Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend.

YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Or was that Crystal Lake?

The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak.

How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river.

YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake.

 

Just back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville.  A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended.  But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available.  

In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination.  I actually managed to leave the laptop and iphone untouched for most of our stay! 

Our visit was pretty lazy with too much good food, games of cards, Scrabble, and Yahtzee, and a few bottles of wine for the Grand Duchess and me.  The Young Master and I also watched documentaries on prehistoric humans and read together before his bedtime each evening, something we have not done for a year.  Otherwise, our activities consisted of exploring the northwestern part of "The Mitten," kayak trips, and cycling.  Of course, we took bikes, helmets, and cycling attire with us and enjoyed 16-20 mile rides along the coast including around Sleeping Bear Dunes, which features some rather challenging hills hidden in amongst the wooded areas some distance back from the beach(es).

Following our return home, the Grand Duchess and I also celebrated out 18th wedding anniversary Monday the 24th.  We first met almost 24 years ago at the end of August 2000 during graduate teaching assistant orientation week in our department at the University of Minnesota.  Where does the time go?  I still tease her about the time we were introduced to one another in the old large office we shared with several other grad students in the program.  

On an even more humorous note, it has taken both of us this many years to remember the precise date we were married!  For more years than we care to remember, Sonja and I  have labored under the delusion that our wedding date was June 25th, 2006.  Not so.  It was actually the 24th, and we still have the napkins plus a picture frame with that correct date to consult whenever we forget.  One of those things that couples chuckle about through the years I suppose.  It wouldn't be quite so amusing were it not both of us.

Sartorially speaking, time to visit the tailor for a few of the usual minor alterations to that tan cotton poplin J. Press suit that has been hanging in my closet since April and send off a couple of pairs of shoes to the Allen Edmonds people in Wisconsin for some recrafting.  Just two months of the summer break left, and previous experience illustrates how quickly those nine or ten weeks will fly by.

-- Heinz-Ulrich