Catching up!! May 26 Thursday and Friday of Mem. Day weekend

We were in a state park with no wi-fi for 5 nights and terrible connection in new one the last 2 nights.  May lose it tonight before I finish.
I had a toe on my other foot that felt was ingrown and I didn't want to touch it after the staph experience, so I got into a podiatrist Thursday in Marquette before we headed down the road.  He said a slight infection had started, so I am on 10 more days of antibiotics.  I knew I didn't want to mess around with it!

Left Ischpeming for Crystal Falls, Mich. to spend a lot of the weekend with Marie and John Brunswick.  She was Tom's secretary at King Salmon, Ak. 25 years ago.  Since it was a remote assignment, I had never met her and she was single at the time, so meeting John was neat for both of us.  He was in the AF 20 yrs and her 22 yrs and moved to within 5 miles of his hometown and the daughter attends his old high school.  It is a wooded area on lakes, much like her home state of Connecticut.  They had a beautiful log home built by his uncle - 2 stories and a full basement, plus a detached 3 car garage of logs.  It is on  100 acre lake called Indian Lake, where only 10 people live ful-time and others come often during the good weather.  We stopped at the Post Office to surprise her, but she was already off.  We had actually arrived about 2 days earlier than planned.  So we headed to Bewabic State Park where we had a very nice spot in the woods.  We drove down to the lake (Fortune) in the park a couple of times for walks and/or a picnic.  This was another park where CCC men worked in the 1930's.  They built a log bath house in 1936 and moved huge trees from one area of the park to the new picnic area.  In Mich. they built 546 bridges, 222 bldgs and planted 426,000 trees in 5-6 years.

Sign at a cemetery marker store:  Drive carefully - we can wait for you.

Recycling bins for all types are next to the dumpsters in the Mich. state parks - we hadn't seen that before.  Most deposits on bottles and cans is 10 cents each here and there are machines at the groc. stores where you deposit them one at a time and it tallies your money.  It knows whether it was bought in Mich.

All fire hydrants in this area have a 3-1/2' pole with a plastic flag on top so the firemen can find them in the winter.  It was a very mild winter here, people told us, since it "only" snowed 200" instead of the normal 300!  It has been very dry for the last 3 months all around where we've been in Mich. and the temps in the 70's and 80's that we've had don't normally arrive until the end of July.  We're loving it.

We never saw it, but it sounded very big - an owl that sounded more like Santa each afternoon about 4 and again in the middle of the night.  In the lake at the park was mama duck and her 3 babies and 4 adult geese and a dozen goslings.

We heard that the courthouse site in Crystal Falls was won in a poker game.  Iron River and C.F. argued about where the county seat should be and a poker game decided it.  Friday we were returning from driving around the area and caught her walking a route that day.  She started giving us directions for getting to their house the next day and we told her we accidentally drove by it if it was the log house with a Brunswick Ave. made up sign in the driveway.
Saturday
Stayed at park until mid afternoon because she was working.  Then to an early burger dinner and to the American Legion with them.  She wanted Tom to sing but there was a huge graduation party going on there and they stayed late and then no one could get the PA to work right.  He played a few songs but people who had been drinking a long time weren't quiet since they couldn't hear him.  We drove home at 10 through a very dark wooded area where the trees are about 80' high and create a canopy over the road.  We had our eyes peeled for deer.  John's brother counted the days for 2 years for John to retire and come home to work for him in his body shop.  They sometimes are months behind, though there are 2 other shops in this teeny town.  Basically damage is from hitting deer and hailstorms.  John has hit 3 since he moved back 5 yrs ago and he said the last 2 times he didn't have time to hit the brake at all.
Sunday
Their Am. Leg. group was putting 678 flags on the graves of veterans in their town's cemetery that morning, so we relaxed in camp before going over at 1:00 to watch part of the race and bbq.  Then they took us out on their pontoon boat, which his uncle sold to them for $1 dollar.  We saw one of the bald eagles that lives on the lake.  They said many times they've seen them swoop down over the water and in seconds pull up a big northern trout.  We returned to camp early evening and a family was walking.  A girl about 3 saw the flag Tom had attached to the back window and said "Mommy, that's the flag I like."  Mommy said "Yes, honey, our whole family likes that flag."
Monday-Mem. Day
Their Am. Legion chapter put on the memorial service at the cemetery, which was very moving.  No one had taken pictures of their honor guard or anything for years, so Tom made a disk full and we mailed it to them a couple of days later.  Went to the hall for lunch with them and took pic of the officers for the newspaper.  Said our goodbyes and went to the laundromat in the afternoon and back to camp.  They are neat people.  Tom gave me a card today that talks about life's journey and one of the signs is a long road trip.  It's cute.  He went through and checked off almost everything on it, as it applies to us.