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| This is a french fry that we got, admittedly, at Wendy's one day. I told Dove about how French Fries have so many preservatives in them that they never mold or deteriorate. She was afixed. HOW could this BE? And so she put one in plastic and has been carrying it around with her in her pocket for a week now. No mold, still golden brown, and somehow still makes me want to eat french fries. How do they do that??? |
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| Dove, Antler and I walked around Evanston for a day and this is the view of Chicago from the water. |
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| Dove & Antler. |
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| This is the drive up to Petoskey. It was finishing up a beautiful snow storm up there and it was like driving through a winter wonderland. |
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| We actually got into town an hour early, so had some $3 margaritas. "Tart" doesn't begin to describe that taste. |
When Dove & I walked around the state park in Petoskey, we were delighted by the freshly fallen snow.
These next pics are from my other Aunt & Uncle's visit. She used to work at the nature center, which is now just starting their annual tapping of their sugar maple trees. So we headed down after our zumba class (amazing) to see the process of boiling down the maple into syrup. Real fast about zumba, though. It was a class full of ladies (and one man) who want a less-impact form of zumba, so there's a lot of older ladies in there. I was introduced to an 80 and 85 yr old. And they totally were awesome at it! My favorite part was looking in the mirror and realizing that these 80 and 85 yr olds were better at doing gangnam style than I was, and had been doing it longer. Like I said... amazing.
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| So this is the building where they boil down the maple sap into syrup. |
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| The brown section is the only place IN THE WORLD where maple syrup is harvested. We so special... |
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| Aunt EllaMarie demonstrating the use of the yoke for carrying sap back to the boiling center. |
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| Sugar Maples being tapped. |
We have more pics of this adventure, but these are what I had on my camera. It was wonderful to see my Aunt & Uncle and I'm glad we stopped there for a bit. I'm spoiled that I get to see them every couple of years, but it was nice to spend some one-on-one time with them, as we don't often get that.
As a parting gift, they gave me a CD with songs about Michigan on it. Perfect for my themed music in the car, which I'm still enjoying from Old Dog. The CD is kid's music, but it's really great- talking about maple trees, identifying different kinds of poop in the woods, how animals get ready for winter, and songs about different state parks. It's adorable. We listened to it twice and chuckled the whole time. I look forward to sharing it with some families I know.
Yesterday, Dove & I made it down to her home in Ohio, where she lives with a family (the two girls pictured below). Today we walked through the woods over to the library and a little pug ran up to us with a leash on it. We knocked on a few houses and no one knew the dog. So we went down to the park office, where this man (TERRIBLY photographed below) just fell in love with her and said he could find a home or keep her himself. Seriously, this is an awful picture of him. He seemed perfectly sane and just melted when he met Stormy (that's what the girls named the dog within the 17 minutes they knew her). I hope she has found a good home.
So I'm here for a bit, then hitting NYC to hang with old friends there before making that final 2 hour drive home. I have no idea what that will be like. I guess I'll find out.
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