Two-scoops Friday
We drove to Indian River where Stephen and Galina have their cabin on Lake Burt. This was an even more quaint american town, mainly for the tourists who like fishing, hunting and hanging out on the beach at the lake. It reminded me of the places I’ve seen on 80s films like Stand by Me.
We went to Paula’s for breakfast. Today I had Raspberry pancakes. And oh my lord, these were good too. Paula’s walls were lined with all sorts of teapots, and the local small town folk - mullets, overbleached hair, denim, baseball caps and trucks! Joe spotted a patriotic picture of a crying eagle with the twin towers in the background, illustrating a moving poem about “terrorists beware - America will prevail”. Beautiful. Interesting. Weird.
Stephen and Galina showed us their Cabin on the lake, which looked like the sea. It was quite stormy and windy, but we could see that in the sunshine it would be an idyllic place to be. Apparently when it’s calm, the water is clear and dreamy for swimming as it’s freshwater. Isobella gave us a guided tour whilst Galina packed everything up for the winter. We drove to the ice-cream parlour and chocolate shop in Indian River. Scoop one - I have another chocoholic’s dream - this time chocolate ice cream and lumps of chocolate. A small serving was rather large. Then I got lured into chocolate tasting by the chocolate-making owner of the place. He made me eat some handmade chocolate coated hard toffee (like a Dime bar but nicer) and a handmade chocolate caramel. This was good. I ended up getting some Halloween chocolates and Mavis brought some nutty ones for me to bring back for Mum. By this time, I was starting to get brain freeze and a chocolate head as I realised I’d not had any for over a week, without even noticing.
We drove back to Mavis’s and decided not to go to Makinac City. Instead we just hung out, chatted and ate chicken curry, and scoop two - another Dairy Queen pudding (this time I had an M&M blizzard and a second round of brain freeze) before going to bed.
Saturday
Stephen made us sausage and eggs for breakfast then we all drove to Makinac City and took the fast boat to Makinac Island. The city looked like a holiday toytown. More traditional wood paneled shops, painted in bright colours, selling fudge and sports wear. The weather was windy and rainy so the ferry crossing was pretty hairy. My usual preference is to stand on deck and let the wind whistle past my ears and take in big gulps of fresh sea air. To do this today would have resulted in me getting completely soaked so I sat tight in the cabin as we flew across the waves, with the occassional slam onto the lake surface, with plenty of spray obscuring the view of the Makinac Bridge - the 6th longest suspension bridge in the world - it links the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan state.
Once landed, we strolled around the Island, which was a haven of tranquility as no cars are allowed. Tourists hire bikes, walk around or take horse drawn carriages to get around. We spent some time milling around the fudge shops and the sportswear shops and the fudge shops and the tat shops and the fudge shops and the fudge shops. Stephen organised a private horse and cart to take the five of us on a guided tour around the island. This way we got to escape from the hoards of tourists and were able to take a sneaky peek at the massive holiday homes of the richies who com
e here during the summer. We were taken through the woods and saw some cool trees and plants. It was very quiet. By the time we got to the main street, we were all quite chilled out, but chilly. So we went to Goodfellows for hot chocolate and lunch. The hot chocolate was very sweet and not as good as the nice stuff in England. Referring to the earlier statement about not seeing many fat people - well, we did here. Fat count was up. Also we realised that a lot of restaurants play country music and have sports on TV. After a final lap of main street and a firm no to Isobella (age 4.5) that the collectors figure of Donnie Darko was not an appropriate memento of the trip, we got the ferry back to the mainland and drove back to Mavis’s house.
In the evening, I met an actual Republican. Mavis babysat Isobella, whilst Stephen and Galena took us out to meet Stephen’s school friends Chris and Greg and his wife Terri. We went to “Top of the Greeks” and had surf and turf! Oh my, the steak was delicious. Tender and melt in the mouth. Between mouthfuls we discovered quite a bit about welfare in the US and had interesting discussions about such things as housing benefit and incentives to work. We also found out about homecoming and other teen customs we’d only ever heard about on films. Once home, we half watched A Knight’s Tale, mourned the passing of Heath Ledger, ate some halloween chocolates, then went to sleep.
Sunday - drive back, costco, grill, xfiles
After a not so early start, I made a photo tour of Mavis’s house and garden, then we packed up, said our goodbyes and headed back to Detroit. I sat next to Isobella and we watched old episodes of Scooby Doo on the in-car DVD system!!! We stopped for a couple of wee stops. One was at one of the purpose built “rest areas”, which provided parking, picnic areas with BBQ grills, loos and vending machines. It reminded me of the places we used to stop on our travels in England when I was little, and I realised they have seem to have disappeared, replaced by service stations, I think. I also discovered that broiled means grilled and grilled means barbequed. The little taster of the “fall colours” on the way up had turned into a more meaty mouthful by the time we drove back. I keep getting overwhelmed by the hoards of trees there are everywhere we’ve been - great forests as far as the eye can see, but also in the towns and gardens. I wasn’t expecting this at all. So we had a treat of some beautiful banks of orange, red, purple, yellows and green trees, all clumped together. When I looked back out of the rear window at one point it was like a patchwork quilt of colours. The photos really didn’t do it justice.
We got back to S&G’s mid-afternoon, had a spot of lunch, then went with Stephen to Costco to get some steak and srimps for the grill fest that he had been promising us all week. We’d heard american steak was the best, and the tasters we’d had so far had not let us down, but more was yet to come. Costco is a cash and carry, but on a scale I’d never seen before - stuff as far and high as the eye could see. Bloomin heck. Stephen grilled us some fillet mignon steaks to perfection, along with xxxking size prawns and yummy salad. THANK YOU!! Joe and I watched 3 episodes of the x-files then went to bed will full tums and crazy dreams.
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