North to Peace

I love going up north, Northern Michigan that is. I always find peace and lower blood pressure up there. My favorite places are Mackinac Island (or the Straits of Mackinac area) and the west side of the northern lower peninsula, Manistee to Traverse City are. My mom lives in the coastal town of Onekama, my dad lives on 20 acres in the middle of farm country, outside of the tiny town of Kaleva, which is about 15-20 minutes away from my mom.

We went to visit my dad this past week-end. Just being on the land up there lowers my blood pressure because of the beauty of the trees and hill, the wildlife my dad has coming right up to his backdoor. Literally! He had to put some patio chairs in front of his sliding door glass to keep the turkeys from knocking on the door! My dad feeds the birds and the deer, also squirrels and an occasional bear. He had to raise his bird feeders so the bear couldn’t get to them.

We left on Saturday, just for an overnighter. I wish we had more time to spend but I was trying to get my house in order (see post about hoarding). It was so lovely last week-end, Saturday mostly sunny until we got to Cadillac, and Sunday such a lovely blue sky with fluffy light clouds.

We went to Traverse City Saturday night for a blues concert. Our favorite, Toronzo Cannon and the Chicago Way performed at Michigan Northwestern College. It was an awesome show! My dad went with me and my husband. Afterward we went out to eat–pickings were slim for eats, only bars open, and most had stopped serving food. After much searching and driving around, haha, We ended up at a bar called U and I. It was crowded and I had my doubts about the place but it turned out to be a great place. They had Greek food on the menu and all three of us enjoyed it. My drink was phenomenal! I had a Cherry Lemonade with cherry vodka. Well, I had 3…they were so good and I could not taste alcohol at all, though I did get a good buzz going. Luckily my dad drove.

My dad had a good time. He was happy to have visitors though he keeps himself busy with odd jobs, working around his house too, and his ever favorite pickle ball. Funny story: On the way to the concert my dad made a phone call (over the car-Bluetooth hookup, so we could all here both ends of the conversation) to a friend, an little bit older guy named Pete that plays pickle ball too and my dad was working on his snow blower also. Pete asked my dad what he was doing and my dad said he was on his way to TC. “What for?” asked Pete. My dad told him to see a concert and Pete said, “I didn’t think you were the artsy type.” It was all I could do to snort with laughter. I mean, going to a concert it considered artsy? LOL

I do need to get up north more, and I want to check out some of the wineries. We have more family up north now too so there is always someone to visit with.

Here are all the pictures I took: