The Northwoods Is No Place For A Pink Flamingo
Posts tagged road trip
A Chill in the Air
Sep 28th
Fall is in the air in Northern Michigan. Trees are very slowly starting to turn and the smell of leaves burning lingers. I love this time of year, especially here in the northwoods. It’s so different from the city in so many ways and it makes me glad that ended up here. Those pleasant thoughts are of course shattered each time I walk into work and have to deal with idiots. At least I can look forward to my days off. I’m getting ready this week to head even further north with the folks to Pictured Rocks up on Lake Superior. The weather does not look like it’s going to cooperate fully with our trip however it should not be a total wash out. The only day I’m really concerned with is Thursday. That is the day we intend to head out on the water to do the tour of the Pictured Rocks lakeshore. I’ve done this boat cruise once before. Throughout most of the summers during my jr. high and high school days, my folks took my sister and me up to the UP for a few days. The last time I did this cruise I think I was perhaps 15 or 16, I know I had just begun driving and my folks let me drive most of the trip for practice. Back then, I never thought much to take pictures. This time however I’ve got the gear and the motivation to hopefully capture some great photos of a spectacular shoreline. I’ll post them here as well as on leelanauphotography.com once we return. We are also going to go to Taquanamin Falls state park. I’ve also been here but that was much early, maybe 11 or 12 years old. I remember rowing in a little boat across a river to get to some of the falls. I doubt we will do that again but I’m excited to see this park again. In all, it should be a good trip. Gavin the Wonder Dog is coming with us so that should make it pretty interesting as well. He’s not been on a road trip in quite some time so I’m curious to see how well he travels.
Not much other news right now. This was a really busy weekend at work and I’m glad it’s over even though I don’t really have a day off here until I leave for the UP. I have to work a half day tomorrow afternoon and then all day on Wednesday. Somewhere in there I need to find time to pack and get ready to head out early on Thursday morning.
This afternoon, I’ve made a huge batch of chili and so now I’m off to enjoy a bowl of chili and maybe a movie on TV. I’m just not much of a movie buff anymore, there are so few that I enjoy. Anyhow, hope everyone is staying warm and enjoying the day.
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BLAST Lamb’s Ear!
Jul 11th
What a bitch. I was fortunate enough to get out of work a couple hours early today so I thought I would take advantage of the fact that I’ve not seen any daylight at my house in the last 2 weeks by cleaning up my yard a little bit. My yard and garden beds came with the house. Part of my job as a current renter (and perhaps someday owner) of this condo is to keep up the yard. That means using a hedge clipper on the 25 different shrubs that I have, some taller than me, and also keeping weeds out of the way. In general, I am pretty happy with what came with the condo. I’ve got huge mounds of daisies in a few different colors, shrubs that are exceedingly healthy and have grown so much that I’ve had to cut them all back twice so far this summer, and I am having great success with my upside down tomato plant grower thingie with a plant that is just going nuts. I’m going to have grape tomatoes coming out of my ears from this plant. I’ve also got one hideous plant…ground cover actually, that is just the most dreadful thing ever. Lamb’s ear or Stachys byzantina has got to be the most invasive plant I’ve ever seen. It does well in full sun and poor soil (which I apparently have plenty of) and takes over EVERYTHING. It’s killed one of my rose bushes and nearly devoured the other. It’s a freakin bee hotel and I personally think it smells awful. It’s managed to pretty much take over the perennial garden beds. Once they get going for the season they sprout these spikes that are about 20″ tall with little purple flowers. They could be somewhat attractive if they were not so invasive. I decided today that I’d had enough and cut off all the spikes so the rest of my plants might have a chance to live this year. What a mess. Bees everywhere, velvety like smelly leaves all over the place. Anyway, I got them cut back and things look a little better now. Hopefully things will start doing better. If I stay here, those will be the first thing to go in my yard. Actually, if I buy this place, I’ll be ripping out everything along that side of the house and re-planting things so they make sense. Right now I have 3′ daisies in front of ground hugging daisies. Ass-backward from any perspective and poor planning. Here are some pictures taken this afternoon.
I am nearly done now with what has been an exceedingly long week at work. This week I clocked 72 hours at work which, generally speaking is about twice what any normal person would work at any other type of job. It bugs me that I can spend all this time an energy training a well rounded and otherwise exceptional team of employees but my company thinks that things will utterly fall apart if at least one manager is not right there all day long. Talk about putting absolutely no faith in the ability of my employees. I am quite comfortable leaving any one of them in charge and leaving. What could possibly go so horribly wrong in the short amount of time I am gone? Nothing, it’s retail for shits sake. It is not a nucleur laboratory! Anyhow, I have a 12 hour day on Sunday and a 6 hour day on Monday. Assuming my assistant shows up again after her vacation, I should be out of work for a day off by Monday afternoon FINALLY. Even more, now I get to do the same thing to her. On Friday I leave work at 1 PM and I will not be returning for 10 days. I get to take a vacation.
Speaking of vacation, this year I’ve decided to take a road trip. Facebook has brought me back in touch with folks I’ve not seen or heard from in nearly a decade. Last year, some of them came to visit me up here in the northwoods. This year, I’m going to visit them. I’m going to Grand Rapids for 2 days, then off to Chicago for 2 days, and then to Indianapolis for 3 days. I’ll return on Saturday. I’m looking forward to getting out of here for a little while and selfishly, I’m looking forward to ditching the dog for a short time. I love Gavin dearly but every parent needs a break every now and then don’t ya think? Aunt Nancy has graciously agreed to take Gavin for a few days at the start of my trip and then mom and dad will get him for the remainder. Good lord, I hope he behaves himself. I’m sure he will. Well, this is a long enough post for today. Hopefully I’ll get back in to writing here again as my schedule calms down….I’ve said that before.
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