How We Whiled Away Saturday Afternoon

Saturday we were bored and decided to go on a self guided tour of West Branch, a town about 5o or so miles from here. It was billed as sort of a "ghost tour," but um, not so much. It was more heavy with the historical slant. Which, I guess you could argue, you are going where people used to live who did in fact die, so who's to say they aren't still hanging about haunting and such? We invited Al to come too, but she hates us and decided to stay home plopped in front of the tv. One of these days when she starts acting all butt hurt saying we didn't include her in family time, I'm gonna smack her down.


This was the first stop of our tour, the Ogemaw Historical Museum. Unfortunately, it was closed. Annie was disappointed because evidently there's some ghost story surrounding the place about a little girl, and some of her creepy doll collection is still housed there.

This used to be some big cattle ranch, they used to drive cattle from where Terry grew up, over 60 miles or so away. They used to herd the cattle right through the center of the town, it was quite a hullabaloo.

These are from an old ski run that used to be a popular place back in the 40's and 50's. Charlton Heston hung out there, or at least once so they could get a pic of him there. You can't really tell how steep it is from these pics. I suspect it's a popular party spot now, the hill looks like it would make a hella cool sled run, and well, there's that little peace sign at the bottom of the hill. It matches very well with the ode to "Weed" that's up top, but we didn't get a pic of that. :)

An artesian well type thingy, the water really pours out of it fast. I guess they kept trying to cap it way back when, but the well or whatever wasn't having any of that and the force of the water just kept blasting whatever they put on there off. It was really really cold too. We were tempted to fill up our water bottles all pioneer like, (okay, maybe pioneers didn't travel with plastic water bottles) but the guidebook advised against such foolishness. And I need to color my hair again, I can see some definite root action going on there. There was a spring or something on the tour before this stop, but there were people actually shooting up into the air in front of their shacklike house right in that area, so we skipped stopping.

We had been roaming miles and miles of sandy old logging trails in the middle of the woods, like waaaay back in the woods, like if you put the windows down you could hear the faint strains of inbred people playing that banjo music from Deliverance, and just as we were in sight of the blessed paved road that signals civilization, this deer popped out in front of us. She had a purty white tail. At least it perked Annie up. I think she was becoming concerned that we were never going to make it back, she's a sheltered kid.

This is the picture we would have gotten a couple of weeks ago if we hadn't been lazy slacker parents and had actually driven her up there. Still didn't get to see those dang train tracks going into the lake though.

Lonely little graves at the Damon cemetary. They don't know who is buried there because the carvings in the wood wore away a long time ago. The people who maintain the cemetery put up metal crosses so at least the resting places will still be marked. This part of the cemetery is actually away from the rest, back in the woods. There are a few more stones back there, but it seems pretty random placement. I'm suspecting there's a lot more graves back there that just aren't marked anymore. We of course told Annie about that and she immediately hopped onto a stump so as not to piss any dead people off by accidentally walking on them.

This is what remains of the original settlement of Damon, and we sure as heck weren't going to be able to assuage our growing thirst (Annie had sucked down the rest of our water back in the forest portion of the trip) hereabouts. So we took a vote (everyone with a uterus got one), and we decided that the tour was about four stops too long. We headed back to civilization and the land of yummy fountain giant Diet Cokes. I was just glad to see pavement again.

Randomness

I don't have any theme blogwise this week, my thoughts are all scattered about. Terry, Annie and I had a really good time Friday night. We went to the Haunted House downtown at the old Masonic Temple. (Unfortunately no pics though) It's a cool old building, some artsy fartsy society just bought it and are trying to raise money to renovate (hence the Haunted House). It was a theme thing, like you were getting a tour from these Ghost Hunters who had been there all week but sadly hadn't found anything. :) The actors who were playing the ghosts were really into it, I don't think Annie let go of Terry's arm even once. And it was nice to finally be able to see the inside of that building, I've been curious about it for years. Al ditched us that night, but she got to see a play from backstage, so she was all cool with that. And now, onto the pictorial randomness:

Demon possessed attack cat. I don't know why his eyes went all whacky. He probably won't be too happy later this week, he's got a leetle appointment with the vet's knife. None too soon for Six, because Ghost has been trying to get his Grandma groove on all week. Poor fat balding Gizmo, he doesn't even try to jump her. She might not want him, but I think she at least wants the opportunity to smack him. Oh, the rejection.

The leaves are finally changing in the neighborhood. We have a maple tree in our backyard that usually turns a pretty yellow, but it's lagging this year. I think the wacky weather has it all confuzzled. There are some pretty decent ones in the neighborhood though, all getting into their autumnal garb.

Fall is Annie's fave season, mine too. We both like to get our leaf crunching action on. Her Dad took this one yesterday, they were taking their Sunday bike ride.

For Miss T, Annie's attempt at a Formula One. She's not too happy with it, she said to tell you that you need to like something easier to make. Not sure who that is in the driver's seat.

More shameless kid pimping and killer kitten

Yeah, I'm kinda bored on a Sunday night, so a bonus blog entry. Not that I have a schedule or anything, but I had extra pics I haven't foisted upon you guys.

The sign says Happy Halloween in case you can't make it out. I think the mean looking one with the eyebrows is modeled after me. Annie sees that look a lot when I walk by and see the trashpile that is her room.

Devil Dog. He's supposed to be menacing, but um, I think he's kinda cute. I especially like his little tail action he has going on. Annie is going to be a Devil for Halloween, and we're mostly making the costume. Yeah, you know you guys are gonna be forced to look at that. Wait? Where are you going?

Hi, it's Al, and before I say anything about this monstrosity I have created I must rejoice for I am on the interwebs, oh sweet interwebs...Okay, I'm done now. So...Yeah, this didn't work out so well, his head was once attached to his body, but then there was a drunken accident so I had to resort to a toothpick...And now I know that I can't make things out of clay...But I kick total and complete ass if you hand me a couple two-by-fours and a third rate drill. Anyway, I'm done now, mom thinks I'm milking internet time, which by the way, I totally am. Kthanxbai.

Milliseconds after the last pic was taken, the stress was too much. And now it looks like a poor drunk Zombie headless clown. Hey! That would be a good band name! Also, we take the internet away when kids are evil and doing things they shouldn't. That and tv are the only things they care about.

That's a poor innocent dove feather stuck to the left side of his mouth, well, his right, but left in the picture. At least we can now definitively tell the kittens apart. This is Killer George, and the other one we have christened Chicken George, because, well, she runs away (and I'm being totally assumy with the sexes at this point, based on my background of gender stereotyping) everytime we look at her hard. Plus, she and Ghost spend an awful lot of time each night pawing at the glass that separates them like tragic separated lovers.

Using my kid for a blog entry again, because I have no talent of my own

Annie had most of this week off from school, some teacher conference thingy or whatnot. I may have mentioned in the past that she bores kinda easily. She's been pretty good about entertaining herself this time though, she got out the modeling clay and waited for her Halloween muse to strike. The results:


This is the first one she made, we're using it for a table centerpiece. Everyone gets a turn of it staring at them through dinner.

This fine fellow is Fred, Annie's monster minion. She cut up umpty leven pieces of modeling clay, mushed them together and then "stitched" him with a little plastic tool. His googly eyes keep falling off though. And I kinda think he's working the jazz hands, which makes him not so much with the scary.

What is scary though, or not so much scary as gross, is watching the cute little innocent backyard kitten take down a dove. Ewww. I immediately yelled, "Avert your eyes! Nature at work!" so of course everyone had to come running, and opine about the uckiness. George dragged the dove off to parts unknown, and is currently begging for Meow Mix at the door again. Um no, buddy, go eat your dang dove, and clean up after yourself too.

My time at Camp, by Annie

(Spelling corrected by Mom)

Dear Peoples,

I had fun at camp but the car ride was not fun. It was an hour long and I almost rode with the boys, but Madeleine had an extra seat so I rode with them. But my stuff was in Zach's mom's car. We had snacks that we ate immediately when we got in the car. Everyone did not eat lunch, but I did, even though I had a lot of snackies. I had to wait for my stuff because Zach was late. I was sad because I had to stay in Walnut Cabin. It was the last cabin in the camp and I had a rolly suitcase and I got stuck in the sand. I wanted the Willow cabin and Zach wanted the Oak. They say a white dog haunts those cabins because a town called Piper was in the same place as the camp is now. Train tracks went over the lake and the dog got hit by the train. The train tracks are gone now, only a bit of them stick out of the lake. No one knows what happened to the train tracks, one day they just fell. The dog haunts the Willow cabin because the lumberjack who owned him lived there before when it was a town. They say the dog can go in your dreams, and a lunch lady, I think, just haunts the Willow cabin. They say she got murdered there.

The food was soooo good, tasty, tasty, tasty. But our last meal, we had hamburgers, I did not like it. But I didn't starve because they had a salad bar, cereal, yogurt and applesauce. Our bedtime was 10 but we stayed up until 11. Our beds were not beds, they were mats, I think our cheerleading mats would be softer than them. The showers were very cold. One time me and Kelsey took a shower and we could see our breath.

I made a friend named Rachel. I'm going to write a letter to her.

The first night we had a campfire that ended at 9. We sang songs and played some games and they made up some skits for us. During the day we did rockclimbin, canoeing, survival skills where we were supposed to build a fort and build a fire, but our fire did not light and we didn't have a shelter because everyone was just randomly looking for sticks and nobody built it. In canoeing, me and Rachel got caught in some wires twice. We did Beaver nature where we learned about Beavers and we saw three Beaver dams. We stood on one of them and stomped and we could hear it was hollow.

On the last night we had to make up skits to answer a question, like ours was why is the eagle bald? I was Mother Nature. There was also a lumberjack auction where each cabin was a group and we had to do things like find the longest shoelace. I don't know why it was called a lumberjack auction. We won two of them--the longest lace, and Natalie had the stinkiest shoe. The lady didn't really say we won, but I know hers was the smelliest. We also made up a cheer for a cabin.

That's pretty much it. THE END

Thank you for reading peoples.

Wah!

My baby left for camp this morning, just for two days, but it's more than an hour away! She is super excited, but peeved that she didn't get put in the "haunted" cabin. Seems there's some story about how the lake the camp is on used to not be there, and there were train tracks running there instead, and some dog got hit on the tracks and now haaauuuuuuunnnts the camp, or more like one girl's cabin. And you can supposedly still see the tracks in the lake, which um, doesn't seem feasible, but hey, kids and their stories. I did make the mistake of going to the library yesterday and getting her some books about The Roanoke Colony, because she has to do a real life mystery for her next book report and I told her about that and she was all intrigued. In retrospect, probably not the best reading material for an itty girl the night before she heads off to camp in the woods for the first time. Hopefully the Croatoan will leave her alone, and instead her days will be filled with fun and perhaps spotting more exotic wildlife than what's on tap around here.

The ever elusive tree cat. They were all actually up in there, chasing each other around like squirrels.

Cat food snarfin' possum. Passably cute only because you can't see the hideous rat-like tail.

Miss T, I lit a candle for Laura today. My continued condolences to her family.