What does summer mean to you? I love the warmth, the brightness, the freedom. The way the whole world seems to open up and bask. When I was a kid, summer was a time for friends, activities, and travel. Lots of swimming and riding my bike and randomly knocking on friends’ doors. I always loved school, but summer was for living. When I was older, I worked in summers, too, but usually outside so I could enjoy the sun.
Now that I’m a college professor, I love teaching but still look forward to summer. It arrives on my doorstep each May like the world on a platter, and a small voice asks, What will you do with this gift? How will you earn its worth? I try my best; it’s my duty.
This year was one of my best summers yet. It started with the trip to Key West that I talked about in my last post. And then, in June, my big road trip began.
1938 Singer Sewing Machine now at The Birmingham Museum in Michigan
The idea for the road trip started with a sewing machine.
My brother dug out a sewing machine that used to belong to our mother, and our grandmother before her, and our great-grandmother before her. It was a shiny black 1938 Singer, preserved in a box with its original bill of sale. My brother contacted a museum in Michigan where my great-grandmother was from, and the museum wanted to add it to their collection. I volunteered to drive it up. So my wife and I hit the road as a sewing machine delivery service.
While in Michigan, we stopped by Detroit and caught a Tigers baseball game.
Go Tigers!
We stopped by the German-themed town of Frankenmuth and watched the mechanical dancers come out of the glockenspiel tower for a noon performance of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.”
The Glockenspiel Tower in Frankenmuth. When the clock strikes, the mechanical figures appear and perform the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The moral of that story is “pay your pest control technician or else.”
In Traverse City, we spotted a copy of Wonders of Shadow Key at the delightful Horizon Books.
Wonders of Shadow Key at the Horizon Books store in Traverse City!
Chairs contemplating the sunset in Traverse City
We hiked around Sleeping Bear Dune on the Lake Michigan shore. The dune gets its name from a sad story told by the Anishinaabe people. In the story, the sleeping bear is a mother bear who watches over her two cubs who drowned in the lake. Those cubs are a pair of islands now known as South Manitou and North Manitou.
Perfect day at Sleeping Bear Dune
Sleeping Bear Dune. It’s a long way down to Lake Michigan, and if you can’t make the climb back up, you’ll have to pay thousands of dollars for someone to rescue you with a boat.
We spent a day on Mackinac Island, where cars are prohibited and the only way to get around is by foot, bike, or horse-drawn carriage.
To get to Mackinac Island, you take a portal to another century.
Here’s the portal
We climbed waterfalls at Tahquamenon Falls.
Tahquamenon Falls
We visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum and learned about the dangerous storms that sent many ships to the bottom of the cold lakes.
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum
The Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum features some eerily lifelike mannequins. Would you visit at night?
We kayaked up close to the Pictured Rocks National Seashore and spent the 4th of July in Munising, Michigan.
Pictured Rocks National Seashore
Pictured Rocks National Seashore
My wife waited patiently while I checked this cave for buried treasure.
Pictured Rocks National Seashore
So we did up Michigan. But that’s not all!
We then drove across North Dakota and visited the brand new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, where a computer dropped us into scenes from Teddy’s life.
Enjoying my presidential inauguration
Bully!
“Driver, convey me to the Treasury, lickety-split!”
We visited our son in Boulder, Colorado and went hiking.
If you ever have a disagreement, come to Boulder and consult this sculpture.
We visited my sister in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and watched a rodeo.
Steamboat Springs rodeo
We visited my wife’s mother in Texas and played with her cat, Maisie.
Maisie the Rummikub disruptor
Texas sunset
But wait, there’s more!
My daughter’s first romance novel was published this summer, so I surprised her at her book event in The Strand Bookstore in New York City.
Hayley’s book event at The Strand in NYC
After that, my son and daughter were in Tampa for a week. We went tubing on the Rainbow River and, maybe the craziest thing of all, my daughter and I swam with mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs. We are both working on novels that feature mermaid performers, and the mermaids at Weeki Wachee were so kind and helpful. They showed us around the spring and gave us the scoop on being a mermaid, including how to breathe through a hose underwater!
Getting fitted for a mermaid tail at Weeki Wachee Springs. They had to scramble for an XL.
As you can see, I did a lot. I feel extremely privileged to journey through the country in the warmth of the summer sun, just as I am now extremely privileged to return to the classroom and help my amazing students on their writing journeys.
I’d love to learn about your summer if you drop me a note. Meanwhile, I hope you all have a wonderful start to your school year. I’ll be back soon.
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