect day for it. Most enjoyable.



We stopped at Sleder's on the way home and two of us had the all-you-can-eat Friday night fish thingy

SLGs Tote

Today in the mail, totally unexpected, came this great SLGs tote bag from my High School friend, Freda. What a thoughtful thing for her to have done! She has mailed one of these totes to all of the members of our Central High School Potluck Club. We have stayed connected all of these years by way of class reunions and a round robin letter that we each contribute to once a year.

What a nice surprise!


Detail:


This afternoon our Gillespie guys left us to spend a day and a night playing at the Great Wolf Lodge. It has become kind of an annual tradfition! Grandpa and I are Home Alone.

Geo-Sunday and Julia

Finally we got a really nice day to go geocaching. We especially wanted Laurie to see two unique caches in the area. One is the Patrick Murphy cache, and the other is a new one called Capt. Kidd's Treasure. Both of them were put out by the GeoPirates. These two caches are so over the top - the most memorable we have ever seen.

Here Lies Patrick Murphy:



Capt. Kidd's Treasure:




We also took the Sharkie Crew (L,C&D) to a couple of our TTT caches. This one is at the Oleson Bridge Trail. I gave Dylan a ride on my walker (we're calling it a trainer). The walker is great for distances and for places where you have to be on your feet for a long time. I'm using it for training to be able to walk to the Stadium this fall.



The Oleson Bridge Trail


TTT cache on the Shore to Shore Trail


After the geocaching expedition, Laurie and I went to see Julie and Julia at the Lars Hockstad Auditorium for the Film Festival. Once again, we were lucky enough to get a parking spot right across from the school. When we arrived, there was a huge number of people already in line. The line went all the way acroos the front of the building from the auditorium entrance, and around the corner at the end of the block. It was unbelievable. As it said in today's Record-Eagle. this thing is getting popular!

The movie we saw was Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. It was a thoroughly delightful film - a combination of the lives of Julia Child, and Julie Powell, a cook and an author. I learned a lot about Julia that I never knew before - she didn't start her career until she was way past forty. She was really just casting around for something to do to keep herself busy. Hat-making, didn't work, playing bridge didn't work...but she really loved French cooking, and since she was living in France at the time, she enrolled at the Cordon Bleu. If you can believe the movie, she had a wonderful husand - very supportive and understanding - I really liked him.

The storyline for Julie was entertaining and appealing - I almost liked it better than the Julia story. This young woman seemed so normal, approachable and recognizable - she was somebody that you would like to know. She loved cooking, and also loved Julia Child's book "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Julie decided to make every recipe in the book in one year - 524 recipes in 365 days. She began a blog about her "Julia Project", which became very popular. Julie Powell wrote the book upon which the movie is based.

Laurie said that she liked this movie better than The Answer Man. I liked both movies equally - and would go see either one of them again! And so ends our 2009 Film Festival experience. This just has to be the best time of the year!

G-Force

The rain, rain, rain ruined our plans for today. We wanted to do geocaching in the morning and the Horse Show in the afternoon.

Instead we went to the movies! (Always a good option in my opinion.) This time it was the guinea pig movie, G-Force in 3D. How much fun is that? Every time I glanced at Dylan he had a big smile on his face. It's action-packed for sure, and it's very much fun to see the guineas walk, talk, think, and bounce! Everybody liked it, I must say. Dick said that it was better than Harry Potter... and much better than geocaching in the rain.

We went for dinner at La Senorita - what a busy place on a Saturday night in the summer. We were slightly crowded, but it was really yummy and enjoyable anyway.

At home Dylan let me play with the Gillespie guinea pigs - they don't wear goggles or drive toy jeeps, but they have charming ways of their own.

Friday in T.C.

We gave Chip three tickets to the movies for his birthday, and this morning they all went to see "Shorts for Kids" at the State Theater. I guess it was really fun - I know Dylan liked it - he had fun describing some of the shorts for me. Then they met Dick at the visitor center, and Dylan came home with Dick while L&C stayed in town and walked around and did some minor shopping.

Tonight we all went to Friday Night Live downtown and walked around and enjoyed the street performers. Dick ran into Chris and Shelly - I didn't see them. We left fairly early, and the Gillespies stayed around for the evening and went to the movie in the Open Space. It was "Goonies" - and Laurie was the only one who really liked it. By sheer coincidence, Chris and Shelly sat right next to our guys - what are the odds? Everybody saw them but me! This was a nice day.

The Answer Man

Today is Chip's birthday - Happy Birthday, Chip! We had dinner at Outback, and an ice cream cake from Oleson's.

Laurie and I went to see the Answer Man this afternoon. It was at the Lars Hockstad Auditorium as part of the Film Festival. This always brings back memories - it's the same auditorium Dick and I sat in as teen-agers at Central High in the fifties. Laurie and I were really lucky and got a good parking spot right in front of the school.

This screening was not sold out, but I must say that the auditorium was very crowded. It's fun to go to a movie where there are more than a half dozen other people in the theater!

The movie was really enjoyable, I thought. Jeff Daniels did a great portrayal of a reclusive author who is supposed to have all of the answers to life's most difficult questions. The supporting actors were all good too, especially Lauren Graham (I love her anyway from The Gilmore Girls). Chris the bookseller was well played also - I didn't quite get him at the beginning, but he became an important part of the story. The ending was a little slick - a really "happy ending" kind of a movie. I suppose it's a chick flick, but there's also quite a bit of bad language, so...not sure about that.

Yay Film Festival!

Junior Birdman

The whole Gillespie family went up in the air this time. For Dylan's bonus flight, the instructor asked C&L if they would like to go too, so off all three of them went.

Dylan flew up to Power Island, turned left over Leelanau - they could see the Manitous...and then came back across the peninsula and over to Torch Lake and back. They all had a splendid time, as you can tell by the pictures!


Dylan and his instructor Nick


Chip in the backseat



Dylan at the controls


Pilot Dylan


View of the Peninsula


Go to Power Island and turn left.


Coming in for the landing.

TCFF

Laurie, Chip and Dylan went downtown tonight for the opening street party of the Traverse City Film Festival. Not only did they have a chance to see Michael Moore speak, but they were in crowd scenes for a new documentary that is being made this year. I hear that the balloon sculpture thingy was a little bit lame, but they enjoyed it anyway.

Flight School Picnic and Tour

We were all invited to join the class for the final day picnic. It was definitely aimed at the students - hot dogs and ice cream! Then we had a guided tour of the Cessna that Dylan flew, two hangars, and the simulator. The tour was interesting and we felt very privileged to be there! It was a most congenial group.

Taxi and Take Off !

This was a beautiful day, and thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow, so the instructors at College for Kids took the students up in the airplane today!

Before they flew, the instructor took them around the plane for the pre-flight check, and showed them everything that has to be done. And then it was time to take off.

Dylan was first - he taxied down the runway and assisted on take off. He sat in the captain's seat, and handled the controls. He flew the plane from TVC to the Sugar Loaf landing strip. Then the students traded places and he sat in back for the rest of the ride. It was very exciting - he was nervous at first, but he really loved it. On a scale of 1-10 he gave it a 9, which is pretty darn good.












After that historic flight, we all went to see Harry Potter. It got mixed review from us - I loved it, Dick not so much. Dylan thought it was the worst of the series, Laurie was disapppointed, and Chip thought it was too long. Oh well - at least the popcorn is cheap on Tuesdays!

Dinner at Bubba's and home after a very big day.

Take Flight!

Dylan is going to flight school at NMC's College For Kids. Today was the first day, so all of us went along to drop him off with his backpack and his sack lunch.

He seems to have really enjoyed his first day. He actually got to sit in a flight simulator and try landing a plane! (He crashed on the runway, because he wasn't tall enough to see over the control panel, and couldn't even see the runway!) He was really disappointed about that, but I think we all talked him out of it.

The Clark cousins had a wonderful day on the river. It was totally easy for us because Chris took charge of all of the details - spotting the cars, carrying canoes and kayaks, etc. He took care of all the pick up and delivery, so to speak - plus he was a hero and saved Loretta, who was stuck under a tree. It's a good feeling to have those watercraft used and in the river for a change. Chris and Shelly. Aunt Molly and Uncle Dino, Katie, Becky, Betsy and Loretta - we loved having them here.