My wife, daughter, and I returned yesterday from a 2-week vacation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We've stayed at the same place on the shore of Lake Huron for a week or two for 26 consecutive years, and generally enjoy the time away from home. Last year I was very successful there in locating some knives I thought were interesting at flea markets and antique stores. This year I struck out completely with regard to locating "rescue knives" while on vacation. (A new development this year, though, is that the local gas station/convenience store had a small display of Chinese Bucks and Old Timers; they were overpriced, but at least some traditional knives besides some Frost folders in the hardware store were available to look at.)
But there's much more to the family vacation than knives (despite my pleadings
). Here are some photos of how I spent my summer vacation.
We always have a jigsaw puzzle going in the cottage to work on at odd moments. We usually figure one 1000-piece puzzle per week, but this year, the puzzle took almost the full 2 weeks to complete. It was a reproduction of some Van Gogh painting, and I was totally unable to help with it (except for locating edge pieces at the start). My wife and daughter always look at the part of the puzzle completed so far, point to a spot, and ask, "What piece goes here?" I work exactly the opposite way: my style is to pick up a puzzle piece and ask, "Where does this piece go?" (usually followed by my studying the picture on the cover of the box until I locate the feature/piece in question). But this stupid puzzle had only pieces with virtually NO identifying features IMHO; I can't get anywhere based ONLY on shape and color; I need to say, "Oh, that's a newt's eye at the left edge of the cauldron," or whatever. Anyway, I was proud of my family's persistence, despite my uselessness on this type of puzzle.
Lots of interesting wildlife to watch, too. This heron fished up and down our little section of shoreline almost every morning and evening.
There's a duck in the foreground, representative of the 30-some ducks that my wife eventually fed shelled corn to several times a day. Here are a few of those ducks picking up some leftover corn. One of them is not like the others; an odd duck it was!
On our final day at the cottage, 2 sandhill cranes stopped in for a visit. We've often had sandhills visit 2 or 3 times per day throughout our stay in the recent past, but this year, just the final day. There was some kind of SNAFU with our reservations, and we had to go a week earlier than we usually do, and that may have thrown off the sandhill cranes' plans.
This guy seems to have a spearpoint beak, and he should be safe from any hunters who follow the "Don't shoot until you see the whites of his eyes" approach to firing their weapons.
Here's both birds that visited:
And fish, I mustn't forget fish! Barracuda!
A 1965 Plymouth Barracuda that I spotted at the classic car show on Friday, one of many festivities associated with the Les Cheneaux Antique Wooden Boat Show that's held the second Saturday of August each year. The first car I ever bought was a 1964 Barracuda that's essentially the same style as the one I saw Saturday (except mine was black, with a pushbutton automatic transmission). Here's the plush interior of a 50-year-old car:
Here's a shot of the gigantic back window characteristic of the early Barracudas:
And, just because I really loved that first car, here's a front view of its Doppelgänger (actually not very attractive, looking back from today):
OK, now it's time for me to transition back to the real world!
- GT
) autumn tests will be a bigger challenge (NZ and SA)and I agree that clubs like Toulon , Montpellier or Racing 92 do not bring much to the national team. BTW Toulon has been fined 100 000 for having trespassed the salary cap. 
a biiiig mistake as my dad will attest to around early 1964-
