A visit from Dick & Jen

This past weekend July 16 - 19, we were honored with a visit from our good friends Dick & Jenny Orr from our old home town of Appleton, Wisconsin. They arrived  Friday evening around 5:00 and stayed until Monday morning when they had to return to their busy life in Appleton.
Dick and Jen had never been to this area of Michigan so we had no trouble showing off the area's many points of interest. On Saturday we went for a long drive through Leelanau County showing off the many cherry orchards and wineries that Leelanau is famous for. We circled the county on M-22 which winds its way north on the western side of the county along Lake Michigan to the village of Northport and then doubles back on the eastern side next to Grand Traverse Bay ending in Traverse City.
Along the way we visited a winery, made the obligatory stop at "Fishtown" in Leeland, and visited the numerous gift shops in Leeland and Suttons Bay.

After a lunch of deep fried smelt  at "Dick's Pour House" in Lake Leelanau we drove to Moomers famous ice cream shop near Traverse for a diet busting afternoon treat. (We did skip dinner Saturday evening as no one was hungry...I wonder why?)
Exhausted we fell into bed early for a "long Summer's nap." Sunday morning arrived right on time as it always does following Saturday night and we were treated to a breakfast of Teddy's famous "Swedish Pancakes". On Sunday we had planned to take them to visit the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. Teddy, Jen & I went but Dick wasn't feeling well and elected to stay home and rest.

We first visited the famous Sleeping Bear Dune climb and I was astounded to see Teddy & Jen climb all the way to the top.





From there we drove the 7 1/2 mile Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive which winds through both dune and wooded areas of the park with many point of interest stops along the way. Although the drive in itself is only 7 1/2 miles long it takes about 90 minutes at a minimum to complete it due to all the stops along the way.

At one point it looks out over Lake Michigan on a dune with a 450 foot drop to the lake.
You can climb down but signs warn that it is a very strenuous climb back up. (3 minutes to go down, 30 minutes to climb back)

The next morning we bid farewell to Dick & Jen with hugs & kisses and promises to visit again as they departed for the drive back to Appleton.
We sure enjoyed their visit and we will see them again in September when we pass through Appleton on our annual winter sojourn to the Southwest.

Kitchen Final

Two momentous events occurred over this past weekend. We finished with the kitchen remodeling on Saturday and I turned 73 years old on Sunday. Both were celebrated with much gusto and many hurrahs. 

This is a view of the completed kitchen

taken from the dining room.

Quite a difference from this pre-remodeling pict

taken from roughly the same perspective.

And here are  comperable picts of the south end of the kitchen.

New

Old

And the North end.

New

versus Old

We are very pleased with our new modern kitchen. and our heartfelt thanks goes out to our builder, Gerard Belanger for his attention to detail and his many suggestions throughout the remodeling.

If anyone here in Leelanau County or in the Grand Traverse area of Michigan needs a reliable and conscious builder we highly recommend him without reservation.

As for my turning 73 on Sunday, I'm afraid that the before and after picts are just reversed in that as the years go by the before picts seem to always look better than the after. ;-)