City of Gold

Northwest Michigan had a good dose of lake effect rain showers this past week. The sun would be shining and in would come a 2 minute burst of rain, then sunny again. While driving home the other day, I came upon the attached view so I pulled over (or maybe I didn't pull over...) and got the shot. If you look close, there is a leprechaun sitting on the entrance gates to the town.

Trail Head

The Donna Tree

the Donna tree

My mom advised that she wanted her ashes to be placed where children play so yesterday Bird and I ventured downstate to the D to help do that with my sister and her family. The Greening of Detroit organization was doing a tree planting near a recreation center (lot of trees planted) so we had a tree planted in my mom's name with her ashes helping fill in the soil.  

Even in death my mom is helping others.

Trail Head

Bird was morale dog for the diggers

Names - John and Michael have left the building

While attending the local high school's football game Friday, I was perusing the rosters for the two teams. Very small rosters at that; the visiting team had 19 players listed and it looked like less than that dressed, the home team not many more. My pea brain glanced at the names and one thing jumped out at me, the common names I grew up with (John, Mike, Jim, Jeff, Tom, Dan, Steve, Eric, Al, etc...) seem to be slowly becoming extinct. There is a Tim listed below but he goes by 'Timmy' so he must get his ass kicked quite a bit.

The home team of funky first names took the victory for those keeping score at home.

Trail Head

Salmon Camp - blind squirrel catches one (and gets caught in the battery console)

Al and Gus ventured north this week to join me in the fall tradition of attempting to catch the salmon heading upstream. The streams/rivers themselves had fish to see but none caught by our posse. The lakes/bays, however, gave up the attached. The king salmon was taken out of Betsie Bay just minutes after we had the trolling rods out. Gus got the second fish, a coho salmon, out of Crystal Lake. 

On a funny/sad note, while fishing, we discovered what we thought was a (singular) squirrel/chipmunk making a home in Al's boat, specifically in the battery console area. Our thoughts were correct, however, it wasn't just one squirrel/chipmunk, it was three of them. We believe they made the entire trip from downstate. We tried our best to get them to flee, leaving the console door open with a trail of nuts. When Al and Gus left, I saw one below where the boat was that unfortunately didn't make it. Hoping the best for the other two furry travelers.

Trail Head

Striving to be Grand Poobah

While it might not be the equivalent of the secret handshake/men's only Water Buffalo club that Fred and Barney partook in back in the day (the episode where Wilma and Betty dressed as men to investigate the club was a classic), I recently became of member of the local Eagle chapter. Instead of the Grand Poobah, there is the Worthy President. Women are allowed. The pledge/initiation is more or less "be cool to others and don't be a dick." The benefits are a nice place to grab a beverage/meal when the tourist season kicks in high gear. The Worthy President who was reciting the pledge for me to repeat I thought was going to pass out as he had some serious cotton mouth while talking. Get that man some water.

Worthy Tim out.

Trail Head

Bird's Designated Belly Rubber

The town where I reside has quite a few retirees walking the streets in the morning. My dog Bird will normally just watch them all walk by except for one; her designated belly rubber. One walker who comes past the house pretty much at 8 AM each morning, give or take a few minutes, approached me and asked if she could pet Bird. Said belly rubber and her husband live a few blocks from Lake Michigan I learned so pet away, just leave that sweet house you have to me when you leave this funky planet we live in. 

So every morning at around 7:50 AM or so, you'll see Bird sitting right next to the curb waiting for her belly rubber, wagging her stump tail like a Pavlovian dog drooling as the belly rubber approaches with treats, some dog talk and about a five minute rub. 

If Bird could smoke, she would as she always looks like she just made woopee after the belly rubber leaves.

Trail Head

 

Frontier Rider

The tour headed west this past week to pedal Curt Gowdy State Park outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming and get a glimpse of southeast Wyoming. 

Home base was Cheyenne which tops Denver's "Mile High City" designation by about 1,000 feet in elevation. The "Mile High and some change City!!" The lungs were feeling all 6,000 feet on the trails but a beautiful park Mr. Gowdy has named after him. The visitor center has a bunch of pictures of the legendary broadcaster fishing and hunting with sports legends, celebrities and presidents from the old "The American Sportsman" show back in my youth. He was a sportsman for sure; kind of reminds me of my friend Rob with the many hunting/fishing expeditions he's been on. I attached a short clip of my pedal at the bottom of this post. Take note of baby rider at about the 1:37 mark. Hold on tight son!

The city of Cheyenne has some good people. It must be the cowboy thing but local establishments allow customers to "get one for the road" so out came the paper cups (big gulp size), in went some jungle juice booze or whatever and off went a happy customer. Yee-ha and heads up drivers! And no, I did not partake.

As far as airport fun, with my new hip I was able to get my crotch grabbed going to and coming from Cheyenne; so I had that going for me.

Trail Head

Looking for Gold in the (dune) Hills

My Monday morning trot around the beach has one constant, the two fellas pictured, searching for anything and everything that may have dropped out of the pockets of the many beach-goers over the weekend. Not many people are bringing priceless jewelry to the beach (and leaving said priceless jewelry) so guessing the two bring home a couple bucks in change each Monday. My theory is their wives bought the metal detectors for them to get them out of the house.

Laugh as I may, I'll probably join them in a few years after I pack up my belongings and stop working full time.

Trail Head

1984 - The Year of Eating Free

A little different version than Orwell's 1984 with Big Brother being replaced by Big Mac but 1984 was the year one of the fast food chains had the Olympic spirit in the form of a scratch off card that presented an Olympic event when scratched. If the U.S. takes first, second or third in that event, free food for that card holder! 

Said Olympics were boycotted by 15 countries (I looked it up), with the old Soviet Union leading the charge. With that, the U.S. dominated with close to 200 medals overall. Mix that with the stack of about 30 scratch cards the ladies at the local establishment would give us each time we came in and we had ourselves a feast; with a splash of gluttony. We were still in high school though, so I could polish off a 20 piece nugget without breaking a sweat with room for more.  

U.S.A.

Trail Head

BREAKING NEWS!!!

I hate the way the national news throw out the BREAKING NEWS logo when they are reporting something that was known hours ago, but they need us attention-deficit individuals to not change the station so they throw it out whenever possible.

Well, in the spirit of that process, I give you breaking news from the smallest county in Michigan. Taking away from the regular news in town of where to put the beach bathrooms (going on about three years now for that one), the breaking news in town are the installation of the new pickleball courts!!! I've never played the game but it has quite a following with the many 60-plus-ers in town.

https://www.recordpatriot.com/news/article/frankfort-opens-four-new-pickleball-courts-market-20771151.php

Way Back Machine - baseball 'games'

In the spirit of baseball season and the year the Tigers are having, we take a ride in the way back machine to the 1970/80's when kids like myself improvised for baseball practice when little league was down with games such as:

pickle

The game was pretty simple, and quite stupid looking back on it. You placed two bases apart about the distance between the bases in baseball. Two people have their mitts on and guard each base while throwing the ball to each other. With this going on, one person runs between the bases attempting to get to one of the bases without being tagged. If he made it, I can't remember if we switched places or that person stayed and was king until called out. 

There was no umpire to call safe or out so debates were also part of the game as I recall. "I touched your shirt!!" "You did not!!!" 

I don't recall these games lasting long.

500

A simple game of one guy hitting baseballs to a flock of kids and every man for himself in catching one of the hit balls and accumulating points. The first to 500 wins. I'm going off of memory so probably off in some regard but recall fly balls being 100, line drives 200 and grounders 50. If you dropped the ball, points were deducted accordingly. 

As with pickle, there was no umpire so debates/rationalization happened. "It didn't touch my mitt so that is not a dropped ball!!"  "No way was that a line drive!!!"

1/2 field/pitcher's mitt out/ghost runners

Sometimes a combination when you don't have enough people for a full field of players, you designate second base as the median line and the batter can only hit to one side of the field or the other. Instead of a first baseman, fielders throw to the pitcher before the batter reaches first base for the out. If you're having a good inning, you get to use the famous "ghost" runner and bat again. 

Thankful cell phones didn't exist during this time.

Trail Head

new sign for Bird and evolving into 'get off my lawn' guy

I live on a street that has no speed limit signs and a few speeders from time to time. While I haven't achieved rake throwing status that my dad did in slowing down the select few (yes, he used to throw rakes at speeders), I will make the widest and slowest turn ever on the lawnmower into the street if I see someone chugging down the road. Funny thing is, the speeders are the grandmas of the area. The Seinfeld bit on old drivers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24psdnXhsEk) rings true.

I have an invisible fence in the yard and my dog Bird will lay in the shade right at the border of the fence line so I had the local print shop make the attached sign. It at least makes people slow down to read it (and see the coolest dog) so it works.

Trail Head

Skegemog 2025 - changing species in the live well, giggling at Rundgren lyrics and JVic takes the weekend

The 2025 Skegemog Invitational is complete. No team battles this year as individuals and individual team boats were up for the big bucks and bragging rights for biggest fish. 

The team boat competition on Saturday morning was fierce as the Al C. boat 'only' brought in four keepers, however, those four had more poundage than the five out of my boat so Al's team took the money. 

Saturday afternoon/evening's fish session brought about some challenging winds but the JVic/Gus combination resurrected their 2000-something jigging magic to bring in a 14+ pound bag.

Jim M. was on both winning boats for poundage and brought in a 3+ pound pike for the biggest fish of the weekend (whole lot of 2+ pounders but not many jumbos).    

As far as entertainment, the Todd Rundgren reference to "Leroy, boy" in the "We Gotta Get You a Woman" song will forever at this point make me laugh for no reason. 

Also entertaining was a group within our possie (who shall be nameless to protect the innocent) that claimed they caught a smallmouth bass, put it in the live well, checked on it a few minutes later and it was now a largemouth, The three guys that were in the boat confirmed but fellow fishermen were skeptical.

Trail Head

future angler

Mountain Bike Patroller Revisited - marital bliss

While it's been a few years since I donned the mountain bike patroller jersey, you can take the jersey away from the patroller but can't take the lessons learned on the process. Case in point Saturday evening as I was pedaling home on the bike path from a local establishment. About 100 yards in front of me past a few elderly ladies I see what I thought was a bicyclist go down as all I saw was aluminum in the air. Upon closer inspection, it was a 70-something man on his walker; off his walker. The two ladies and I got him up and besides a nice skin scrape on his forearm, he seemed okay but guessing he was going to be in some pain the following morning as falling on a paved path hurts, no matter how young/old you are.

We managed to get a hold of his sister who lived down the road and came to pick him up. While waiting, I asked the man where he was coming from and he replied Elberta, about two miles away from where we found him. His walker was one of those that had a seat. My mom had one of those and they are made for individuals that need a rest every 10 yards or so. With that, I was shocked that this frail man had made it this far. Upon further inquiry, he revealed that he and his wife had a fight, "I told her I was leaving," he said. You made it this far in life with your wife, why fight now but have seen fighting couples who seem to live for the fight so enjoy the bliss.

Trail Head

Police Logs - a lot of suspicious situations

The local paper in the metropolis I live in (it's the smallest county in terms of land area in the state) publishes the police log regularly. A lot of suspicious situations being reported:

The log title is the click bait 
but after clicking you get...

yes, there was a breaking and entering 
and that is all the information you get

nothing good happens after midnight

to the kid who got busted for the truancy, 

it's tough to skip school when you have 30 

kids total in your graduating class 

seven total 'suspicious situations' if my count if correct - 
it's either the many elderly in the area calling them in or
crystal meth morons on a bad high

the minor in possession was probably
the kid skipping class

angry person at 9AM
is not good