Where are Cheryl and Dennis?

2023-8-22 Europe Here We Come

8-22-2023 - It is 4:30 in the afternoon and we are sitting in Chicago O’Hare airport waiting to check-in for our 9:45 flight. Arrived here way early and we could not check into our flight. I guess you can arrive at the airport TOO early.

Why are we here? We are going to Europe! The plan was to do this trip in fall of 2020 but as we all know travel was not recommended or for that matter very safe at that time because of Covid.

Our original plan for this summer was to drive to Alaska with the camper. But after learning that Alex and Monica were planning an extended stay in Romania in the fall of 2023 we flexed and changed our plans to go there when they were there.

We will be starting our trip by taking a 15 day Eastern European tour starting in Prague. We are going about 4 days early and staying at the home of Jan and Alexandra Gal. Their daughter Sandra is a pro golfer and we hosted her and her dad at our house when KOHLER hosted the 2012 Women’s Open golf tournament at BLACKWOLF Run. We were invited to stay with them at their home in Prague if we ever made it to Europe.

At the end of our 15 day tour we will be going to Bucharest in Romania for 6 days and rendezvous with Alex and Monica. We have booked an Airbnb just outside of old town and are excited to explore some of Monica’s home country.

We splurged on business class seats and while waiting for our flight were able to hangout in the business class lounge. Was that nice! There was a selection of salads, snacks and drinks including beer, wine and hard liquor. We are flying Lot Airlines to Warsaw then another short flight to Prague.

Our flight to Warsaw was very nice. Just a few spots of mild turbulence. It was nice to have lots of room and seats that adjusted to beds. At the Warsaw airport we deplaned onto the tarmac and took a bus to the terminal. Same process getting on. This was a new thing for us. We also had to go through security again. I guess because we were going on to another country. We arrived in Prague on time around 5:30 on August 23. I had scheduled transportation to the Gal’s house with Welcome Pickup. The driver spoke English and was very courteous.

Sandra, Jan and Alexandra (Sasha) welcomed us and showed us to our accommodations. They have a separate apartment in the lower level of their house that they used to rent out which was where we stayed. We then joined them for a delicious supper of steak, potatoes and salad. After chatting for a little while Dennis and I headed to bed. It was a long day.

September 16,2022 - On Friday we left home headed to the Michigan “thumb” to participate in another two week 29er’s Work Mission. We originally planned two days to get there but left a day early to take a slight detour to visit friends camping at Richardson Lake Campground near Wabeno WI. After an uneventful ride we arrived at the campground mid afternoon. We spent the rest of the day visiting with Tim and Kathy and catching up. We went to Shelleys Windfall Inn for supper.

Saturday morning we left headed for the north shore of Lake Michigan. We stopped briefly in Escanaba to enjoy a pastie from Dobber’s Pasties, a breakfast pastie for me and a pizza pastie for Dennis. Our plan was to stop at Lake Michigan National Forest Campground. It is a nice place but really close to the road with lots of road noise. This time we opted to stay at Big Knob State Forest Campground. It is a 6 mile drive on a gravel road to the campground. We were able to get a site with direct access to the beach. Mica had fun exploring the beach and chasing seagulls.

The next morning we continued on our way, our destination, Sebewaing Mi and Bay Shore Camp and Family Ministries. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge and continued south on I-75 toward Bay City. We exited I-75 near Alger to avoid a traffic backup. The detour probably didn’t save any time but it was better than sitting in stop and go traffic. Arrived at Bay Shore Camp, picked out a camp spot and set up. We wandered over to the dining hall and found some other folks from our group and spent some time chatting and catching up.

At the 29ers project in Maine that we went to last year our members had to provide and cook all the meals. This camp has a chef and we were able to enjoy a nice dinner in the dining hall before we all gathered to discuss the work we would begin on Monday.

Bay Shore Camp provides faith based camps, camping and retreats for children, families and groups. It is located on the west coast of the thumb of Michigan. They recently were gifted a property about 15 miles to the east. This property includes several buildings, a spring fed lake and sits on 100 acres. It will be an extension of Bay Shore Camp and will be used as a day camp and is now referred to as Faith Quest. Our task was to complete several projects to bring the facility closer to its final purpose.

Tasks included removing sand from inside a building and moving it to an area to fill for a paved fire pit, removing and replacing screening on a pavilion, installing Masonite panels in the office, constructing a new wall and miscellaneous cleaning, sorting and setting up for a sale.

At Bay Shore Camp some folks helped in the office and kitchen and did some landscape work. One fellow with some mechanical aptitude worked on some of the equipment at both places. Another team installed electrical in a house that was donated to the camp and is being renovated.

Dennis and I worked on a building at Faith Quest that needed extensive work and is planned to be a education building. The entire east wall used to have a boat/Noahs Ark feature that was removed and a temporary wall put up. This project included several tasks which were removing the temporary wall, building a permanent wall with two doors and two windows, installing outlets and switches, installing siding and then fixing and replacing the existing porch deck. These projects required miscellaneous demoing and repairing to complete. By the end of the first week we had the wall up and all the doors and windows installed. It was pretty warm (80 degrees) the beginning of the week but after some storms on Thursday it cooled down with highs in the low 70s.

We got help on week two with the addition of Abby and Marilyn and John. They started working on the inside while Dennis and I removed the 1” OSB on the porch deck. Mid week we got more helpers, Bev, Mike and Jan. Once the deck was removed and the deck structure leveled we all teamed up to install the new deck boards as well as install Tyvek and siding. We were not able to complete everything that needed to be done with this building but we certainly made a lot of progress. (I posted some of the photos of the project that Dennis and I worked on below. If you want to see more pictures of the whole group, go to the 29ers Work Mission Group on Facebook.)

The weekend in between the work weeks we were on our own and free to do some sight seeing. Jill Iteen accompanied us on a tour of the “thumb.” It was a little cool and rainy. We visited a sculpture made from an old barn and visited the Port Austin Farmers Market. Lunch was at a place called Days on the Lake. We all had the seafood chowder which was excellent. We stopped at Sanilic Petroglyphs Historic State Park. The Petroglyphs are on top of a flat rock which was fenced in so we did not get a good view. We did take a walk on the trail in the park. While on the trail we met a couple and they mentioned they had just come from the Mennonite store down the road. We were in no hurry so we drove 15 miles south to check it out.

Country View Store was very large and had lots of the usual bulk food. It also had a substantial fresh produce and meat section. We all purchased a few things then headed back to camp for the evening meal.

Many of us planned to leave on Friday, September 30 so it was decided that we would all be done at noon on Thursday. Dennis and I wanted to finish up a few more things so did not leave until 2:00. On the way back to the camp we detoured to visit the Thumb Octagon Barn near Gagetown. The barn was built in 1924 by James Purdy after he saw a similar barn in Iowa. I'm glad we stopped as it was an awesome structure with lots of antique farm implements displayed inside. We were also able to tour the Arts and Crafts style home on the property.

Where we are at: Richardson Lake Campground - Wabeno, Wi - 26 sites, May 2-Nov 29, All ages, Tents, 55 ft max RV length, 1581 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, tables, grill, toilets

Where we are at: Big Knob State Forest Campground - Naubinway, MI - 23 sites, All Year, All ages, Tents, 40 ft max RV length, 591 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 1 pull thrus, tables, grill, hand pump water, pit toilets, fish, boat launch, no res - Camping fee was $20 plus we had to purchase a daily pass, an additional $10. More than we like to pay for a no hook up sight but it was very quiet and the beach was nice.

Where we are at: Bay Shore Camp and Family Ministries - Sebewaing, Mi - Full hook up site with a concrete pad. There were multiple train tracks adjacent to our site. About every other night the trains came to move cars around and it was quite noisy.

Where we are at: Island Casino RV Park - Harris, MI - 53 sites, May 1 - Nov 30, RVs only, All ages, No tent, 100 ft max RV length, 768 ft elev, Accepts Big Rigs, 15 pull thrus, full hookups, electric, 53 elec-water hookups, 30/50 amp, 53 50 amp sites, tables, water, toilets, showers, dump, laundry, internet, pet friendly, pool, store, Casino - Camping fee $30 with access to the hotel pool.