The latest news is that after a long period with no visitors showing up in Michigan, Larry and Mariela Taddie of Salt Lake City arrived. They were here from September 23rd through Sept 30th when they drove a rental car to Batavia, New York to visit Larry’s uncle and aunt. They returned on October 9th, turned the rental car in, stayed overnight and then departed by plane for Salt Lake. At 12:30 a.m. that very night, Katya arrived from Salt Lake for a week of fall vacation from the University of Utah. It was a busy evening, night and morning to say the least, but fun was had by all.
It is so special to have friends and family visit you here in Southeast Michigan. Our area is not a magnet for tourists, tends not to be on the major flight paths around the U.S. and is generally an out-of-the-way place. Moreover, the only big city here is Detroit, a place that has turned into an urban nightmare and is now the bad example for everything. The recent Time Magazine cover story did not improve its image. So, we were especially delighted to have Larry and Mariela come here and devote a week to visiting us in our local environs, see how we live, and allow us to take them out and show them around – including the best and the worst of everything. It was as much fun for us as it was for them, just knowing that somebody had shown up at the door and gave us an excuse to get out and do some things that we like.
While they were here we went to the Henry Ford Museum, the Edsel and Eleanor Ford House, Eastern Market, the Fisher Building, Larry’s hometown of Lincoln Park, and other sites. We drove around and examined Detroit in all its splendor and chaos. They went on a long walk down Lakeshore Drive from Grosse Pointe Yacht Club back to our house. And naturally I took them out to see the schools where I taught during my 16-year career in Detroit Public Schools. One night we went to Rick and Margo’s house for dinner and had a good visit with them. It had been years since Larry and Mariela had seen them and during the intervening time, Rick and Margo have raised a family of four children ranging from two to eleven years old.
Packed into the week was a two-day trip by water to Harsen’s Island. It is the delta formed by the St. Clair River as it dumps into Lake St. Clair. This river comes south from Lake Huron bringing with it all the drainage from Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior. It was a really nice trip with some variable weather, wildly variable sea conditions, and a constant sense of adventure and camaderie. We routinely took Dramamine to prevent sea sickness, ate a lot of good food cooked in the Baltika’s little galley, and saw a lot of open water, wilderness, and the old-world development on Harsen’s Island.
The two lower pictures (shown above) are Harsen's Island as photographed by Larry. The first one is the Old Club at just after the entrance to the South Channel. The one below it is Big Muscamoot Bar, just to the north of Harsen's Island.
Then the weather turned bad for a few days, the period when we saw the sites around Grosse Pointe and Detroit. We were able to get back on the water again Friday, the last day before they left for New York. We did an excursion, both sailing and motoring down the Detroit River. It included the straits between Detroit and Windsor, going under the Ambassador Bridge and the steel mill complex downriver from the bridge. That is where we turned around and headed back up the river for Lake St. Clair and Grosse Pointe.
Katya is now here and we are busy assisting her in getting caught up on home-cooked favorites and some shopping for clothing that she seriously needed to do while here. She and Perry went sailing the first day she was here and she is now using some of her days to get ahead on her studies so she will not be so stressed out when she returns to school. For medical students and people working towards a chemistry degree there are usually no true vacations. We admire her resolution.
The weather is often cool, cloudy and windy. So far we have not had any snow, but temperatures are dropping rapidly, especially at night. We still have the Baltika in the water and are sailing whenever the weather is reasonably good. There is very little competition for space on the lake this time of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment