Travalon’s Adventure: S.S. Badger Ferry Crossing and Sleeping Bear Dunes

 

Happy September! Today not much happened for me, except that my THC stuffie arrived.

Also, the train went by in our neighborhood, apparently right after I left for Adoration, and it had some fabulous graffiti.

Now that I've posted the mandatory train graffiti, I'm turning things over to guest blogger Travalon:

On Friday my old college buddy who is visiting from Japan and I met up in Manitowoc and took the S.S. Badger for the first time across Lake Michigan to Ludington, MI. It was wonderful! So relaxing just sitting back and enjoying the cool breezes and just looking at the waves. We also enjoyed playing bingo, although we didn’t win at all. After docking on the other side of the big pond and a nice dinner and drink at a brewpub we had a long two hour drive mainly in the dark through a lot of woods and on backroads with no straight shot, but we made it to our destination safely. Saw the same bright moonrise Famous Hat did back home but didn’t get a picture. Our resort in Traverse City (home of the Pit Spitters baseball team that occasionally crushes our Mallards) was on a nice bay beach but the room was nothing special.

 
On Saturday we drove to Sleeping Bear Dunes Natl. Lakeshore and hiked on the Empire Bluff trail, which was recommended by a guide at the visitor’s center, the views of the lakeshore and bluff were beautiful but we weren’t right on the dunes. The next hike was the Cottonwood Trail located off of a scenic drive and that was way better, we went up and down huge sand dunes and had spectacular views of Lake Michigan and some pretty inland lakes in the park. It was tiring, and we got off the trail a bit trying to find our way back but we made it!

 
Our last stop in the park was at a historic lighthouse at Point Betsie. Unfortunately we missed the last tour before it closed.

 
Had a good nights sleep despite my cough after all that hiking and a nice Mexican dinner.

 
On Sunday we went to the north end of the park, our first stop was at the small historic village of Glen Haven, which looked like a maritime village in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. We visited a former Coast Guard Rescue station and an interesting Maritime Museum. We then hiked the Pyramid Point Trail, which was a good uphill climb but the view at the end was spectacular ! it included the shorelines of Big and Little Manitou Islands. Our next adventure was a swim (I just waded) at Good Harbor Bay Beach. The water was crystal clear and the sand pristine. A few people were there too but it was quiet and peaceful. No trash anywhere, no loud music, could’ve stayed all day. I have to take Famous Hat there in the near future. Our last stop in the park was at a dune made for climbing. Surprisingly my buddy didn’t have the energy for it, but I decided to. Went up sideways and made it, but at the top of that steep dune was another dune- naw, too much! We went back to town and although my buddy struck out on his quest for a slice of homemade pie ( a rarity in Japan I guess) we had a nice seafood dinner although it was a bit overpriced.

On Monday we had to get up very early to drive two hours again to make the ferry on time, and it was dark and rainy, we also didn’t have coffee before leaving. We made it though. The crossing back to Wisconsin was very pleasant and although we still couldn’t win at bingo we won the trivia contest. My buddy couldn’t believe I knew the 1960 hit Runaway was sung by Del Shannon. I would’ve made Rockin’ John on WORT proud too. We visited Point Beach State Park back in Wisconsin and my buddy and I had pie at a cafe in Two Rivers. We parted ways and I stopped and walked at Kohler Andrea and Harrington Beach State Parks, the harbor in Port Washington and Virmond Park in Mequon. A full and wonderful weekend!

He also took a really cool 360 degree video that Blogspot is not letting me post. I'll figure out how to do something with it tomorrow - this is enough photos for today.

Famous Hat

National Train Graffiti Day

 

Today I worked on campus and walked very slowly after our long trek through the garden yesterday. Hardingfele couldn't walk with me because she was home taking care of a sick cat. Then a colleague asked me to help with a project because she didn't trust our other colleagues to understand it, so I worked a bit late. Anyway, we got it done.

I found this cool graffiti on a video on the social media page for our local railroad fans. There was probably more, but a lot of the people on this page only seem interested in the engines, so their videos will cut off quickly once the engines are past.

And here are some more screenshots from Travalon's videos. This train is one of those that has stacked shipment containers, so the graffiti is only on the flat car beneath them, and the train was going so fast that they're all kind of blurry. Still, some are really beautiful.

Believe it or not, there's still a lot more train graffiti to come. I found out today that there is no National Train Graffiti Day (since there's a day for just about everything else), and when I asked Google why, it said because governments can't sponsor something celebrating an illegal activity. OK, fair enough, but from now on in my world, the last day of August is National Graffiti Day. Tomorrow will probably not feature any graffiti anyway, since I imagine Travalon will have lots of photos from his trip. I expect my day will be relatively uneventful, so maybe the whole blog post will be about his trip.

Famous Hat