Searching... Searching...

It was not a day that lent itself to pictures. I spent nearly the whole day looking for something, which spun off into other jobs. I neeeded an old computer file. I was afraid it was part of what I permanently lost two computers ago. And, I think it must have been.

I ended up finally backing up my old back-up drive. That's good. I've been putting that off a LONG time, and there is stuff on that drive I'd hate to lose. Instead of twiddling my thumbs, I did some other jobs while I was waiting for large files to be moved.

Most seriously, I got the porch cleaned off. I'd been puttering at it a bit, but today I finished except to put a few things away. I'll do those tomorrow. This was the repository of all the wood and miscellaneous pieces of the entire trailer project. The pile was a couple of feet high. I know it hasn't been cleared in 2 years, maybe 3.

Meanwhile, since I was moving all those old files, I went looking for something fun to share. Here's a Throwback Wednesday. Maybe I should say Throwback Thanksgiving. This is 2007. Not our kid, but a good friend, Josh S. He also joined us for T-day in 2013. Now, I'm happy to tell you, he is a husband, and a daddy to two wonderful little boys.

OK, so it's now 5 pm, and the hard drive is backed up, and I'm still determined to find that file. There was one other option where I might have the text from it. BINGO!

Perfect... and it's something I needed for the Vacation from DMS book. It probably would have taken me less time to look it up all over again. However, I wouldn't have backed up that drive or finished the porch. So, I guess it was a meaningful search.

See Thanksgiving 2013

Thanksgiving 2013

 
We really did Turkey Day this year. If you are going to do it, do it big, right?

Yesterday, we had a surprise gift of flowers delivered to our door. They were from Dave & Loren, who joined us for the meal today. I had a basket that seemed to fit the selection. Here's how that turned out.



I also tried my hand at something fun I saw on the internet. Wish I could take credit for thinking it up, but I'm not too proud to copy a good idea.



At the other end of the table... the serious turkey.



The people who joined us are all familiar faces on this blog. Our friend Josh, son Josh, Om, Loren & Dave (from the trail club), and Loretta. It was a pretty good mix of people and there was some lively conversation.



After we ate ourselves into oblivion we went for a short walk in the winter wonderland. I don't remember when we last got this much snow on Thanksgiving. I had to run the snowblower- that was an hour's job I hadn't planned for the schedule, but I got it done before people came! Om helped a lot with the miscellaneous final preparations and the cleanup!



We had two other helpers for cleanup detail too, Cedar and Corkie!



An exceptionally fine holiday!

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Spirit of the Woods Big M Outing 2013

 
Each year in February, our trail club has a ski and chili-eating event at the Big M Ski Area. Today we had a great turnout, great snow, great weather, and a ton of fun! I've put links to other years at the end.

The day started with incredible frost and temperatures near zero, and I'll probably show you some of those pictures tomorrow. But the day warmed, the sun shone, and it was about as nice a winter day as you could imagine.

Here we all mostly (some people came later) are in front of the warming shelter at Big M.



Inside the warming shelter, there was a cheerful fire going in the wood stove, and big pots of chili heating on top. Several kinds of cookies balanced out the meal.



I got there a little late (I stopped too often on the way there to take sparkly frost pictures), but I saw someone skiing across a clearing. I thought, "that person moves like Josh Schuyler." And I was right! We seem to run into him in fun places, like Whitehall.



There are two easy trails. I skied one of them twice and the other once, for a total of about six miles. What? You say you've never seen me actually on skis? OK.

It was a Quality Day in just about every possible way!

	See SPW Big M 2012 See SPW Big M 2011 See SPW Big M 2010 See SPW Big M 2009
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A Somewhat Spontaneous Bike Ride

 
Om and I thought about doing this yesterday, but actually got around to it today. Someone sent me an email this week, telling me the Hart-Montague Rail Trail was paved for an additional 8 miles farther south than I thought. So I wanted to check it out.

It really is paved that much farther. Apparently it has its own name, the Berry Junction Trail.



Whitehall has been creating a beautiful trail space with gardens, and an Art Walk. One of the new constructions was added last year, with this new piece of trail. It's called "Flowers Heaven Scent," and is made of metal.



Also of interest is this real flower, the Michigan Lily. Really, it's Lilium michiganense. It's similar to Turk's Cap Lily, but has more clear orange.



Om was more interested in this. The trail goes right beside Michigan Adventure, a smallish amusement park. But they do have a decent wood roller coaster. It's called Shivering Timbers.



We were about two miles from the end of the ride, and saw ahead of us a guy sitting on the pavement, talking with a biker. We got closer, and realized we knew the guy on the ground! It was our buddy, Josh Schuyler. He had broken a wheel on his inline skate, and had to borrow an allen wrench from a biker to take it off.

What fun! He skated the rest of the way back with us. He's a great skier, and uses the roller-blading as a way to stay in shape for that.



Only about 16 miles, but it was a lot of fun, and now I know about the trail extension. It just ends at a road crossing, but the ultimate goal is to connect with other trails that go to Grand Rapids, or Holland.

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