Summer Trips 2023 II

 

When it looked like it was going to be a problem with timing and doing a long road trip to "the bridge" (mysterious music), I hunted around for a nicer, closer outing where we could go. 

It is easier to make a sightseeing trip in Europe. Every little hamlet, village and town has some plaque or museum or historical marking that you can go anywhere for a small outing to see and learn and be productive.  the US and A...?  That said, there are quite a few in Northern Michigan its just that most of them are more like 2-3 hours of driving away. But if you only need a nice walk in the forests with some history attached, then there are many if you do a little research.  That is why it was nice to find the HARTWICK PINES STATE PARK with BOTH nice woods walking and historical content.  

The sad reality of northern Michigan is that its history and nature were nearly wiped out of existence in the late 19th century by logging.  Hartwick Pines State park is interesting because it has some of the only "old growth" trees left in the entire State.  There is another place in southern Michigan too, but that is about it in the lower peninsula.  In Hartwick there is a nice small walk among the huge old growth pines.  These are trees which have existed since BEFORE the revolutionary war.  "Stretching skyward for 120 feet and more, the giant pines are the only remnants of what Michigan looked like before the arrival of men with axes."

There are historical buildings in the park showing how the loggers lived and there are nice walks of varying lengths in the woods.  We took a nice walk in the forest beyond the old growth path. The only thing was it was a very hot and humid day and this prompted no small amount of complaining from my daughters.  I always try to make the best of a situation and enjoyed the nature and ignored the heat, but maybe that comes with age and kids ,especially teenagers, whine about anything bad, moreso if it is organized by a parent.  

The nature was nice and the old growth impressive.  I was however saddened by the historical element.  I guess you have to put things in context.  Most people back then (second half of the 19th century) lived in standards way below what we have now of course, but it seemed both very sad the way the loggers lived at their jobs they worked at.  While I can not sit in their stools and watch with their eyes, it seemed like they were small cogs in the machine which was very oppressive in those days.  They worked hard and gained little and helped destroy the natural order of life with no plan of sustainability or regrowth.  Just cut and ship, move on to the next forest.  Something like the Lorax by Dr. Seuss which is kind of how it ended up.  

I have learned that many of those trees helped to rebuild Chicago after the great Chicago fire.  Others built up the prairie land and North and South Dakota for settlers.  Judge the history as you want, good and bad.

I dont think my kids gained this impression. They were just concerned with getting the walk done and getting to an air conditioned car.  Paradoxically a couple hours later we had a huge 10 minute downpour which knocked branches down and even rolled a truck off the street we were driving on into the gutter and woods.  

In retrospect I think about that day and outing quite a lot and am proud of myself for organizing an educational outing and nice nature walk for my kids. And then we had a nice lunch planned afterwards. At the time I was thinking it was a disaster.  Even the planned lunch we had in a restaurant we had gotten food from 2 years ago during the covid summer didnt turn out well. The chicken wings were small, the dumplings were not "Japanese" as my daughter thought they would be and my daughter did not like sitting in this establishment with these people.  She would rather have taken out. Thus she was complaining about that too.  It all made me wonder why I should try?   

We havent seen my mother, their grandmother, since 2019.  After that year of course was covid in 2021 and 2020.  And in 2022 we just didnt make the visit.  Now we did.  But, the problem is, and this is the problem with all my outings and journeys, is I got travel anxiety.  This was a big outing with a plane down south. I had to book the plane AND the shuttle from the airport to the house of my mother. 

This doesnt have much to do with being a father, it has more to do with phobias I
have which further cramps my father abilities.  Booking a plane and stuff having to do with a journey takes me several hours.  Not only the looking and comparing prices but the wondering and pausing.  Sometimes I wonder if it is just easier to forget it.  And when the trip seems to be a disaster at the time (like the Hartwick Pines visit) you procrastinate more.  

Needless to say I did it all.  I booked everthing. We made the trip. We saw my Mother once again which was very nice for all.  It was a short visit, but it was severely hot where we were with her and really all we could do was stay inside and be with my Mother, which was kind of the point.  I miss my mother the way she used to be and it scares me a little the coming of time, the time passing and things aint the way they used to be.  I guess my Mother is golden in that way that she is able to live in the present and enjoy each day on its own merit and not compared with the past and "what it used to be".  She is happy with each day.  I guess I dont take after her in that respect.  

But I digress to some unknown point. 

I was just happy that the trips were accomplished.  Because it doesnt seem like the more you do, the easier it becomes.  It seems like a tough fight to rewire your brain and abilities to be able to do each one.  Is it possible to rewire the brain on this aspect? 

I think when we got back from visiting mother (grandmother) we only had one more week vacation, so my anxiety started again. 

I am trying to come to some big moral or sumptuous ending to this post, but nothing comes to mind.  Cant we accept people for their different abilities and their strengths and weaknesses?  My strength is someone elses weak point and vice versa. It is a lesson in Ricardos comparative advantages theory.  (Need you ask?).  In the meanwhile I have to work on my weaknesses, this is true. 

In the end, I organized some outings and despite whether I thought they were good or bad, they happened with some relative success. Some were better than others, but they all came off.  Maybe next year we can make it to the bridge.  

Summer Trips 2023 I

This vs

This will probably be a boring post and very banal.  I dont care. All along I tell people this is just my personal journal of being a father as my kids grow up, made public.  If you come and read it, great, thanks. I appreciate it. If no one does, fine also.  Everybody thinks and often attacks a banal life as bondage and or boring. I dont. I think it is natural. And boring is a matter of perspective. I could never ever be bored in my life. Anyway... here we are: 

This

As I said in my last post, I dont like to go on so many trips.  My wife does that. I get to a place and thats it.  Stay there, take it easy, sleep late and read a book on the dock. Jesus, I got a beautiful lake in front of my nose, I go swimming right here. Everybody comes here, why should I go someplace else when I am here?   BUT, with such a long vacation you HAVE to do some trips.  

"Trips" is the wrong word.  Moving or driving is more like it.  Hey when you live in the woods and are ten miles away from any town, any outing is a small trip.  

Some of our past small trips cant happen anymore because I guess sorry to say my daughters have grown out of them.  I dont see why they have to be too old for the splash pad, but well, we dont go there I guess because the laundromat is closed over there now.  The splash pad in Kingsley is great. I wrote about that one once. 

We made two drivings on Sundays to see the "Barbenheimer" movies.  We made drivings to buy clothes a couple times. Yup, that is considered an "outing", our moving and doing something for some day.  For some reason my older daughter wanted to go to Target and Walmart to see the great American buying malls.  We went to both.  

Doing the grocery shopping is a great small outing. When you live in the city you can walk to the grocery any and every day to get whatever you lack.  But when you live in the woods with a "longish" drive to town, you get everything in one or two shoppings a week.  Its like commando patrol this year.  One girl goes over to aisle 4 to get the juices and milk and one girl goes to aisle 2 to get the canned goods and cookies.  I stay in aisle one to get fruits and vegetables.  For some reason grocery shopping is much more fun in the summer doing these big shoppings and getting lots of food.  I do have a budget, but I think we went over the budget this year on food.  It was usually about 20 bucks more or so over from what I estimated before going.  Rats.  

A nice regular outing we do several times in the summer is to the local branch of the public library.  I think I have mentioned this spot before in other summers. I cannot deny its importance and fun.  

As soon as we can when we get to our vacation spot we go to the library for books.  Each of us takes out at least 7 books for trying or a bunch in a series we hope we will get to reading.  We go to the library for books at least once a week and it is great that even on this out of the way corner of the state they can get so many books through loan from other libraries.  I think the library has been an important pillar all my summers from when I was a small tot to this summer. And it has been for my daughters too, although this summer I was quite dismayed that my older daughter did more "work" on tik tok and social sites than reading.  If this is a trend among young people, a switch from reading books, to just mindlessly reading social sites and looking at tik tok..... we will be in a very dark period for kids very soon, with no creativity and brain ability lessened from the lack of reading. Tell me it aint so. 

In addition to getting books from the library, the local branch organizes many arts and crafts days too. Every year in the summer.  We never fail to go to the rock painting day and in a past year that produced an incredible painting on a rock from my older daughter. Sadly this year she didnt like her painting (of a Hello Kitty take off) and erased the cat prompting both me and the librarian organizer to exclaim, "Noooooo".  

We also did tie dyeing and my t shirt came out quite well. I have never done that before and it is a shame as it is quite easy. I guess to make the really impressive designs you have to be doing it for some time. But none is a loser.   

These were all great little outings which gets us doing something during the day if we dont have a reading day, which was impossible this year as my older daughter would just look at her telephone all day.  Getting out for a little trip got her off her phone even if it was just to do grocery shopping.  

I understand that you might be confused thinking that these are not "trips" in the usual sense of going on an outing, but yes and no, yes they are.  When you add up all these little trips and that we have to plan them and the clothes trips can take three to four hours, it is the same as a sightseeing trip which will take that long too.  Granted they are not really educational (well the library trips are) they are more functional.  But when you finish dinner in the night and ask each other "what are we going to do tomorrow" and I say or my daughter says " we need to do clothes shopping" well then that is the plan for tomorrow and what will take up a big planned chunk of the day. Or we might plan to get subs for lunch and that will involve a walk along the river too which is a nice planned outing.   We have to put it in the schedule just like a sightseeing trip. I think even my wife will stay home some weekends when she has to buy clothes or visit her Mothers or go to Ikea.  It is the planned weekend "trip" just like an educational sightseeing trip, but again, it is functional not so much the educational.    But let me get to the sightseeing trip(s) now in part two.  

I have said, I prefer to listen to music without singers, but it doesnt have to be electronic music.  The Avengers VI "real cool hits"  really real surf music, for instance is a classic which i listened to this time while writing. Its on Sympathy for the Record Industry (SFRI) records.  

 

Big Fat Lazy Summer (2023)

 Every summer is different.  What can I say?   Two summers ago we played Monopoly constantly in the summer.  When one game finished, we started a new one.  This summer we played one game of Monopoly

 I dont know, maybe it is taste, maybe it is age.  

Last summer I recall my daughters were sleeping till around 10 or 10.30 and I must have been rowing from 10 or so because they would be asleep when I left, but awake when I got back.  

This summer was different again.  

It had been my plan to go rowing and come back and eat breakfast and we would

have an outing from around 11am till 4 in the afternoon or something.  Maybe eat lunch out.  Well, you know what they say about plans:  Man plans, God laughs... is that how it goes? 

The thing is, my daughters were sleeping till at least noon, sometimes more, till 1pm.  Now how did that happen?  And am I a bad father for letting that happen? 

Two things.  1. I think sleep is a good thing especially for teen agers.  They also say that TOO MUCH sleep is not good for you, but I would rather err with too much sleep rather than too little sleep.  And what is too much sleep?  More than ten hours?  I dont know.  You remember that experiment where the men lived in the caves with no light and their bodys naturally slept for twelve hours? So they figured that at some point in our history, pre pre pre pre industrialization, the circadian sleep rhythms of humans was twelve hours.  So, More than twelve hours is too much.  But actually i have heard that more than ten hours is too much. They were getting 10 to 12 hours of sleep.  I was hoping their brains were growing growing growing in that time, as the brain is usually growing the most during sleep in teen agers.  You can correct me if I am way wrong.. 

2.  Its the summer.  So what if they sleep till noon or 1pm.  I mean they are missing a nice part of the day in the morning, but we arent really morning people, although that  can change. Essentially, they were going to bed around 1am and sleeping 11 hours or so.  Big deal.  If they werent allowed to get a good good sleep in the summer, when can they?  Teenagers need sleep.  Summer and sleep can go together. 

I must say that it crimped my plans of making road trips of any size besides to the grocery store or the library or small outings.  Even a movie on Sunday at 3pm had to be planned well.  But again, I say, let them eat cake, I mean let them sleep.  I am not a military type guy, rise and shine at 5am.  And, as I said, summer is summer. Summer is the time to do it the way we want to. 

My wife is the planner and "lets get up and go on the outing".  I am sort of the opposite, although I do appreciate the sightseeing and when something is organized, I wont shy from it.  But, I figure my wife will take them on some trips. We are here, and this is the sort of laid back, take it easy, do our traditions, part of the summer.  

So.... they were sleeping till noon.  We always had a good time in the evening, watching our TV, sometimes going down to the dock to watch the stars.  One daughter and I watched the meteor shower in mid August and saw 5 meteors fly across the sky.  In the darkness, the really big fish come out and jump up to catch a fly and you hear big splashes once in a while on the lake.  But the night star sky is amazing in the woods with so many stars. And ever since watching the original Star Trek series again, I have a renewed respect for the Milky Way galaxy and all that is out there, just in our galaxy.  When I look up at the night sky, I can think of it as "our" galaxy that we have to find out about. 

But back to the sleeping. So, it was rather a downtempo summer with not a lot happening, but I was not dejected.  We still did a lot.  Thanks to all who helped, including our trip to my mother who we havent seen since 2019 (largely because of covid), our trip to the state park, and of course the local branch of our public library who every year put on summer activities several times a week including rock painting and this year tie dyeing.  

 Really, the loss of the morning hours, well who knows what we would have been doing if we hadnt been sleeping? Probably just the same things as we did in the evening, besides watching the night sky. My friend at another cottage got up at 8am or earlier and he would mess around on his computer and then take a nap sometime in the day, even later in the morning. So what is the difference? I let them sleep. Leave me a note if you think I did it wrong.  

It is the beginning of the school year now.  I write this on Sunday, the last night before school starts tomorrow, on Sept 4, but I still have a couple stories from the summer I have in the pipeline. So, i hope you wont be too upset if I continue with the great summer topic where also I shine as a father (well... relatively speaking, at least a glimmer).  Next post will probably be on summer trips.  

Household name in the UK, grand composer of ambient techno.  Rerelease of the album "PINK".   Fourtet.