August 13- Mill Creek

Yeah, we’re definitely still on summer vacation.

We got an early start after breakfast with Aunt Delores. We moved the girls to the car while they were still asleep, and Anna wondered if Aunt Delores even knew that we had left.

We drove for about five hours total, including time for lunch at Bob’s Big Boy. Then we arrived at Mackinac City. Julie had been hoping to go to Mill Creek Discovery Park, so we headed directly there. It’s the site of an old colonial era sawmill. The mill itself and several of the buildings associated with it have been reconstructed. It’s interesting to watch the saw demonstrations and the explanations of the workings of the machinery. But the reason why Julie wanted to go was the Adventure Trail and the “Soar With the Eagles” zipline. She and Anastasia paid the extra to don the straps and the helmets. They walked up a path to the canopy bridge where they crossed over the mill pond while connected to a safety line. Then they circled around and came down the zipline, crossing the length of the mill pond for more then 400 feet. Dad and Emma watched them go sailing by. We explored some of the buildings and nature trails and Anna tried her hand at a rock wall. We climbed a tower to view the canopy of the trees and the panorama of the bridge and island of Mackinac in the distance.

We checked in to our hotel and the girls were barely able to wait for the pizza delivery guy for our dinner. They were excited because the hotel not only has its own beach on Lake Huron, but it also has an indoor water park connected with it. There are two three-story water slides, a “lazy river” for tubes, and lots of other activities. The girls enjoyed the evening playing here and digging on the beach.

August 12- Detroit

The girls got to swim again this morning. We enjoyed a quick breakfast at the hotel and continued westward.

We stopped for gas and got a few things for the car, including red Twizzlers, Julie’s favorite. We were driving down Route 90, and we were passing a motorcyclist several times as the traffic ebbed and flowed. The last time we saw him, he was passing us waving a Twizzler of his own at us and smiling.

At the Michigan Welcome Center, the girls played at a playground and Scott learned that we were not far from the site of the River Rasin massacre from the War of 1812. The battles took place in and around the little town of Monroe, Michigan, and there are several monuments. The official visitor’s center was closed for the day, but we stopped to stroll through the nearby park and to take some pictures.

We continued on to see both the Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Lions. Where would that happen? At the Detroit Zoo, of course. For the record, the tigers were asleep and the lions were no where to be seen, but the zoo itself was impressive. It’s much smaller than the Cleveland Zoo, but larger than Buffalo's. The zoo seems to have a bit of money coming into it because there were several impressive, new-looking displays. We all had fun seeing the life-size, moving dinosaurs. There was an extra charge to see them in a temporary exhibit, but it was well worth it. Anna took many pictures along the path, and Emma was not scared at all. The only thing we didn’t like was the Triceratops who had been attacked by nearby raptors, and was breathing his last. A T-Rex finished it all. Among the living animals, the hippo was one of our favorites. Usually, we don’t get to see much of the hippopotami who are hiding under water, but we caught this one just as he was strolling down his ramp into his pool so we got a pretty good look at him. We’d certainly come back to this zoo again.

Today’s drive ended at Aunt Delores’s house, outside of Detroit. She had a roast beef dinner ready for us. Scott loves visiting here because he remembers so much about the house from when he and his family used to visit when he was little. Parts of the house are completely different, of course, but much of it looks and smells exactly like he remembers it. We spent the evening talking and comparing pictures of trips to Europe. The girls fell asleep on the couch in the family room and they got carried back to bed. The heat had taken a lot out of them at the zoo.

August 11- Erie, PA

That’s right. Barely two weeks after returning from Europe, we’re off again. We barely have had time to catch our breath and recover from the jet lag. This time we’re headed west and north to Sault-Saint-Marie for Brian and Jenny’s wedding .

The original plan was to leave on Wednesday, but Julie has been saying that she’d like to go to Erie, Pa., sometime this summer in order to do back-to-school shopping for the girls. There’s no sales tax on clothes in Pennsylvania. Scott suggested we leave a day early and head through Erie on our way to Michigan.

Julie had a meeting at her school that she couldn’t get out of, but that was over by 10:00. The car was basically packed and ready to go. We let the girls put the seats down to make a big bed out of the back and had bought about a half dozen new DVDs that they didn’t know about for the trip. We were on the road by 11:00.

Our first stop in Erie was the Maritime Museum. Scott was excited about seeing the Brig Niagara from the War of 1812, but she was not in port. The recent storms have delayed her return from one of her occasional cruises, and she won’t be back until Wednesday. We went into the museum anyway. Although Scott and Julie have visited the ship a long time ago, the museum was completely new to us. The exhibits are quite good, and Scott was impressed by many of them. A film about the Battle of Lake Erie uses an innovative technique. Side-by-side screens show a British view and an American view of the battle simultaneously. Perhaps most intriguing, a portion of the hull of the Lawrence has been built and shot with cannonballs. A television crew taped the live-fire experiment and the camera angles clearly show the damage that a cannonball can cause to a wooden ship. As expected, the hail of splinters is what really messes up the gun crews. Scott was looking forward to arranging a visit for the middle schoolers in his War of 1812 Club, but the person he needs to talk to was out. The ship alone would be worth a day trip to Erie, but the museum made him even more excited to get the students here.

We went to the Millcreek Mall and began several hours of shopping. Anna and Emma both got a few new outfits, and they picked them out themselves. We had to limit Anna’s pinks though. Julie had her eye out for something new to wear to the wedding, but she wasn’t able to find anything. Scott used to think that “shop till you drop” was just an expression, but we came close to it today. After dinner at the food court (at the place that Emma remembered as the place she got sick last Easter) we wrapped it up and continued our drive.

We made it into Ohio, where we stopped for the night at a place called Mentor. We found a room in a hotel with a pool, and the girls were happy for that. Even though it was late, we let them go swimming for a while.

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If you're reading this, pardon us. We're putting this blog entry in for a wrap-up from the Europe trip. It's written, but not completed. We'll fix it soon.