Petoskey, Michigan, is now one of our favorite places. Beth, Missy, and I got back a few days ago from a great camping trip there with Judy & Neill and Marve & Beth. Backing up a bit, remember last week when we went to the Henry Ford and the swimming pool was making everyone sick? Well, by the end of last weekend Beth and Missy were better (although we did have to stop to buy some tissues on the way) but Alex and Natalie were both sick. In the end, both of them chose to stay home (I don't think it broke up either of them to stay home, but both of them would have enjoyed it) while the rest of us went Up North. We left Monday, at which time Alex and Nat were both feeling awful. I felt awful in leaving them home, but they're both 18 so that's what we did. Beth and I left them some money and food and the minivan, and they were fine. It's not like we were going to be gone for an extended period of time, either....anyway, it was about a 6 1/2 hour drive to get there, so Beth, Missy and I were there by late afternoon on Monday (my birthday). We got set up at Magnus Park in town, then hit the beach to search for Petoskey stones. Only found a few, little broken ones, although Missy did have a fun experience of fruitless searching for a while and then having to take a stone out of her shoe, which turned out to be...guess.....yep, a Petoskey!) then we grilled steaks (and Beth W made a carrot cake, since it was a birthday dinner, after all) back at the campsite. It was not a late night around the campfire, not any night we were there, not with this crew, but anyway. Judy and Neill and I went on bike rides the next 2 mornings, the first one out as far as the State Park, which looks much more like the kind of place Beth and I would choose to camp, mostly because the beach is much nicer. Tuesday was a bit cooler and windier, and the water was much choppier, so the hunting for Petoskey stones was much easier (since the rocks were wet further up the beach at the park). We all found quite a few, some nice ones too. We also hit the shops in town, Petoskey is a lot like Saugatuck, only bigger, I thought. We found some cool souvenirs and stuff and had lunch in a fun car-themed restaurant. Dinner was pulled BBW chicken in the crock pot. Wednesday we stopped at the "shop" (actually a garage) of an elderly man who runs a rock-polishing service, to get some of our found stones polished. I had seen a sign for it on the bike trail the previous day. We dropped off way too many stones we had found. Then it was off on a road trip up to Cross Village an hour or so away to have lunch at Legs Inn, which you have to see to believe. It's a stone lodge with all sorts of rustic and faux-rustic décor inside, and decorated around the roof line with old white-painted stove legs, hence the name of the place. On the way back we drove along the lakeshore through the "tunnel of trees" which was aptly named. Beautiful drive, I bet it's hard in the winter though. Thursday we had lunch at a cool brewery restaurant, and then it was time to pack up and head home, but we left feeling that we ran out of time far before we ran out of things to do. Beth and I both want to go back next year with everyone and spend longer. But maybe we'd camp at the state park instead. 

This weekend I began a new fixer-upper project with the camper. The side of the dinette bench, which is made of particle board, has been disintegrating for some time now, and it's starting to look pretty bad. Swelling and shedding bits of itself all the time now. So, once back home I figured out how to pull it off, and I'm now working on replacing it. I got a sheet of plywood and traced the pattern of the old one, and I'm sanding and painting it to match the color of the stain on the old one. Then I'll just pop it back in and it'll be good as new. I should replace the screen on the back bed, too, maybe later....