Arrival in St. Ignace

 We are here! The annual North Country Trail Celebration for 2024 has begun in St. Ignace, Michigan. The whole weekend will be crazy good. Lots of hugs and back slapping from "my tribe," discussions, hikes, programs, and workshops.

The very first event was a roundtable with the National Park Service staff. Here is our superintendant Chris Loudenslager answering questions.

And the Trail Manager Ken Hendrickson, with other staff behind him, explaining more about what he does.

We got here just in time to check in and get to the NPS Roundtable. Then we went out to dinner. Diane and Marie split a wet burrito. This is memorable due to the fact that what you see here is HALF of the wet burrito!

Then we went to the state park and set up our campsite. St. Ignace is a nice small city. Their street plantings are exceptional.

And it's the one place on the trail where it follows Lake Huron. It was a beautiful day, and the whole weekend is supposed to be nice. Blue water, and a free view of one of the ferries on its way to Mackinac Island.

OK, I'm still working on the program. Glad it's not until Friday!

See The Slave Driver

The Slave Driver

 Diane and Marie arrived about 4:30 pm. I did feed them a decent dinner.

But after we ate, I put them right to work! (they volunteered). Because of course, I'm in full-blown panic mode to be ready to leave tomorrow.

Gotta go!

See Trail Promotion Confab

Filler Flamingo

 I am in full-out panic work mode to get the program done for the Celebration. I found another as-yet-unposted flamingo. This is the "silver strutter." #39

OK, back to work.

See Dinosaur Flamingo See Flamingos

Bye-Bye Blueberry

 The morning began with a little more rain and still a gray/silver Lake Superior.

I made enough money that I treated myself to a piece of wild blueberry pie. They make and sell I-don't-know-how-many hundreds of pies for the event.

And by the end of the day, the lake had turned to blue!

Bye-bye blueberry!

Author friend Jean and I came to the festival together. She dropped me at my house a little before 10 pm, and she has 2 hours yet to drive to reach her house. But it worked really well to do this together even though her van was packed really solid. We knew we got along quite well, but this was a further test of that since we spent even more of our "off working hours" time together.

I sold out of several books, and this may be my best show ever. Only negative is that three full days is tough.

Tomorrow I have to leap into work mode since I am NOT ready for the upcoming NCTA Celebration this next weekend.

See Festival Fun

Festival Fun

 Today was very busy, which is good! But I could hardly leave my booth except for fast bathroom trips. I managed to catch a few pictures of the entertainment.

These guys have a cute act with a bunch of corny jokes which make you think they are rather inept, but it's part of the act and they really are good jugglers.

They even juggled flaming batons.

The "minstrel" was the same guy as last year, but he really does a great job of entertaining and involving the kids. I think perhaps some of the entertainers are regulars at the festival. Not saying that's a bad thing. He got almost all the kids on stage doing things with him and praising them for whatever they did. It was fun to watch.

I did really well again, but it was a long day. (Two days in a row of 9-5 plus set up and close up.) Jean and I ate a quiet dinner at the beach. The weather was really nice today, and tomorrow is supposed to be ditto.

We only go until 4 pm tomorrow. But then we have to break down and drive home. I'm selling out of several books. I'll have to place an order as soon as I get home! Bad internet service tonight, so I'll quit.

See Quit Clownin' Around