Goodbye to friends and family in the US when I leave for Egypt; goodbye to friends in Egypt when I come to the US for a visit (or an evacuation!). Goodbye to friends in one place when I go to another. You get the idea.

Most of the time I can jolly myself out of the poignancy of the farewell by focusing on the good time ahead. It doesn’t always work so well when you have children who hate to say goodbye as much as their mother does or when you aren’t exactly sure what you are supposed to be focused on next.

Life is still uncertain.

Ah well, I have nothing to complain about really. Just feeling a bit blue because summer is once again over and we are still adrift.

Today we’ll focus on enjoying the beauty of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan – a relatively easy task given what I’ve seen so far.

So, instead of worrying about things I can’t control, I am distracting myself with fun stuff.

This week we stopped at a place I have passed countless times on my way up and down the North Shore: Kadunce River. Now that I’ve been, I can’t imagine why I waited so long to investigate.

There is a nice trail along the river that eventually connects up to the Lake Superior Hiking Trail system. We didn’t go that far, but you can believe that I’ll be back.

The children were more interested in playing in Lake Superior where the Kadunce River empties into it – it was a windy day and the waves were impressive.

I know it looks more like the Atlantic Ocean here, but you’ll have to take my word for it – this is actually Lake Superior. A man who arrived as we were leaving, wearing his wet suit and carrying a surf board! I can only imagine how frigid it must have been on such a windy day, but that didn’t deter my children one little bit. I had goosebumps just sitting on the shore watching them!

Have a great weekend – I intend to…

I’ve had lots of people asking me what we will be doing next, after our summer vacation is done. Short answer: I don’t know. My husband is still working on finding a new job in America and what I do will depend on how that works out. If he gets one, we’ll all stay; if he doesn’t then we’ll have to quickly regroup and decide out next move. I’d like to know more for the sake of the children than myself, but right now I’m doing my best not to think about it too much – I’ve had more than enough stress in my life in the last few months without stewing about situations I have no control over.

In the meantime, we’ve all just been hanging out and doing the things you do in the summer in the north woods: skipping stones on the lake, hiking, and berry picking. Not a bad way to pass the time actually…

Yesterday was a hot, still day. The only attractive activity was to go swimming. Lake Superior was so flat and calm that even I got in for a while.

Okay, I’m only in up to my knees, but I stood there for close to 45 minutes! A personal record!

And look how clear it is. Rarely have I seen the big lake so utterly calm. It looks more like I’m standing in a big puddle than a Great Lake!

I guess I should have known by the way the lake was behaving that something was going to happen. There was a tremendous thunder storm last night – my dad’s rain gauge measured 3 1/2″ in a few hours.

This is how the county road to his house looks on a good day – and I still managed to rip off the dirt guards on the bottom of my car.

This is how the county road looks after a hard, thorough rain. There was no way I was getting out this morning in my little car. There were a couple of creeks washing it out in a few places!

Is it any wonder I didn’t get out as early this morning as I normally would have? I am only lucky that the vigilant and conscientious county grader was out early to come and try and smooth out the worse of the run off before I did actually venture out.

There is more rain in the forecast but fingers crossed it will pass us by this time and give us a little time to dry out!

What should arrive when he does but a heat wave and a blanket of fog.

Anxious to be out and about after sitting on planes for two days, we went out anyway. The fog gave an interesting layer of mystery to places I’ve seen many times in clearer weather.

(Click any image to enlarge)

Though it was damp, it was quite a lot cooler down by the lake in the swirling fog.

It was actually a bit foggier in person than this picture would give you to believe!

It’s always amazing to me to find plants and flowers growing out of stone in what is a rather harsh environment. These must be hardier flowers than they look to be!

You know it’s been a wet year when there are not only flowers but wild strawberries growing on the rocks!

They were pretty plump and juicy for having grown on a rock too – yum!

Saw this gorgeous flower out there too but have no idea what it is. Anyone?

It’s not supposed to rain so I guess we’ll just go about our business and enjoy ourselves. I doubt the children will complain it our plans center around swimming rather than hiking!

I missed getting pictures of the couple of wolves I’ve seen on the gravel roads in the area as well as the large black bear that wandered out onto the highway in front of our vehicle as we drove to Canada last weekend. I haven’t gotten any pictures of the doe and twin fawns who come around every day either.

I haven’t been totally unprepared however. I did get a picture of this cool stone figure near the harbor in town.

There were probably 50 stone statues of various shapes in the same little area. They were amazing to see and examine but it was difficult to get a good picture of them all because they also blend so nicely into the larger rocks upon which they sit. I loved the little man above because he was so nicely proportioned and had a round head!

Ten little ducks went out to play…

The mama duck was herding her ten babies around the shallow edges of the rocks in the harbor. She didn’t seem to mind the picture taking and it was certainly safer than getting up close to take a picture of a wolf or bear!

My step-mother continues to feed the foxes in her yard, but this year’s litter isn’t quite as tame as last year’s. They have started coming close enough to the house to be entertaining though. I practically had to run one over to get out of the drive way yesterday morning!

I interpret the above pose as an “No fair, Mom!” moment.

Last but not least, a big happy birthday to my own daughter who is 11 years old today. Where on earth does time go??? All in all I’m very glad that human children don’t grow up as quickly as babies in the wild, but time is still going a little too fast for my liking…

I am quite proud of myself for (mostly) mastering the art of driving a five-speed manual transmission though I still don’t love coming to a stop at the top of a hill (or even a small incline!) but I still prefer to walk to my destination when possible. Walking not only keeps you in shape, but you can also go a lot of places on foot you can’t get to in a car with the added bonus of never having to worry about finding parking. Walking also burns calories while driving burns fuel – which is getting more expensive by the week.

I particularly didn’t miss the maintenance and repair aspects of car ownership. I bought myself a car in Ohio because we didn’t live in a place that was totally walkable (which is pretty much most of the US) but I bought an older car because I didn’t know how long we’d be staying. I am really quite pleased with my little car, in spite of its advancing years. If you had seen what I was being shown when I was shopping, you would be impressed to!

There will be maintenance issues with any car, but particularly one that is a decade old. The first quirk I noticed was the car’s insatiable appetite for oil. It doesn’t burn oil, it just sort of absorbs it. I checked with the mechanic where I’d had the oil changed and apparently Volkswagon issued a technical bulletin saying that it is normal for the car to use 1/2 quart of oil every 600 miles. Hmmm… that is a definitely a quirk to be aware of! However, in the process of being a responsible car owner and checking my oil level after my long drive to Minnesota, the plastic sleeve of the oil dipstick snapped off. It would happen while I’m far from civilization! I’m now driving around with a wooden dowel plugging the dipstick hole until I get the part sent up to me.

All in all, if it were practical, I think I’d stick to using a kayak for transportation: no fuel costs and only two parts to worry about – the paddle and the body of the boat. Very simple to maintain on the whole. If you are in a kayak, you’re not likely to end up driving over a large hump of gravel left behind by the county grader and rip off a plastic dirt shield from under the engine, which in turn will lead to several days of picking up pieces of plastic from the ditch along the road to find the parts serial number. Nope, not likely to happen in a kayak.

Now all I need to do is buy a house by a large body of water in a town on a harbor…

I admit that my years living in the Middle East have left an impression on me – I don’t always follow the rules if there is no one around to enforce them! In my defense, I wasn’t the only one parking on the side of the highway and walking into the park around the barrier.

We’ve been to this park a number of times but I never get tired of visiting. What could be more pleasant on a warm day than a walk along a river?

It’s been a wet year so far and the river is really high. This spot, at the lower falls, is normally a place we’d spend a little time, rock hopping and exploring, but many of the rocks were submerged and the mist was flying thick off the waterfall. It was difficult to take any pictures before the camera lens was covered!

The upper falls along the river is called the Devil’s Kettle – so called because the river plunges down a hole on the left side and, so they say, no one knows where it goes. In years past I’ve been able to walk on the rocks right up to the edge of the hole and look down. Not this year!

There is always something new and interesting to see, like this butterfly buffet!

I don’t know what kind of butterfly this is, but it sure is pretty.

The trail in the park area isn’t so very long (though you could keep following it – eventually you’d end up either in Duluth or Canada!) but it can be challenging. You basically walk in and out on the same trail. The stairs don’t seem so bad going down, but going back up all 176 of them is a bit more work on the way out!

I know there are 176 because I had my daughter count them – 2x! Mwhahahahaha…

What could be better after a long walk at a river than lunch and then a swim in Lake Superior? Not much, particularly on a day when the lake was still and fairly warm. It was up to about 60F where we were. The kids ran in and splashed happily for about an hour while I sat on shore on a large, hot rock.

Our outing on Friday was made that much more sweet by a weekend filled with rain. I’m glad my car has heated seats, but I never expected to still be using them in July!

On the up side, keeping track of my food and liquid (that is the real downfall for me) intake for a week was a great reminder to be more aware of consumption and thinking about how many calories I was consuming was a good incentive to get out and get active. I even started walking 4 miles a day which certainly didn’t hurt a thing. I lost a couple of pounds and I felt better both physically and mentally.

Realistically, I am not going to keep track of every item I put in my mouth when I’m traveling and on a dial-up internet connection. In truth, I guess I just don’t care enough.

I told my sister my tale of woe and she suggested I just buy bigger pants. It’s a good thing that I left some of my larger jeans there last year because I have the feeling they are going to come in handy…

The children and I have done many long haul trips together, but primarily by plane. This year we are driving up to the north woods of Minnesota since we are already on this side of the Atlantic Ocean and we have a car. I told the kids that it would be better than flying – that we’d be able to make our own schedule, eat what and when we liked*, and I even borrowed a dual screen portable DVD player for them to simulate that plane experience (which is more than I ever had on our long drives from Louisiana to Minnesota when I was a child we didn’t even have air conditioning or radio for many years!)

I also told them we’d have more space in the car. I may have misled them a bit on that count. A Volkswagon Golf hatchback holds more than you’d think, but not quite as much I’d like. Every square inch of space is taken, including the back dash and the floor space in the backseat. On the up side, no one will be reclining the front seats into their laps, the kids have about twenty new-to-them movies to watch, and all the other stuff I told them is true – we can eat when and what we want, *provided of course I can find anywhere to stop in the rural areas we’ll be passing through.

I expect the drive to take between two and two and a half days. I used to make the 19 hour drive between Kent, Ohio and Baton Rouge, Louisiana in one shot back when I was in grad school by leaving at 3am, but I think if I tried that now, I’d have a mutiny on my hands. Besides, I’m not 22 years old anymore. One benefit to air travel is that someone else is doing the driving so you can nod off if you wish!

Given the limited nature of the internet connection at my father’s house, I may post a bit irregularly in July and August. That’s okay – it’s summer and I’m sure you have better things to do than haunt my blog anyway, right? I’m sure I’ll be around at least a couple times a week though – after three years of blogging, I’m well and truly hooked on it!