BIKE RIDE TO SANIBEL

Getting ready for our first ride of the season to Sanibel Island on bikes we bought this summer.

One of things we like most is the 3 mile ride over the causeway beach.  From the bridge, we see the beautiful white sand of this small island beach.

One of the many great views from the bridge behind Walter.  Once we are across the bridge, then we ride on a
bike that goes the length of the island.

 We are now on our way back, and you can see the top of the highest point on the causeway bridge.  You need a good deal of pedal power to get over that bridge.  Here we are rounding the curve of the bridge as we ride our way back across the causeway on our way home.  Today we rode 24 miles round trip.

FAREWELL RECUMBENT BIKES

Hello new semi-recumbent bikes.  These bikes, by Giant, are light and easy to ride.  They have a comfortable upright seating position and handlebars that meet you halfway.

Below is a good view of the back basket, and I also have a nice front basket.  Where we live in the winter in Florida is ideal for biking.  I bike to the library, grocery store, doctors, rides to Sanibel Island and Ft. Myers Beach, and much more.  It is great exercise and fun to be outside.

These are the recumbent bikes we enjoyed for so long.  Bikes that never caused any pain anywhere.  It was a hard decision to change, but we opted for a compromise between such a long wheel based bike and one that would be easier to transport.  In Michigan where this picture was taken, there are wonderful bike paths, but we need to truck our bikes to these paths where in Florida, we take off  from our home for the majority of our rides.  

Thanks to E-Bay, this was another one of our sales where we posted the bikes before going to bed and when we got up in the morning, they were already sold.  How nice!

THANKSGIVING WITH FAMILY

We are fortunate to be able to share Thanksgiving with Walter's brother's family--on the left is Walter's brother, Ivan; niece, Bernadette; sister-in-law, Tinina, and nephew, Anthony.  Tinina is a great cook and really goes all out for this Thanksgiving feast.

DELNOR WIGGINS BEACH

Delnor Wiggins Beach is on the north end of Naples and has beautiful white sand beaches as you can see and   has so much beach that it never feels crowded.

A view of nearby buildings between Naples Park and Bonita Beach.  It is easy to forget that there is a very large populated area just a few miles away from this pristine beach.

OLD NAPLES

The streets of Naples, Florida are so beautiful with flowers, flowering bushes, and flowering trees.  It's one of the places the comfortably wealthy (look at that parked Ferrari) like to spend their winters.  Just a short walk from here, are the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico that border the town.

Taking a break at one of the many lovely statues and water fountains.

Upscale restaurants are here and there among the many interesting boutiques.  Every street seems to have a beauty of its own.  It may be hard to tell, but if you look up at the decorations here, you will realize this is what Christmas looks like in tropical Naples.

WUBIE WALK IN MIAMI RV PARK

Out for a walk.  Who is there?  Maybe someone who will pet me?  

PS: It's a little warm here in Miami - pant, pant.

Wait until they see how well I climb trees then they'll really want to pet me.

MEXICO CARAVAN FRIENDS VISIT US

Here we are with our friends, Warner and Phoebee, whom we first met on a Mexican Caravan in 2008.  We stopped at the end of Mission Peninsula near our place, where the Peninsula meets Lake Michigan.  We are standing at the 45th Parallel--halfway between the North Pole and the Equator.

Later we took them sightseeing and went for lunch at the little fishing town of Leland.  The original downtown by the river emptying into Lake Michigan is the original Fish Town, where the salmon fishing fleet arrives with its cargo.  Above you see the very unusual fishing boats made of steel.  They have a fully enclosed deck that can be heated in the winter and that allows the crew to deploy a large fishing net from the rear doors.  I can imagine that this type of commercial fishing boat can be battened down to cope with the violent winter gales in Lake Michigan.

Our friends, were in route from the Texas Hill Country to visit relatives in Pennsylvania so they took a "little" detour to visit us in northern Michigan at Traverse Bay RV Resort, our summer home.  They traveled in their Class B RV with their cat, Greta.

This little RV is completely self contained with bathroom, shower kitchen, bed, satellite TV, refrigerator Air Conditioning and Heating, Hot and Cold water, and generates its own electricity too.  It is built for little people though.  It goes for about $110-$120K.  Here we had it taking electricity from our site so Greta could enjoy Air Conditioning without having the RV generator on all that time.

WWII USS SILVERSIDES

Our friend, MaryAnne was an officer in the US Navy stationed here in Muskegon, and she wanted us to see the great Naval Museum here and the very well preserved USS SILVERSIDES.

The USS SILVERSIDES was commissioned on December 15, 1941, eight days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ship left for the first of her 14 war patrols on April 30, 1942.  SILVERSIDES served with the Pacific Fleet along the coast of Japan, the East China Sea and key enemy shipping routes around the Marianas, Carolinas, Bismark Archipelago, and along the Solomon Island to Guadalcanal.  SILVERSIDES sank 23 ships and damaged 14 ships. She ranks third highest among all World War II U.S. submarines in ships sunk, totaling 90,080 tons.

Above are Tom, also a military retiree, MaryAnne, and I next to the USS SILVERSIDES at the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum.

This is the front steering cockpit.  There is a second pilot station for vertical motion, and yet a third for the rear of the ship.  In a sub you have a similar complex piloting situation as in an airplane, in that you move in 3 dimensions as well as being able to pitch (e.g nose-up, -down), yaw (nose-right, -left like a skid), and roll (clockwise, counter-clockwise) along the longitudinal axis.  On top of this complexity you do not have windows to see what you are doing, so the sub pilot is basically doing the equivalent of flying on instruments alone.

This view is from the front cockpit rearwards.  Notice the handrail on the left.

These are the front four torpedo tubes.  There are sleeping cots all around these and the stored torpedoes in the torpedo room since the sub had a crew of over 75

VISITING FRIENDS IN MUSKEGON, MI

Muskegon is the largest city of the eastern shore of Lake Michigan.   The Ottawa and Pottawatomi Indian tribes lived in the Muskegon vicinity during the 1730s and 1740s until induced by the French to move the settlement to the Traverse Bay area in 1742.  Below, Teri with our good friends, MaryAnne and Tom, who were born and raised in the area.  They were giving us a wonderful tour of Muskegon.  Behind us is Lake Michigan.

Charles H. Hackley arrived in Michigan in 1856 with seven dollars in his pocket. He made his fortune in lumber. His estate was reported to be worth more than $12 million at his death in 1905.

The Hackley House was built in the Queen Anne style

Right next door is the home of Hackley’s business partner, Thomas Hume. The Hume house below was designed for comfort and to accommodate Hume’s large family.

Both homes had extensive elaborate wood carvings.  This piece is one of a set depicting all the races in the area at the end of the 18th century.

PICKLEBALL WITH TBRVR NEIGHBORS

Playing Pickle Ball at the courts at Traverse Bay RV Resort

.  My partner for this game is Charles our across the street neighbor.

Above is Connie, Charles' wife.  We spend wonderful times with these neighbors.  Notice the woods behind Connie.  This is where a bear made his appearance two years ago while folks were playing on the court.  The bear took one look at the folks and took off as fast as it could go.  That was a happy ending for all.

On the other side of the court are chairs for those waiting to play or resting between games and behind is a very nice gazebo with tables and chairs inside where you can have refreshments or get togethers.

WUBIE

Wubie likes to help me when I'm at the computer, but then gets tired and sprawls out on the table.

Outside for his daily walk and apparently something has caught his interest.  

I was drying out my umbrella on the bed and Wubie decided it was a good place to sit.  As you can see, the umbrella (which has since been lost) has pictures of cats on it.

TRAVERSE BAY RV RESORT ICE CREAM SOCIAL

August Ice Cream Social with volunteers; Gail, Bill, Carol, and Sue dishing up Moomer's Ice cream in the Traverse Bay RV Resort Main Clubhouse dining room.

 Moomer's was rated best regional ice cream in the U.S. and it is too wonderful.  The dairy is on the West side of town and you can visit it to see the farm and dairy cows.  At the dairy, they serve their full menu of flavors and textures.  If you order a waffle cone you get the real thing, a regular size waffle wrapped as a cone and full of this delicious creamy ice cream.

Carol made 4 or so delicious toppings that were so good that when we finished our ice cream, we went back for just the toppings.

TCFF VIVA CUBA

We are Friends of the Traverse City Film Festival and try to go to as many films as we can every year during the Festival week in the last week of July.  Our favorite venues are those of the documentary series.  We were fortunate to be able to get tickets to a Cuban produced film called Viva Cuba.  

 This film played on several different days and was totally sold out within the first few hours that the reservations were open on-line for the Friends of the Festival.  We were a little slow to get on-line and we found all showings already sold-out so at first we had no ticket; however, we were fortunate to get a ticket by arriving 2 hours early to one of the showings to get a stand-by ticket.

The film director is Cuban, the main child actor and actresse are about 12 years old and it was filmed along the entire length of the island of Cuba.  It was an imaginative travelogue with fantasy and adventure as only a child can experience - an excellent film, that received one of the film awards at the festival.

The man in white is the producer, the three to the right are either actors or directors, and to the left of the director, is Michael Moore who was introducing the folks after the film where there is always a question and answer session which often is as interesting as the film itself..

Michael Moore (below) stops by many of the documentary venues to introduce the movie and give history and background of the making of the film.