I don’t want to call us lazy, but Summer in Michigan is a good time to kick back a little, spend time with family and friends, and enjoy the weather. The hazy part was due to wildfire smoke that invaded Michigan on several occasions this summer; and we managed to throw a little crazy in too with a couple of short trips and an RV repair.

We arrived in Michigan in mid May after a stop in North Carolina. This is our first year staying in Manchester at Hidden Lakes RV Resort.

This park opened a couple of years ago and we decided to try it this year. A very nice park and we found a lot to like in the little town of Manchester.

We began the summer preparing for Faye’s high school graduation. Faye will be attending Wayne State University in late August.

A lot of celebrating the first weekend in June including Faye’s graduation open house and our 50th wedding anniversary. We very much appreciated being able to celebrate these milestones with our immediate family as well as extended family and friends. It seems as we get older, these joyous celebrations take on even more meaning.

We were treated to a family dinner at the Gandy Dancer Restaurant in Ann Arbor and presented with a beautiful book that captured so many precious memories as well as written notes from family and friends.

In a word: Overwhelmed! Our celebration will continue in September when our family is meeting us in Golden Colorado.

Later in June, we flew to North Carolina to enjoy the Ellie and Norah’s annual dance recitals which seem to always coincide with their parents’ birthdays.

In late June, we took a short RV trip to Shipshewana, Indiana. First time visiting there for us and we got to explore the area including the Amish presence.

We enjoyed a couple of concerts at the Blue Gate Theater in town. The theater is a nice indoor concert venue. We saw Christopher Cross and A.J. Croce (son of the late Jim Croce). The A.J. Croce concert “Croce Plays Croce” was our favorite.

In July, we met Cheryl and family in northern Michigan for the girl’s first trip to Traverse City, Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, and our favorite little Michigan beach town, Empire.

We all hiked the Empire Bluff Trail, enjoyed Moomers Ice Cream, and even did some cherry picking!

Cheryl and Darren were planning on continuing on to Mackinaw Island for a few days, but that’s when the worst of the hazy wildfire smoke hit Michigan and they had to cut the trip short.

August brought on the little crazy part of the summer. We discovered a problem with the RV water pump leaking fluid (antifreeze) and determined a trip to a repair shop was needed.

We contacted the Great Lakes Freightliner shop in Monroe that we used previously and they were able to schedule the repair for early August. Since we had to leave the RV there for the week, we shut everything down, packed up and stayed at Dan and Christie’s.

Freightliner took care of replacing the pump as well as a couple other maintenance items Jim had on the schedule. All turned out fine and we got the RV back in time to park it back in Manchester the day before we flew to Beth and Kevin’s for a week long stay.

Beth & Kevin got a couple days away to celebrate their 15th wedding anniversary while we stayed with Gemma. We had lots of fun with Gemma who is quite the artist!

It seems like as soon as we turn the calendar to August, the rest of our Michigan time speeds by. We will be leaving Manchester on Labor Day with a stop near Kalkaska before crossing the U.P. heading west for stops in South Dakota and Colorado. From Colorado we will head north for our much anticipated trip to the Canadian Rockies, including Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper, Alberta. After a couple weeks exploring that area, we will head south through Montana with a stop at the north entrance of Yellowstone National Park, and then on to Florida.