Greetings from Macedonia, Ohio

Huh?

How'd that happen?

Okay, let's backtrack a bit.

Last post of any value was from like day 2 of vacation, right? Ugh. Over a week without posting. Not a good job on my part. All seems like ages ago. So let's see if we can recap.

Frankenmuth was great. Lovely little town, lots of neat shops and great food. Bronner's. Well, what can you even say about that? World's largest Christmas store, size of one and a half football fields...sounds like a nightmare of American excess and tack, right? Well, for all that, it's actually pretty tastefully done. Certainly kitsch, but...enjoyable in something quite a bit better than the typical highway accident/bad MTV guilty pleasure kind of way. Pleasantly surprised.

Trip to Mackinaw was not fun - Robby decided to get a 2-hour fever. Yup. Sunken eyes, howling screams, really hot...so bad that we asked at the office while checking in about the urgent care facilities in town...and then he was fine and was great the rest of the trip. No idea what was up with that.

So. Mackinaw Mill Creek Campground. An oddity to be sure. The place was HUGE, like 600 some sites. And sprawling. Took about 5 minutes to drive out of the place every morning. And bizarrely laid out. Long story short - because dad needs 50-amp hookups, their motorhome was located probably a quarter-mile or so from the trailer. So that complicated things quite a bit. Trying to get anywhere with my family and my dad's obsessive need to have a PLAN (love you dad, but it is an obsession) was certainly compounded by having to figure out who should drop who off and keep the car overnight. Messy. And the internet was HIGHLY unreliable. Which is largely what led to the absence of posts.

But we adjusted.

Mackinaw however, saw lots of highs and lows in family drama. The girls, bless their hearts, had some absolutely outrageously bad behavior. Robby also hit some new lows in 2-ism. We apologize to the citizens of Mackinac Island for the shrill screams of "MAMA" which resounded for a solid half-hour until Robby collapsed, facing the wrong way, exhausted in his stroller. I believe his screams could be heard across the straits to the U.P. Again, sorry everyone.

And I would be remiss and irresponsible if I didn't admit that the stress of all that got to me and made me act like a 2 year old at times too. But for all the stress and mess, we still managed some really good times there.

The return to the picnic spot at Whitefish Bay was nice, although quite different...and the prelude at Tahquamenon Falls was an unexpectedly big hit as well. Ate some great whitefish, ate some pasties (look it up if you don't know), found a great thing at a kitchen store called "Toad Sweat" - which is a brand of dessert hotsauce - absolutely KILLER on ice cream. Swam (or waded I guess) in Lake Huron, had some lovely campfires, and generally had a crazy, not at all relaxing, but ultimately fun, time. Continuing to lay the foundation for future trips to one day be less hectic and more spontaneous.

So, now the reason I'm in Macedonia, OH. Near the end of the week in Mackinaw, in one of the rare bouts of functional internet connection, I got a rather disturbing email, saying that the summer workshop I needed to take for my license renewal had been cancelled.

Panic time.

But the prof leading the class basically helped me work out arrangements to take the class in Cleveland instead (at very short notice for both of us) and the only option was for me to come home Monday, and turn around and drive to Cleveland the next afternoon.

So here I am.

For what it's worth, this is a great workshop I'm taking and I'm learning a ton which I hope I can integrate into my teaching soon soon soon. But it's intensive, 8-5 for 4 days. This is going to wear me out.

But, it's now quarter to 11 in a strange and not entirely nice hotel room, so I need to pack it in - another full day tomorrow.

Sorry again about being out of touch. Thanks for stopping by.

MS