Updates for RV Travel Issue 737, April 9, 2016

We've had problems with recent RV Travel newsletters. Our website has crashed twice in the last four weeks on Saturday morning, which is when most readers read newsletter. If the website goes down today (April 9) we will do our best to keep you updated of what's happening.

Next week (fingers crossed) we will be on our new server with a newly designed website. Our problems should be over.

If you landed on this page by mistake looking for today's RV Travel Newsletter, click here to read it. 

UPDATES (Pacific time):
All okay as of Friday, April 8 at 11:45 pm

Update Saturday, March 26, 2016

10:55 a.m., Pacific Time
RVtravel.com is a sick puppy today, Saturday, March 26, 2016. Everything was fine until about 9 a.m., when all of a sudden, the front page was taking a minute or two to load. At other times it would not load at all. Now (11:05). It's offline entirely.

This was a lousy time for this to happen. My essay this week is all about major changes taking place with our newsletters and website. I should be able to re-post it here by 11:15 a.m. (Pacific) this morning. I may also send it in an email later in the week for those readers who tried to read the issue today but couldn't.

Okay. . . got to find my essay to repost. Be right back.

Chuck

* * *

Okay, here it is (without photos or illustrations):

Editor's corner

With Chuck Woodbury 
 
One more report in this space about business stuff. I promise to get back to RV-specific topics (for the most part) in the future. But this is important and I must tell you. It's about how we are changing the way we display and distribute our news, articles and other information.

First — and please bear with me as this may seem like bad news to some of you — at the end of this month (this coming week) we are discontinuing our RV Daily Tips Newsletter. We started it four years ago and have produced nearly 850 issues. We thought when we began that by selling enough advertising in it we could replace some of the lost income from the closing of our RV bookstore. The store had been our main source of income for about 10 years, supporting this RV Travel newsletter and paying our salaries. Sadly, we never did better with the daily newsletter than cover our costs, even though producing it Monday through Friday demanded an enormous amount of our time and energy. In the end it stifled our overall productivity.

Another big problem with the daily newsletter has been that many of its subscribers tire of getting an email from us nearly every weekday. So they unsubscribe from the daily edition. But in doing so many inadvertently unsubscribe from this Saturday newsletter as well. The result is that we have lost hundreds of subscribers in the last few months, not good.

NEW, IMPROVED RV TRAVEL WEBSITE
With the time and money we will save from not publishing the daily newsletter, we are building a hugely improved RVtravel.com website. The current site, the one you are reading, is (we readily admit) mutt ugly and difficult to navigate. Even though we pride ourselves in being a quality source of RV information, our appearance is shabby and the function Stone Age.

Sometime late next month we will flip the switch on the new site. You will love it. This newsletter will look much the same, but the rest of the website will be brand-new, with all the articles and information easy to find (and all of it updated). And talk about information! We will have a ton of it!
We are busy now sifting through the archives of this website and a couple dozen of our other sites and blogs (some long gone), rounding up more than 3,500 articles (about 18 years' worth) to post to this website. It's a huge job. We figure that on average we can find, update and re-post about three to four articles an hour. So that's roughly 1,000 man (and woman) hours of work. I've been sitting at my computer every night for weeks finding, updating and posting articles. Members of our staff have been posting articles a couple of hours every day in between their regular duties. Our newly assigned RV Daily Tips writers are picking away, too. Slowly but surely we are gathering this massive amount of advice and information into one central location, RVtravel.com.

Alas, some of our articles from the past are hidden away in the far reaches of cyberspace and hard to find, some on websites and blogs we abandoned long ago. It will likely take months to find them all, update them, and re-post them to this site. But, wow! In the end, it will be worth all the time and effort!

In the meantime we are about to debut several video shows on our YouTube Channel. It's been my dream for years to produce more video as a way to present useful, valuable information about RVing in a different way than simply with words and photos alone.

I won't go into detail about the shows, but I can tell you that they will be entertaining and educational, most between 10 and 12 minutes on a specific topic related to RVing. We are also about to launch our tongue-in-cheek Spin and Win game show, which you will enjoy if you have a sense of humor. Even though it will be a bit goofy (mirroring my personality), we will have great prizes, some valued at more than $200.

You should see us when we are taping the show. Everybody is laughing so hard it's almost too much! I'm the host, sporting the ugliest, tackiest, most tasteless shirts known to mankind! My sweetheart, Gail, is our "Vanna," and is a hoot! When we get a formal schedule set for tapings, we'll invite our local readers into the studio to watch.

Finally, for those of you who pledged including those of you who do so on a monthly or annual basis, we will certainly understand if you "unsubscribe" now that we have suspended the daily newsletter. That said, I can promise that the amount and quality of information going forward will be far greater than ever before and I believe worthy of your support. So stay tuned. We are energized and I believe you will enjoy the fruits of our labors.

 

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT

Sign of the times: Grandma and Grandpa the potheads

This is an ad in my local weekly newspaper. Remember, I live in Washington state. 

The headline, as you can see, says "Laugh More. Live Longer." And there's Grandma and Grandpa smiling and laughing, rowing a boat! I mean, look at them! They aren't just happy, they're ridiculously happy!

But why, you ask? Is it because they're outdoors, getting some exercise? Is it because they love each other so much?

No. Not that. They're happy because they're stoned!

Look at the writing on the boat. "Recreational Marijuana." And below that the ad reads "Make It Your Mission to Enjoy Life A Little More Every Day!"

These happy seniors, ex-hippies perhaps, are senior potheads. Once, long ago, they may have been hippies who smoked pot and hoped the local cops wouldn't show! Now, no problem: in Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska, recreational pot is legal!

I can choose from two stores within about 5 miles of my house. Another one is opening soon that I can walk to. Once there, I can buy a joint (a whole lot stronger than the wimpy stuff from back in the '60s) or pick up a marijuana brownie or cookie!

Who would have thought?

That ad cracks me up!

Why I am more comfortable writing to my peers

Two weeks ago, in my essay in the RVtravel.com newsletter, I wrote that after much thought I had decided to focus my writing to an audience of my peers — those of the Baby Boom generation now in their 60s.

A recent RVtravel.com reader survey revealed that 94 percent of the readers of the newsletter are older than 54. I noted that I sometimes feel that those younger readers — more than a decade younger than me — grew up in a different world. The popular culture of their youth is different than mine.

A reader named Sam responded: “I’m a younger RVer, 50 years old, and been telling my other friends about your great site. I always look forward to reading it and you always have great information. Please don't give up on us younger RVers.”

I wrote back to tell Sam that there will always be plenty of useful information to readers of all ages. It’s just that I am most comfortable writing my essays for my peers, who better understand where I’m coming from. We have traveled through time during a dramatic, challenging, fascinating, confusing and even scary period of human history.

My mother and our trailer, late '50s.

My experience, of course, was that of growing up in the 1950s in a white, middle-class family in a mostly all-white suburb of Los Angeles. My father was a hard-working executive, who had a few ulcers — common then, almost accepted as routine — an executive badge of courage. Like many of his generation, he had returned from World War II, where in his case he flew a B 24 Liberator on 35 missions over Germany. His mission when he returned home was to marry, buy a house in the suburbs and raise a family, providing to his children more than his parents had provided him.

So, that is where I come from. Many others, in at least white America, were raised in similar circumstances. My peers who came along a decade or two later entered into a different world. I was finishing up high school when today's 50-year-old was born.

Those Americans were toddlers in the turbulent '60s. They were not watching TV when Bobby Kennedy was shot on live television. They weren’t horrified when radio bulletins announced that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot. They didn’t sit glued to their TV alongside their crying mother, waiting to learn if JFK would survive his gunshot wounds.

They weren’t an adult during the protests on college campuses for Women’s and Blacks' rights. They were not adults during the riots in Watts.

They were not young adults during the Vietnam War, when a very unpopular military draft took a lot of guys away from their lives, and ultimately snuffed their lives entirely — many of whom did not believe the war was just. They were not around when returning soldiers were treated (very unfairly) like second rate citizens, even spit on. Compare that with today.

A 50-year-old was nine when the last American was drafted into military service. He didn’t sit nervously by his radio to listen to live Vietnam-era draft lotteries to see if his number (birth date) would be selected, determining whether he would go to war or stay home if he wished.

Today's 50-year-old, and those younger, didn’t watch Elvis shake his pelvis or the electrifying, long-haired Beatles perform live on the Ed Sullivan Show. They didn’t learn how to kiss a girl from watching Ricky Nelson on the Ozzie and Harriet Show. They didn’t grow up thinking family life in America was like that of Ward, June, Wally and the Beaver. They didn’t grow up watching black and white TV.

Unlike me, when they were children their doctor did not charge their parents extra for a house call — $8 instead of $5 for an office visit.

They didn’t have air raid drills in their elementary school, where they ducked under their desk (like that would really protect them from the blast of an atomic bomb). They weren’t a teenager during the Cuban Missile Crisis when my peers and I went to bed frightened half to death that we would not survive the night.

They were toddlers when my peers and I sat spellbound at our TVs as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the surface of moon, biting our nails that they would make it. Nor did they scan the skies years earlier to see Sputnik, the first satellite, launched by our enemy The Soviet Union.

They were still kids during Watergate. Today’s 50-year-old was eight when Nixon stepped into the Presidential helicopter and waved farewell to America and his political career.

They were not camping on their own when camping was free in all U.S. Forest Service campgrounds. I remember as a summer fire fighter in 1968 putting up little boxes at campsites for campers to put in a dollar to stay. When I was young there was no such thing as a motorhome. The first Winnebago was sold the same year as today’s 50-year-old was born.

I grew up in a town with a Main Street. Malls were years away, Wal-Mart ever further into the future. My buddies and I could get into the local movie theater for a quarter if we got there before six. We could watch both films, and then again if we wished.

Someone who’s 50 today was not an adult before copy machines, faxes and answering machines. To make copies of what we wrote, we used carbon paper typed on clunky manual typewriters. By the time today’s 50-year-old entered the workplace, computers had debuted.

Most of my peers were 50 before we owned our first computer. If we had a few hundred dollars we could buy an external hard drive with a whopping 20 megabytes of extra storage. We grew up mailing letters. Email? What was that? If we wanted speedy delivery we spent a few cents more for an Airmail stamp. Fed Ex? Years away.

Today’s 50-year-old could use a hand calculator to solve math problems in school. We could only dream of such devices.

But, yes, Sam and I are both RVers and thus have one big shared interest. It’s just that as a writer, now in my “senior years,” I am most comfortable reflecting on what's happening with me as an older person and the world in a way that readers only my age can truly appreciate. The people who have traveled through time with me will understand my thoughts far better than those younger. Like I said in my essay, there are plenty of RVers in their 30s, 40s and early 50s who write on the Web, who can speak to their peers far better based on their shared interests and experiences.

The week that was: Update Feb. 26, 2016

It was another busy week fine tuning and streamlining the business side of RVtravel.com, adapting to the new, much more challenging world of publishing on the Internet. I'll have more to say in two or three weeks.

The redesign of the RVtravel.com website continues. We created it in its present form about 10 years ago and it's out of date. If it were a six cylinder car, it would be operating on the equivalent of four cylinders: it gets you where you need to go, but not very fast and not very efficiently. Once we are done it will be much easier to find information, and the site will look ten times better (maybe 100 times!).

The Tricaster

I  spent five or six hours this week polishing my skills on our Tricaster, a specialized computer used in live (and taped) video production. It enables us to use up to four cameras at once in our small studio, switching from one camera to another at the push of a button. It's an amazing machine, an entry-level device that is used by video production companies and even some small TV stations for their newscasts.

Me, rehearsing our mini game show.

Our first regular production will be an online game show which I will host. Gail will be the co-star — kinda the "Vanna" of the operation! We'll start off weekly and see how it goes. I am very excited about it. Many RV-related companies have donated products, some worth more than $200. We should have the first show up and running within a few weeks.

Our YouTube channel has reached 11 million views, which makes it one of the largest on YouTube about RVing. Only a few other channels have more views, and I figure with all our new "mini" shows we may take the lead we once held. But I don't care: I just want to have fun with the studio and produce a lot of really helpful content for RVers.

By May, I should have a good handle on the business side of RVtravel.com in its new, improved and streamlined format. Gail and I plan another cross-country RV trip this summer to the giant Hershey (Pennsylvania) RV Show in mid-September and two or three camping weekends in the Northwest. It will be great to get away without having to worry too much about business stuff back home.

On a personal level, the cherry trees in my neighborhood are flowering and spring is in the air. But here in the Northwest we're still a few months away from consistent summer type weather. For awhile, more rain. . . Still, when it the sky is clear here now, it's spectacular. From Edmonds, we look over Puget Sound to the majestic and now snow-capped Olympic mountains.

Also, I bought a parakeet recently. His (or her) name is Shakey (too early to tell its sex yet), which is what I name all my parakeets. I've had four or five through the years. He's a friendly little fellow who just wants to sit on my shoulder all day long. Parakeets are wonderful, very social pets and if you are lucky they will talk. Did you know that parakeets are the most talkative birds of the parrot family? My sister, who lives nearby, is a bird nut so when I go away she is happy to babysit. She also names all her parakeets Shakey. I'll tell you the story some day.

That's all for now. See you next week.

A message to the readers of RVtravel.com

I'm writing here because I don't think it's right of me to take a third week in a row to explain in the RV Travel newsletter why I previously announced I would quit writing the opening essay on a weekly basis.

Last week I asked readers to take a survey of how important they felt it was for me to write the essay rather than those of guest contributors.

I really didn't know what to expect. But as you can see to the right, of the 1,772 readers who had responded by Thursday morning, about two-thirds said it was somewhat important or very important that I continue writing the essay.

So I'll try my best to write regularly. Knowing so many readers enjoy what I write makes me feel good, and honored.

I had hoped to put some extra time into tending to business matters, because, frankly, it's a lot more challenging to publish online today than it was even five years ago. There's also much more competition.

As I said before, half of you are reading on a tablet or smart phone now, and that has had a big impact in our revenue. I won't go into details, because it would take too much space and would probably be boring.

I also want to devote more time to our video projects in the small TV-like studio we've built. We are working on about four different shows, all short and on different subjects related to RVing. I'm very excited about a new game show, which will be sort of like a TV game show except only a couple of minutes long. There will be great prizes that RVers will find fun or useful.

Instead of writing more here I decided to sit down in front of a video camera and explain to you a little more about what is going on with me and RVtravel.com. You can just click the video below to play. There is nothing fancy about this, just me talking to a camera, rambling a lot. So if you have a little time on your hands and would like to learn a bit more about RVtravel.com and what goes on behind the scenes, then please click the video. I try to explain some things that I've had trouble expressing in the 500 words available in the opening essay of the Saturday newsletter.



P.S. If you would like to become a voluntary subscriber to RVtravel.com you can do by clicking here. I mentioned this in the video.

Mice in your RV? Lion poop to the rescue!

Through the years, we've written about a dozen ways to keep mice, squirrels and other rodents out of your RV. Some probably work, some probably don't. Nobody seems to agree on the absolutely best way.

Well, maybe this is IT! There's one way to keep these pests (and even bigger ones like possums and bears) away from your RV according to an RVer named Jeff Schwartz, who outlined his method in a comment to our YouTube video "How to keep mice out of your RV." We doubt you have heard of this technique before. Here, shortened for brevity, is what Schwartz wrote:

"There is one known fool proof, usually free, way to keep all animals (mice, cats, dogs, possums, bears, etc.) away from your home or RV! Go to your local zoo and ask for some lion or tiger poop and line your property with it. Zoos will usually give you all you want. It works every time. Carry it home in garbage bags.

Just spread it lightly where you do not want animals to go and they will all stay away forever. I have seen neighborhood dogs (several times) walk around my property. They will no longer cross a line of lion poop that I laid out about a month ago. Best of all there is absolutely no smell for humans!

I didn't believe it until I saw it work — 100 percent of the time. Try it — you will be amazed. I even tested it with cockroaches and they turned around when they came to the line of poop. Nothing alive will cross that line!

But be careful if you have pets. My dog will no longer get into my Blazer because I spilled the lion poop in the very back about six months ago (I have since had the interior cleaned). My dog still will not come close to my car."

Seeing a drive in movie. Things have changed!

Cinderella got underway as the sun set.

There are only about 300 drive in theaters left in America. There were once 5,000. 

I went to one last night in North Hoosick, New York — Hathaway's Drive-in Theatre — which is in the country, right across the state border from Bennington, Vermont. Admission was $9 a person or $20 a carload. For that, you got a triple feature.

Some people sat in cars, others in the backs of pickup trucks. Families sat in front of their cars in lawn chairs. Gail and I watched from the front seats of our rented Toyota Camry.

You no longer hook up a crummy little speaker to your window. Nowadays you listen to the movie FM radio (88.1 at the Hathaway). So the sound is about as good as in a regular theater, maybe better. One nice thing is there are no strangers sitting next to you, and nobody's munching on popcorn in the seat behind.

The first movie was Cinderella, which I would normally not see, followed by a borderline watchable Adam Sandler comedy called Pixels. In the old days it would be called a "B" movie. In this case the "B" stands for "bad." Gail and I left before the last movie, a Mission Impossible sequel, because it didn't end until 1 a.m.

The owner sold popcorn and ran the show with his iPad.

I CAN'T REMEMBER the last time I saw a movie at a drive in, but it was at least 30 years ago. I went last night just to do it, not for the movies. I remember going to drive in movies while in college, usually with a date. It was better if you had a car with a bench seat, so you could easily snuggle up. Best case, you would start off sitting in your regular places but gradually inch closer until you were in a position for some physical interaction. For many guys, at least, very best case was moving to the back seat, which too often led to forced marriages due to a kid arriving in nine months. My car back in the old days had bucket seats, so nothing happened except watching the movie.

Bucket seats, I think, helped doom the drive in theater.

In most drive in theaters, the snack bar is beneath the screen and the projector and projectionist far back behind the cars. But that's not the way it works anymore. At the Hathaway, everything is digital. There is no projectionist. The movie is controlled from elsewhere. Last night, it was from the snack bar, where the theater owner operated the cash register as his iPad controlled the show via WiFi to the projector 50 yards away.

It was a lot of fun going to the drive-in. I hope I get to do it again.

At the Hershey chocolate factory, it's bathtubs to the rescue

In Hershey, Pennsylvania, in the early days of the Hershey chocolate factory, founder Milton Hershey and his crew needed an efficient way to transport materials used in the chocolate making process. After a little creative thinking it was "bathtubs on wheels" to the rescue. It was such a good idea, they are still used today.

VIDEO: Niagara Falls: Beautiful, magnificent. . . and tacky!

Niagara Falls, which straddles the border of New York and Ontario, Canada, is one of the most beautiful places on earth. 

It's breathtaking. Yet just a few minute walk from the falls in Niagara Falls, Canada is a few square blocks of non-stop tacky tourist stuff. Oh, it's fun! But the contrast to the magnificence of the falls is dramatic and I suspect a surprise to a lot of first-time visitors. Here's a quick look at both "Beautiful Niagara Falls" and "Tacky Niagara Falls."

While we were there in August, 2015 Gail and I stayed at Scott's Tent and Trailer Park in Niagara Falls, Ontario (A KOA is just a hundred yards away but costs quite a bit more). An shuttle bus picks you up right in front of the campground for a few dollars and takes you to the heart of the falls area in about 20 minutes and returns you back to your RV when you are done for the day. (I believe it runs every half hour).

Tacky, tacky Niagara Falls!

There are plenty of architectural sight gags in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Just a couple blocks from the magnificent water falls is one of the tackiest few blocks of tourist kitsch anywhere. Per square foot, Las Vegas doesn’t even come close. 

In the top of photo, New York's Empire State Building seems to have tilted. But, nope, it’s just the facade if Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Below, the Upside Down House is upside down both outside and inside. The outside view is free. But you'll need to pay to go inside, where the upside down-ness is even more dramatic.

Why can't you close one eye and go half asleep?

People always say, "Oh, I was half asleep." I think they mean they were dozing off. But I don't know if that's half asleep.

But speaking of half asleep, I have always wondered why a person can't just close one eye to go half asleep. Sometimes when I am really tired my eyes start to hurt. They feel grainy. If I'm driving, I cannot close both my eyes to rest them. That could result in me falling asleep which could result in an encounter with a telephone pole, which would be terrible, as in "lights out, Charles!"

Why can't I just close one eye as I drive to rest it? Then maybe after 10 minutes close the other eye for ten minutes? Shouldn't I then be able to open both eyes and feel some relief? I mean, if can stop in a rest area for a ten-minute nap and wake up ready to head down the road again without fear of a close encounter with a telephone pole — why couldn't my one-eye-closed-at-a-time system work?

So, my question — and I hope you can help — is why can't I just close one eye and feel rested — both me and my eyes?

See Lincoln's death chair at Henry Ford Museum

This is the actual chair that President Abraham Lincoln sat in when he was assassinated in Ford’s Theater in Washington, DC on April 14, 1865. 

The chair is displayed today at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. As Lincoln watched the play “Our American Cousin" from the Presidential Box, well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth approached from behind and put a bullet through his head with a small deringer pistol.

Interestingly, Lincoln was familiar with Booth, having seen him in numerous plays including one called "Marble Heart" at Ford's Theatre in 1863. Lincoln enjoyed Booth's performance so much that he sent a note backstage inviting him to the White House. But Booth, a rebel sympathizer and Confederate spy, did not respond. Booth later told his friends "I would rather have the applause of a Negro to that of the President!"

According to Wikipedia, shortly before his death, Lincoln dreamed of his assassination. He told the following to his friend and biographer Ward Hill Lamon and others:.

“About ten days ago, I retired very late. I had been up waiting for important dispatches from the front. I could not have been long in bed when I fell into a slumber, for I was weary.

“I soon began to dream. There seemed to be a death-like stillness about me. Then I heard subdued sobs, as if a number of people were weeping. I thought I left my bed and wandered downstairs. There the silence was broken by the same pitiful sobbing, but the mourners were invisible. I went from room to room; no living person was in sight, but the same mournful sounds of distress met me as I passed along.

“I saw light in all the rooms; every object was familiar to me; but where were all the people who were grieving as if their hearts would break? I was puzzled and alarmed. What could be the meaning of all this?

“Determined to find the cause of a state of things so mysterious and so shocking, I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. 'Who is dead in the White House?' I demanded of one of the soldiers, 'The President,' was his answer; 'he was killed by an assassin.' Then came a loud burst of grief from the crowd, which woke me from my dream. I slept no more that night; and although it was only a dream, I have been strangely annoyed by it ever since."

Cheesy lights in the campground

It's 9:30 p.m. and dark. A fifth wheel trailer a few campsites from me is glowing various colors. A string of small LED lights hangs below the awning up against the RV. They change colors, one color turning into another. They are blue, then green, then yellow, orange, red and back to blue. 

From my RV, you can't actually see the lights, just the glow. From inside the fifth wheel it must resemble the interior of a cheap motel room with the blinking lights of its sign interrupting the dark.

Why do people do this? I am in a beautiful New York State Park along Lake Ontario. Why does the owner of this RV feel the need to light up his RV in such a cheesy way?

I don't get it. It looks stupid.

It's frustrating to be unable to visit people who invite me

A lot of people invite me to stop by their homes when I am in their area. Some offer me a guest room or an RV hookup in their yards.  Others write to tell me how disappointed they are when they learn I was near them but did not call or visit.

I feel bad about not stopping. I would really like to. It's just that I don't have enough time to see everything as is (trying to go from coast to coast and back in four months). If I visit someone, I feel I really do need to VISIT and not just stop by for an hour and then fly out the door. That would be rude.

Maybe it would be better for me to just pick out one state, tour for a couple of months, and visit everyone there who would like me to stop. That would be a lot more manageable, although being an introvert and needing ample quiet time to "recharge," I would still probably need five or six months.

On this trip, with about four months to work with and about 10,000 miles to cover, there isn't much time to socialize. In between driving and the places I visit, I need to write and attend to business chores. That takes a lot of time.

I know by not visiting the people who invite me that I miss a lot of wonderful experiences and opportunities to make new friends. If only we could somehow extend our days from 24 hours to 34 hours. That would help a lot!

Sunset over Lake Michigan

Here's what it looked like this evening — Friday, August 14, 2015 at about 8:30 — from the shores of Lake Michigan at St. Ignace. I used a strong telephoto lens which made the sun look huge.

Charming Mackinac Island. No, it's not Disneyland!

Downtown. Lots of shops

At first glace of downtown Mackinac Island, Michigan, you might think Walt Disney had a hand in creating it. It looks a whole lot like Main Street, Disneyland.

But, no, this is a real town that came long before Disney.

The ferry takes 15 minutes each way.

Native American's occupied the island from about 1000 BC to 1650 A.D. Europeans appeared in 1670 when Father Claude Dablon established a Christian mission. The British showed up in 1870 to build a fort which was eventually turned over to the Americans. Today, it's a state historic park. Perched above the island's highest hill, it overlooks the picture-postcard main street and its harbor. The fort is open to the public and a busy place on summer days.

About 500 people live year round on Mackinac Island (see location on Google Earth). But on a summer day, tourists swarm the place — thousands a day. If you've ever taken a cruise, you know what a small port looks like when a monster cruise ship shows up. Hold that image because that's Mackinac Island on a typical summer day. High-speed passenger ferries travel to and from the island one after another.

Tour carriage provides a good introduction to the town.

Motor vehicles were banned in 1901. The only ones there today are two fire trucks and an ambulance. The police have one car for emergencies, but primarily ride bicycles.

The main transportation is horse and buggy. Taxis are horse-powered. Tour carriages transport visitors around the town and the surrounding area. Rent your own buggy for $66 an hour.

Five hundred horses live on the island in the summer to pull the hundreds of buggies, carts and freight wagons.  It's wonderful to hear only hoof beats, not engines.

Bikes everywhere and bike racks everywhere.

On any given summer day bicycles outnumber horse and buggies by a long shot— there must have been a thousand (maybe two thousand?) yesterday when I visited. Several companies rent them. Figure $5 to $9 an hour, better deals for longer use.

The Grand Hotel

Michigan State Highway 185 hugs the island's eight-mile shoreline. It's the only Michigan highway that does not allow motor vehicles. It's a great place to bike. Just watch for horses, they have the right of way.

The main drag (see photo at top) is comprised of specialty tourist shops (most selling tee-shirts and souvenir trinkets), restaurants, bars and a dozen "Candy Kitchens" selling fudge. A lot of the stores sell the same stuff.

Horse and cart hauling hay.

The most famous attraction is the Grand Hotel, an easy ten minute walk from downtown. Stay a night if you have money to spare (about $800 a night for two in a lake view room). Or pay $10 and walk around the place and its beautiful grounds. Read what I wrote about the hotel here.

There's a lot more to this island beauty spot. If you should visit, buy a two-day ferry pass. My advice: on the first day, take the carriage tour, then explore the pretty downtown and its shops, visit the Grand Hotel, see the fort, and have lunch or dinner. The next day, bring your bike or rent one and explore the rest of the island.

Don't come here in winter. Most of the businesses close. Only a few restaurants and the grocery store remain open. When the lake freezes over, snowmobiles provide access to and from the mainland.

If you should visit, just remember, how to pronounce the island's name. It's not "Mac-in-ack" but "Mac-in-aw."

Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel is grand in many ways

Aboard the ferry, heading toward Michigan's Mackinac Island, you see it: the magnificent Grand Hotel! It's a sight to behold — so beautiful, so big! The hotel has 390 rooms, no two the same. More than 130,000 guests stay each season. At 660 feet, the hotel's front porch is the world’s largest.

The beautiful lobby.

It takes a half million gallons of water to fill the hotel's swimming pool, named for actress Esther Williams who starred in the 1947 movie This Time for Keeps, shot at the Grand.

The 1980 film Somewhere in Time, starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour and Christopher Plummer, was filmed on location at the hotel. The movie has a huge following, with a fan club that meets at the hotel each October. This year's gathering will be October 16-18. Jane Seymour will attend.

The hotel's kitchen staff of more than 100 prepares and serves as many as 4,000 meals per day. In 2014, more than 83,000 pounds of prime rib, 23,500 pounds of ham, 83,500 pounds of potatoes, 23,000 pounds of carrots, 14,000 pounds of strawberries, and 6,500 pounds of pecans are served.


The Grand’s famous front porch flowers include 2,500 geraniums — the hotel’s trademark flower — in 260 planting boxes with seven tons of potting soil. More than 5,200 geraniums can be seen in all the hotel's flower beds combined.

World's largest front porch.

More than 50,000 Grand Pecan Balls, the hotel’s most popular dessert, are served each season.

Don't expect Motel 6 prices, not even close. A double room with a lake view will cost you about $800 a night, which includes meals. Specials deals are offered which cut the price dramatically. Learn more at the hotel's website.

Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Beautiful, with friendly people

AUGUST 14, 2015

I'm still in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. If you look at a map, the U.P. is the part of the state on the very top — north and northwest of the state below. 

I am writing you now from St. Ignace, which is right at the bottom of the U.P. along Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

The folks in the U.P. refer to themselves at Yoopers and are very proud of it. They should be. It's a beautiful land.

So far, Gail and I have spent time on Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. The people around here are the friendliest in America, although maybe you say that for most of the rural Midwest. They will talk your ear off. They are just plain nice.

To someone who lives along the Pacific Ocean, the size and appearance of these lakes are impressive. Lake Superior is the largest. All the water in the other four Great Lakes — Michigan, Huron, Ontario and Erie — do not equal the volume of Lake Superior. The lake is so huge that once you sail 20 miles from land you see only water — no land. It would be easy to forget you were on a big lake, not the ocean. Lake Superior is about the size of Maine or South Carolina.

Being a ship captain is different on these lakes than in the ocean. The waves are closer together, making them more dangerous in stormy seas. That may have been a factor when the 728-foot SS. Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior in 1975.

I love the slogan I found on tee-shirts in tourist shops along Lake Superior: "No salt. No sharks. No problem." Another version is "Unsalted. Shark Free." With all the shark attacks recently in the ocean, this seems like a timely — and very appealing — message.

Small town crime: August 2, 2015

Crime marches on in rural America, this time as reported in The Connection in Iron River, Wisconsin. 

Here are a few reports from the July 28 issue:

•"Report received of a scruffy looking creepy farmer who approached her and her friends and wanted them to come with him to see a 'cute baby calf.' When they got to the farm, it appeared abandoned and there was a tractor blocking part of the road. She and her friends became nervous and when they went to leave the farmer ran up to them and was loud and creepy."

•"Deputy checked cabin on Tar Paper Alley, Port Wing and found the main door secured, and the rest of the building appeared secure. A total 360 view wasn't possible due to a territorial skunk."

•"Caller reported he has a 'retarded' dog at his house. He states he brought her in the house and she bit him an scratched him. States it's his neighbor's chocolate lab and it has been at his house for an hour. He tried to call the neighbors to get her but they won't answer. Would not give the neighbor's name to dispatch."

•"Caller reports he was assaulted last night. He said he was sleeping when the subject came home and she threw a phone at him, jumped on him and then threw a landline phone at him. He states he then got up, met friends at the end of the driveway and they drove him and his vehicle to Milwaukee."

•"Received a call stating she, along with others, have been poisoned. She states the other person is running down the road and she is going to die. The phone line was disconnected. She thinks she has been poisoned due to the fact that they were drinking non-alcoholic drinks and then started to feel weird. She thinks she was knocked out for a couple of hours. The other female that was with her was wearing white shorts, blue shirt, and the female that ran is the one that poisoned her. Caller states her husband and her had an argument last night about him beating her up a couple of nights ago. She states he talked to someone about this but did not report it. Now the caller wants officers to tell her husband to not treat his wife so mean. Caller is now denying anyone else was there this evening. Per officer, this appears to be alcohol related and possible alcohol withdrawals going on."