Michigan's Bavarian Village and Christmas in July

 Spent the last couple of days exploring Frankenmuth, a small town just southeast of Saginaw. It was settled by Bavarian missionaries in 1845, looking to convert the local Chippewa to Christianity. The Lutheran Church here was founded at the same time, and the current church is a beautiful blend of old and new.

One of the beautiful stained glass windows in the church

Unusual looking Kroger Grocery Store with Bavarian timbers

Today, the town capitalizes on its Bavarian heritage with many buildings having Austrian/German architectural details – even the Kroger grocery store. 

We had afternoon dinner in the Edelweiss Room at the Bavarian Inn. 

The Bavarian Inn

 Afterwards, we sat in the adjacent plaza to watch the Glockenspiel tell the story of the Pied Piper. They didn't sugarcoat it with the Pied Piper enchanting all the town's children to run away with him when the town council refused to pay him for removing all the rats.

The Pied Piper leading the rats out of town

When the Town Council refused to pay him, he led the children out of town, never to be seen again.

We stopped at a few shops and checked out a Black Forest clock shop – we had bought one when we were Germany and the cuckoo clocks had us reminiscing about that trip. 

Another famous restaurant known for its family-style chicken dinners.

Frankenmuth Visitor Center

Just south of town is the world's largest Christmas store – Bronners. It is more than 1 ½ footfields long and crammed with every Christmas ornament available. I should have bought the one ornament that said “You can not over decorate” but instead bought a little something for my Dickens' mini Village.  

The humongous Bronners Christmas Store

Overwhelming array of everything Christmas!

They also have a pretty little memorial chapel on the grounds that is a replica of the chapel in Austria where the Christmas hymn, Silent Night was first sung, accompanied by Guitar!

 A fun couple of days in a Bavarian style village, celebrating a low-key Christmas in July.

On The Road Again - Michigan, 2019

Well, it's hot and humid in South Carolina (even exceeded 100 degrees multiple days), so time to hit the road. 

Thank you, Jill, for the wonderful sign for our RV

Camped in the Thousand Islands

After spending great family time at my brother's Canadian Cottage north of the Thousand Islands area, we headed west across Ontario, re-entering the USA at Port Huron, Michigan over the Blue Water Bridge. 

Arriving just before the 4th of July weekend, we expected problems getting campgrounds on the northern coast, so we stayed put in Port Huron, exploring the town and catching up with groceries, haircuts and other routine Stuff.

Port Huron is a town/small city with an historic downtown that is coming back to life after apparently stagnating for years - new condominiums going up and lots of preservation work on beautiful old Victorian homes and other 18th century buildings.  It is on the St. Clair River where it joins Lake Huron which separates Port Huron from Sarnia, Canada.  Lake Huron empties into the St. Clair River (yup, not the other way around), which continues south to St. Clair Lake which is then connected to Lake Erie.  The river is deep and a Caribbean blue.  Massive 1,000 foot long freighters go between Lake Erie and Lake Huron to points beyond.  We stopped at their small Maritime museum where the history of Port Huron's shipping industry is documented, including the large number of ship wrecks that have occurred here, mostly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  As a freighter goes by, a volunteer from the boatnerds (really - see boatnerds.com) announce over speakers all the ship details about length, weight, etc.  We spent a while watching the freighters and all the pleasure craft enjoying the river - only a few minutes north to Lake Huron.

Ice Axes and Ice cutters (floor) hauled by horses

We took a great little trolley ride (clean propane bus outfitted like an old time trolley) with the driver giving us lots of information about many of the historic buildings, attractions, restaurants, and life in Port Huron.  We stopped at the Knowlton Ice Museum - a fascinating small museum documenting the history of the ice industry.  We learned that originally the farmers would go down to the river or Lake Huron and cut chunks of ice for use in the summer to keep things cool.  Ice boxes became popular and as city populations grew in the late 1800's, the demand for ice created a massive industry.  The technology changed from men hand-sawing the ice, to horse pulled ice cutters (looked like plows), to gasoline engine driven saws.  Jobs in the industry were very physically demanding and dangerous - if a worker was killed, other employees were allowed to take the afternoon off.  The museum included all kinds of early ice tools, vehicles used to transport ice and even lots of miniatures and toy ice boxes, ice wagons and dolls!

Ice had to be about 10" thick

Hand saws and horse drawn saws

Many ice companies operated each with their own wagons

Icebox used in a store or business

Beautiful Icebox for a wealthy home

Not a washing machine - an Icebox that cost over $400 at the time

Electrification made home refrigerators viable and most homes had one by the 1920s
The ice industry quickly declined

Horse drawn wagons gave way to motor vehicles

The ice company's collection of old license plates

The museum had other items from the time period, like this Model T

And two rooms of these antique dolls

Coney Island Red Hots (hot dogs) are a popular, old-timed food in this area - it is an all beef hot dog on a steamed, soft bun with meat sauce, onions and mustard.  We tried them and they are good, but Jack insists they don't hold a candle to M&M's Red Hots in.... wait for it...... ELMIRA!!!


We drove to the northern part of town near the Blue Water Bridge to Canada to enjoy their park where Lake Huron empties into the St. Clair River. 

Darn sailboat captain wouldn't sail under the center of the bridge!  See all the sailboats in the distance on Lake Huron?

We said goodbye to Port Huron and drove west about an hour to get a small town campsite in Lapeer.  Tomorrow we visit the "Bavarian" village of Frankenmuth.

Monument Valley, Utah, Flagstaff Medical Center

The scrub desert now has pink sand

We drove west from Durango into desolate red rock country in southeastern Utah - absolutely my favorite!  Incredible rock formations with dramatic coloring for miles before we finally caught our first glimpse of the famous rocks in Monument Valley.

Long lonely roads with incredible views

Mexican Hat

Our first glimpse of distant Monument Valley 

We got a campsite in the same place we stayed in about 13 years ago when visiting the area that overlooks the valley.  John Wayne stayed in the adjoining motel while making multiple western movies in the area. 

We first had some thunderstorms that gave us some great shots of the valley, but then a dust storm rolled through and hazed out the rock formations.

Red rocks from our window

Tenters area

Can't decide which is prettier - our newly painted RV or the Red Rock Hill

Haze from dust storm

In the morning, we decided we were going to reverse course as the California fires were spewing smoke all over eastern California all the way into Wyoming and the extreme heat in the southwest convinced us that we should begin to head east, visiting my sister in Colorado and his brother in Iowa before heading home.  Jack wasn't feeling well with some chest discomfort that had been going on for a few days that he thought was a result of high altitude impacts on his COPD.  The discomfort turned to pain, I had him take an aspirin and we headed for the nearest medical clinic - 1/2 hour away in Kayenta on the Navajo Reservation.  They took good care of him there, but they only have a few emergency beds and no overnight facilities.  They ruled out a heart attack, but were concerned with his symptoms and enzyme bloodwork and suspected a possible blockage.  Nitroglycerin eliminated all the pain and they recommended he be transported by air to Flagstaff Medical Center. 

Those of you who have been following our adventures (misadventures?) know that a similar situation occurred 10 years ago when we were in Page, Arizona and he was transported then to Flagstaff with an intestinal blockage (6 months after his colostomy).  Everything turned out well then and everything turned out fine this time, too.  He could not be airlifted because of severe thunderstorms in the area and instead was taken 2 1/2 hours by ambulance to Flagstaff.  I got there an hour before him because they told me to head out while they still thought he would be transported by air.  They already had a room ready for him, an admitting doctor examined him thoroughly, and they gave me approval to park overnight in their parking lot. 

The next morning, the cardiologist PA spent about 1/2 hour with Jack and recommended an angiogram to determine if there were any blockages, followed by inserting a stent, if necessary.  They did the test, using an artery in his wrist, the same morning, and found one artery 75% blocked and tried to insert a stent, but had trouble with his arteries around his shoulder.  They scheduled another procedure for Tuesday morning that would use a groin insertion point that would be more direct to the heart, but a bit more dangerous.  This procedure worked, although they still had some difficulty because of calcified arteries.  He had no pain, but had to lay flat for 6 hours without moving his leg.  Everything went well, and he was released on Wednesday and we decided to head straight home so he could see his cardiologist in Summerville.  We were lucky and grateful to have found so many caring, professional medical personnel both in Kayenta and Flagstaff.

And so this will be the last post for our 2018 Summer Trip.  We are hoping to get back on the road in September to visit family and friends in New Jersey and New York and may take some time to do some leaf peeping in New England....we shall see.  Thanks for vicariously joining our trip this year!  Hoping everyone enjoys the rest of this summer.