The Great Outdoors

Greetings from our lakeside beach house in Northern Michigan (well - rented for the week). If you are having a bad day or are currently stressed out then please do not read any more or you may suffer from sudden attacks of uncontrollable envy. Don't say I didn't warn you....

I'm typing this whilst sipping a couple of cold ones, digesting a lovely pizza and gazing out at a gorgeous lake and beach, blue skies and lush green trees and grass. My main dilemma right now is what to do tomorrow - hire a boat and go fishing on the lake, go mountain biking or simply chillax on the beach doing nothing.

Actually, if I'm being honest we spent most of the day trying to entertain ourselves in the cold wet pouring rain. Not an easy thing to do in Northern Michigan on a Sunday before the school holidays start. I mean - it's really nice here, but most of the activities kind of rely on it not peeing down with rain. And most things here close on Sundays. It feels a bit too familiar going away on a beach holiday to find it rained off. I didn't think it would happen here though. I was assured it was guaranteed sun after Memorial day (May 31st) - or at least that's what I think they said. I didn't even pack a coat or jumper! Oh well, at least we've avoided the storms and tornadoes (!) down in Ann Arbor. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny for a bit so we're going to pack a whole weeks itinerary in to one day.

On Friday we drove up via a place called Frankenmuth. It's a German, Bavarian style town complete with Bierkellers and Bavarian style inn's, Bavarian ice-cream shops, Bavarian Toy shops, Bavarian hot dog stalls, Bavarian McDonald's... You get the picture. It was a really pretty town, and spotlessly clean and well kept. Tourism is the main business there and it had just a touch of the Disney feel about it, complete with prestine horse drawn carriage tours. We had a nice lunch there and walk around town. We also visited a Christmas decoration store near there like no other on Earth. It's open all year round and it's about the size of a super size Tesco in the UK. It's big enough to get lost in and it's full of every Christmas related ornament / decoration you could think of, complete with staff dressed as elves and Christmas music. It's a tourist destination in it's own right. We spent an hour wondering around just the baubles. You could buy a bauble for just about any occasion - child's first Christmas, pets first Christmas, graduation, new home - fair enough - but "My Child's First Christmas in Heaven"? - Not sure on that one. It's a place you just have to see to believe.

We then drove up the "sunrise side coastal highway" along side Lake Huron till we reached Mackinaw City - right at the Northern tip of lower Michigan. A really nice but touristy town with some interesting history (there is a reconstruction of an old British fort there), but mostly it's full of fudge shops. The area was very important for fur trading, and benefited the local Indian tribes (Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi), the British, the French and the Americans. It's not surprising that there were some arguments over it. You can get a ferry from here to Mackinac Island. If we went further North we'd have to cross a big suspension bridge to the upper peninsula, and about an hour North of there is Canada. We haven't been up that way yet.

We're staying near a place called Petoskey, near Boyne. Petoskey is apparently an Indian word for "Where the light shines through the clouds" (If only...) Again Tourism is the main industry here. In the summer it's all beaches, boats, fishing, hiking, bikes. In the winter the attractions are skiing, snowmobiles, etc. The Lake Michigan coastline seems to be a lot wealthier than the Lake Huron side.

There are a lot of holiday cabins here. The dream of having a holiday cabin by the water, with acres of land, and a boat is a reality for many here. They love the Great Outdoors here. It's all about getting away from modern day stresses, getting out to the wilderness and getting close to nature (and often shooting it). It wasn't very long ago here when it wasn't so much a life-style choice, but more of a necessity, so I guess it's also about getting closer to their roots. Anyway, if I lived here, I'd love to have a holiday cabin with a few acres on the lake with my own pontoon and boat... (big sigh)

It's nice to be away from work for a while. I'm still enjoying work, and the novelty hasn't worn off yet. There's been new challenges still every week, and a really fun atmosphere within the department. It has been exhausting though. It is mentally very draining to be looking after two theatre lists at the same time. It's fine when there are just one or two cases on each list with residents that I trust looking after the patients, but you get days when there's five or more patients on each list, and staff that you feel you have to watch more closely. You feel like you're going all out just to keep your head above the water. Doing five early morning starts catches up with you too. By Friday I'm usually like a zombie. The other week me and a couple of the other Brits had a Friday evening round of Golf which was a great way to round off the week. Just to clarify though, I have never played golf before in my life. I was pleased with my final score of 60 over par (for 9 holes). It made a change from going to the pub after work (although the pub still made it on to the agenda of course).

Looking forward to the football world cup next week. We're having a sweepstake at work and I'm hoping to get back to Ann Arbor just in time to watch England vs USA. Not sure yet who I'll be supporting though. - Just Kidding... I don't even want to imagine what would happen if USA won that game. Maybe I should stay out in the wilderness just in case. Luckily the wilderness has wifi in the USA so I'll still keep in touch.

Till next time,

Drake.


PS - Due to problems with the eblogger website I couldn't post this for an extra day. Just thought I'd let you know that doing nothing on the beach won. Just lighting the BBQ now and tucking in to the nachos, enjoyinh the sunshine. :-)

PPS - Also got to see the Wales v South Africa game on BBC iplayer (using a UK host proxy IP address). Good effort by Wales but not quite enough.