Well, we made it to Michigan minus one car, one tow dolly and one romantic notion about living in a snowy countryside! We lost the Isuzu Trooper just outside of Des Moines due to a bizarre mechanical problem Steve wasn't able to fix, so we decided to abandon it (after 2 days of trying to fix it) along with the tow dolly and continue on. He was able to leave it at the shop where they let him work on it himself and we arranged with some hopefully legit trucking company I found on the internet, to have it shipped to Michigan in the near future. We had to unpack both cars to condense the irreplaceables just in case we never saw the Trooper again and the temperature was 5 degrees! Has anyone ever seen that old movie with Ronald Reagan, "Kings Row" where Ronald Reagan wakes up in a hospital bed and starts screaming, "My legs! My legs!" when he finds out they had to be amputated? Well, that was me screaming to Steve, "My hands, my hands!" as we tried to function in single digit weather! I kept whining to him, "is this normal? Is this how it's going to be for the next four months?" but he kept assuring me it was a true cold snap and even the locals thought it was intolerable. So we stuffed ourselves in the Subaru with 
both dogs struggling to find the best real estate on my lap and finally headed east. We spent the night in South Bend, Indiana and the next morning I got to cross an item off my bucket list: walking around a beautiful east coast snowy campus. It wasn't on the east coast but that morning we walked all around Notre Dame campus and it was stunningly beautiful with all the gothic architecture and spires and arches. We had gingerbread lattes and scones in the lush bookstore watching the snow fall and I was content. Then we drove to Michigan in snow flurries, but the weather cleared just as we got there and I had an unobstructed 
view of Chelsea as we drove in around 2 pm. Chelsea is really really cute, even cuter than Steve had told me, and the library voted "Best Small Library in America" was just as advertised, adorable shops, pretty Victorians, lights in all the trees! Then we drove to the cabin! Well......there's charming rustic, and then there's barely habitable rustic. At least there wasn't a dirt floor as I had been led to believe, but it was a dump and dirty but had running hot and cold water, a refrigerator, a stove/oven, and a gorgeous view of the icy lake. We unloaded everything and went to a meeting of the Quaker board where they introduced us and we kind of got an idea of how the retreat works, then we had a dinner with fruits and vegetables! Steve and I were laughing because the whole trip was proof that a lot of mid-westerners don't know how to eat. Every breakfast that was included in our hotel was lacking fruit and when I was in an Iowa McDonalds I ordered my new love, apple dippers but the gal said they were out of them, then I ordered a fruit salad and she said they were out of those and then said, "it's winter so we don't get a lot of demand for those items" It's apples! It's not like I was ordering mangos! Then we were in a Long John Silvers (we do love our fast food, and I complain about mid-westerners!) and the huge guy in front of me said while ordering, "I don't want any of that slaw, just extra hush puppies!" Anyway, the people in charge of the Quaker retreat (who I think might not be that quakerish, but they are exceedingly nice) gave us a quick orientation of our caretaker/corrdinator duties (which amounts to giving out keys for the guest cabin and restocking toilet paper in the outhouses) and we started to make a home out of our little log cabin! It was fun to procur a lot of stuff that we knew we would just leave behind after we left and the slate was pretty blank, so with my limited ability to channel HGTV, we turned the dump into a cute abode, not magazine ready, but habitable and with the incredibly beautiful scenery outside the windows, and the fire going in the wood stove, it's really quite cozy! 
We love it! Until the morning, when we have to roll out of bed and either DRIVE to the flush toilet or trek up the hill to the outhouse! It's not that awful, it's kind of like camping, but everytime we're out and abou
t we make sure we hit all the toilets, whether we have to go or not. The dogs HATE HATE HATE the cold weather and the snow! Roxy looks at me like I've started to beat her, and poor disabled Chewy has to slither around on the snow on his stomach to go to the bathroom and I think his little weiner might get frost bite! Steve laughs at me but everytime we're outside I'm scanning the sky for predators that will grab our rabbit-sized canines with their talons and whisk them away into the trees or I'm looking in the forest for starving wolves who view poor Chewy as an injured rodent. He said it's not possible, but I've heard stories! This is the events of the first two days, and I will do another post for the last few days we've been here. I don't think the blog template likes long posts, it has erased several so I will try to break this up!
both dogs struggling to find the best real estate on my lap and finally headed east. We spent the night in South Bend, Indiana and the next morning I got to cross an item off my bucket list: walking around a beautiful east coast snowy campus. It wasn't on the east coast but that morning we walked all around Notre Dame campus and it was stunningly beautiful with all the gothic architecture and spires and arches. We had gingerbread lattes and scones in the lush bookstore watching the snow fall and I was content. Then we drove to Michigan in snow flurries, but the weather cleared just as we got there and I had an unobstructed 
view of Chelsea as we drove in around 2 pm. Chelsea is really really cute, even cuter than Steve had told me, and the library voted "Best Small Library in America" was just as advertised, adorable shops, pretty Victorians, lights in all the trees! Then we drove to the cabin! Well......there's charming rustic, and then there's barely habitable rustic. At least there wasn't a dirt floor as I had been led to believe, but it was a dump and dirty but had running hot and cold water, a refrigerator, a stove/oven, and a gorgeous view of the icy lake. We unloaded everything and went to a meeting of the Quaker board where they introduced us and we kind of got an idea of how the retreat works, then we had a dinner with fruits and vegetables! Steve and I were laughing because the whole trip was proof that a lot of mid-westerners don't know how to eat. Every breakfast that was included in our hotel was lacking fruit and when I was in an Iowa McDonalds I ordered my new love, apple dippers but the gal said they were out of them, then I ordered a fruit salad and she said they were out of those and then said, "it's winter so we don't get a lot of demand for those items" It's apples! It's not like I was ordering mangos! Then we were in a Long John Silvers (we do love our fast food, and I complain about mid-westerners!) and the huge guy in front of me said while ordering, "I don't want any of that slaw, just extra hush puppies!" Anyway, the people in charge of the Quaker retreat (who I think might not be that quakerish, but they are exceedingly nice) gave us a quick orientation of our caretaker/corrdinator duties (which amounts to giving out keys for the guest cabin and restocking toilet paper in the outhouses) and we started to make a home out of our little log cabin! It was fun to procur a lot of stuff that we knew we would just leave behind after we left and the slate was pretty blank, so with my limited ability to channel HGTV, we turned the dump into a cute abode, not magazine ready, but habitable and with the incredibly beautiful scenery outside the windows, and the fire going in the wood stove, it's really quite cozy! 
We love it! Until the morning, when we have to roll out of bed and either DRIVE to the flush toilet or trek up the hill to the outhouse! It's not that awful, it's kind of like camping, but everytime we're out and abou
t we make sure we hit all the toilets, whether we have to go or not. The dogs HATE HATE HATE the cold weather and the snow! Roxy looks at me like I've started to beat her, and poor disabled Chewy has to slither around on the snow on his stomach to go to the bathroom and I think his little weiner might get frost bite! Steve laughs at me but everytime we're outside I'm scanning the sky for predators that will grab our rabbit-sized canines with their talons and whisk them away into the trees or I'm looking in the forest for starving wolves who view poor Chewy as an injured rodent. He said it's not possible, but I've heard stories! This is the events of the first two days, and I will do another post for the last few days we've been here. I don't think the blog template likes long posts, it has erased several so I will try to break this up!
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