SUTTONS BAY

June 1-7, 2006

We decided to grit our teeth and do the very long drive from Toronto to Suttons Bay, Michigan all in one day. 

We got a nice early start and, since we had some Canadian money I decided that we would stop at the last town before we reentered the US so I could buy some groceries and use up all of our Canadian cash.

This worked out well and I was able to spend all of the foreign currency so I didn’t have anything left over.  Good!  Plus, I got food for our stay in Sutton’s Bay because we weren’t sure what there might be there in the way of grocery stores.  Groceries in Canada were very expensive though, so I had to work hard to get bargains.

We proceeded to the border, over the bridge and then here came the reentry.  Oops!  What was I thinking!?  Of course we can’t bring in beef or lamb (mad cow), poultry (bird flu) or citrus fruits.  This cost us an hour and a half sitting in ag waiting for our inspection.  The fellow was very nice, and quite apologetic.  I had showed him my time stamped receipt.  He took what he had to, but was good about giving us the benefit of the doubt.

On our way again, we beelined for Michigan and made it to Sutton’s Bay by about 5pm. 

Our exchange house is right on the water.  What a beautiful view out the window, blue sky, blue water, green shore.  We explored around and found our bedroom upstairs with the same gorgeous view.

We spent the next week just chillin’ by the lake, taking nice bike rides on quiet, green Michigan roads, and exploring the peninsula a bit.  It was a very laid back and restful time.  Don got caught up on matching photos to the reports and I read a couple of books and worked a couple of puzzles.  The weather was quite nice.

We had a very active bird community in our back yard.  There was a family of swans, including mom, dad and 7 little goslings.  They would make their way around the edge of the bay looking for snacks.  Also we had two families of wild geese, one with two chicks and one with four chicks.  They would waddle along the shore nipping at various invisible somethings.  Sometimes they would nestle into the sand for a cozy, warm nap.  There were duck families, starlings, wrens and a number of other birds on the shore.  They all provided hours  of mellow entertainment.

The last night of our stay we invited our hosts, Jeff and Maria Pasche, over for wine and snacks.  They are a fun and interesting couple and we had a nice visit and interesting discussion.

The next day we packed up, cleaned up and headed out early with the target of getting to Ludington to catch the ferryboat across Lake Michigan to Wisconsin.