Skip to my Lou: Leaving Lansing

It’s time to leave for my new life. The trunk is packed with the huge duffle bag of clothes and items I considered core essentials (aka things that would fit and Alice didn’t need) stuffed in around it. Books had been mailed out earlier in the year and the remainder could wait until next year or even until the house was eventually sold. Since Alice would be staying there for the foreseeable future, I have the luxury of not having to dissolve everything right *now*. What a relief!

Oh, I picked up the repaired HHR from the dealer Monday morning, put an ad up on Craigslist with a lowball offer, and got a man & his daughter coming over to look at it and making an offer that evening. They will be over this afternoon with the money. Alice will take care of finalizing the sale – we’ve got a date in Bay City for lunch.

We were meeting my mother’s remaining two sisters and an uncle for lunch at Kryziak’s, a favorite place my Mom and I liked to eat whenever I came back for a visit. This is a Polish restaurant that has a wonderful buffet if you’re not counting calories or watching your cholesterol intake!

Relaxing after the meal is Uncle Glen and Aunt Maxine (the youngest sister) and Aunt Edith (the oldest sister). Aunt Edie will be 94 this year and is still the Energizer Bunny.

Ken and I arrived in Bay City a bit too early for lunch, so I had him drive around where I grew up. I hadn’t been back there since we sold it after Mom died. I was curious what changes had been made by the new owners. Apparently not too much – at least from the outside front. After looking a little bit and taking some photos, we went on to lunch.

The drive up to Mackinaw City was pretty uneventful. We checked into the Starlight Budget Inn (cheap, clean, no-frills place), drove around Mackinaw City a bit to find where we would pick up the ferry to Mackinac Island tomorrow, and ended up at the park at the tip of the mitten (Michilimackinac State Park).
Along with the reconstructed Fort Michilimackinac, there are the old Fog Signal Station, and the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. We weren’t planning on going to any of these. The park also offers magnificent views of the “Might Mac”. The Mackinac Bridge was built in 1957 and was the world’s longest suspension bridge until 1998 when it was surpassed by a bridge in Japan and one in Denmark.