Great Loop & Cruising Adventure Blog

One of our all time favorite things to experience in Charlevoix, our homeport, is Venetian Festival. It occurs during the peak of the summer and is a small hometown festival like none other.

With the newly constructed marina, park and harbor this is a fabulous venue for all the fun activities the city of Charlevoix organizes every year. Every night of the festival there is a line up of some amazings bands. On Saturday there is a parade through town featuring the Venetian Queen and her court who were selected the night before. Both Friday and Saturday nights there are amazing fireworks like none we have ever seen before. Before the fireworks on Saturday night there is a lighted boat parade around Round Lake and the harbor.

This year our friends Jean and Gary, on First Sight, decided everyone had to dress up to go along with the Hawaiian theme of their decorated boat.

This is Rob and Kerri’s boat (above), Kerried Away. They are big fans of our blog and we are always amazed that they keep up with all our postings.

Skyler and Sarah (above) joined us for the festivities and a night on the boat.

Jan, on Open Wide (above), pausing during her decorating frenzy to pose for the blog.

Ain’t that the truth. We had a fun two weeks visiting with parents, siblings, sons and lovely Sarah, nieces and friends. We even met our new grand niece, Audrey.

We savored the hugs and the time we had to share. Longing for our family and friends is the downside to the traveling that we do.

We stopped in Sidney on our way to and back from Michigan to visit with Jim’s parents, Don and Diane and sister, Cindy and her husband, Steve.

Our friends Lynne and Mike Borer invited us to stay with them while we were in Traverse City for appointments. It was fun catching up with them and meet their new grandson, Patrick.

We stayed several nights with Lisa’s mother, Barby in Kewadin and her brother’s Jem and Ken and his wife Malinda joined us for a BBQ with our sons, Skyler and Bart.

We haven’t seen Lori or her son Michael in a long time. Lunch was fun and included a walk along the Boardman River.

Our niece, Amanda and her husband Brian introduced us to their first child, our grand niece, as we headed through Fenton on our way back to Maryland.

Our friend Mary emailed us to ask if “Date Night” was finally over.

Sorry to keep everybody hanging with the Date Night post, but we left Solomon Island for a two week road trip back home (Michigan/Ohio) to see family and friends.

Now that we are back we are starting to plan our next trip to explore more of the Chesapeake Bay area. Next Sunday or Monday, weather permitting, we will head out across the bay to St. Michaels and Oxford for a few days.

So, check back soon because we will be updating the blog posts today and tomorrow.

Could it be a conspiracy that our friends have called or talked to us about just one more going away dinner or party? I suppose they might be thinking that if they plan enough stuff we will be too busy and won’t be able to leave before the snow flies. In reality we have had many tears shed while saying goodbye to our immediate family and close friends over the last few weeks.

All we can say is… nice try guys.

Every year at 1:00 on Labor Day the residents of Charlevoix congregate on the bridge which spans Pine River Channel. They come together to celebrate the end of the summer season and to say goodbye to all the “Fudgies” who are leaving town across the bridge in droves.

A short sing song poem is read with the crowd chanting in unison while thanking the tourists but expressing delight in reclaiming their small town. It is all done in good fun.

We squeezed in a sunset, dinghy cruise, the last of the season. For us it will have to last us until we venture home again in the summer of 2008.

Our sons Bart and Skyler graced us with some valuable face time this month. We tried to show them a good time while visiting us at differnt times recently. My (Lisa’s) brother Jem and his wife Patti came up to visit us before we left. They brought Barby with them. Our friends Wade and Susie drove north all the way from North Carolina to spend a few days with us on the new Kismet.

Just a few shots of the harbor in August.