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…
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…
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…
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.
This week I had the pleasure (I say I because Jim is out of town doing a boat show in Indiana this week) to meet many of the Loopers that are just now transiting through our homeport of Charlevoix, MI. As you can see from the photos below these are friendly people with warm hearts. I already know that we will be in good company as we head south just after Labor Day.
The last two weeks we took a few breaks from preparing for our trip to partake in two of northern Michigan's summer festivals. Charlevoix, our homeport, is a small town just south of Petoskey. The downtown overlooks a small inland lake called Round Lake. It is a popular destination spot for boaters as the harbor is well protected from the weather off Lake Michigan and the town is just a short walk up from the marina. It has an annual,…
Tradition dictates that a christening ceremony be performed for new boats. For thousands of years, we have gone to sea. We have crafted vessels to carry us and we have called them by name. These ships will nurture and care for us through perilous seas, and so we affectionately call them "she." To them we toast, and ask to celebrate KISMET. Then everybody raises their plastic glass filled with champagne or your favorite non-alcoholic beverage and shouts, To the Sailors…
We have been back to our homeport of Charlevoix, Michigan for three weeks already, to us it seems like time is flying, too fast. That's how our entire five-month experience in Seattle felt, before we knew it we were heading home. While traveling east we reflected and savored our time spent in a very cosmopolitan city with diverse people, landscape and history. The icing on the cake being that we were able to watch our new boat be built.This all…
We are so excited to be coming home to our homeport, Charlevoix, Michigan, and all of our friends and family. We got quite a reception from our boating buddies at the bridge as we approached. It was fun to see them run from there to our slip to help us dock. Our friendly harbor master, Hal radioed us to bring her in. Our slip (#5) was decorated with balloons and a welcoming sign at the end of the dock along…
