A Challenge

Philosophically, I am in absolute agreement with my wife, Kimberly, whom I shall quote below. That said, if things transpire as they seem destined to, and she can't get the health insurance she needs, then the grudge I hold will be profound. And that's just one wee part that might affect us personally and gravely. Many, many others are going to be hurt, badly and so needlessly.

I'm going into this Trump presidency with exactly the same attitude I did the last one. People who have voted for Trump said he will make our lives better and the United States better. Prove it to me. And prove it to me with things that aren't already on the upswing...immigration is now at the same level as it was when Biden/Harris took over, inflation has slowed, and violent crime is down. (I've fact checked these statements with multiple sources.) So Trump ran on a platform that he would fix things that are already fixed. Prove it to me that he will improve my healthcare. Prove it to me that he won't be an authoritarian dictator who takes away the rights of so many people. Unlike many, I can absorb information and change my views according to that information. I'll be waiting for proof."—Kimberly Ann Brugger

There are a million issues I could talk about, vent about, but I fear it would be belaboring the obvious for anyone with eyes to see, and simply fatigue me further. I have no illusions that we, personally, as well as the entire country are going to have issues challenges to confront that we certainly would not if the election had gone the other way. But that's a non-issue now.

Yesterday, I headed out early to work the polls for local city council candidate — and winner — Julian Mei, an acquaintance of mine who I believe will be a fine shot of tonic for Martinsville. There were five candidates for three positions, and sadly, the other two were not his first choices (or mine), but I believe the council will still be in a much better place in the coming year.

Last night, Brugger and I went to Wild Magnolia, one of our local pubs, to watch the city council election results and hang out with some of the candidates. It was, as you might expect, both rewarding and disappointing.

Today, my stress/anxiety level is down some from yesterday simply because certain unknowns are now known. There are plenty of unknowns to come, but we'll just have to deal with them as they come down the pike. This morning, I had business to take care of at the bank in uptown, so once that was done, I took a long, relaxing walk partly through town and partly on the nearby Dick & Willie Trail. The temperature out there is ridiculously warm for November (yet climate change is "not our problem!"), but some of the foliage remains purty.

A Slightly Belated Parkway Picnic

Traditionally, Brugger and I visit the Blue Ridge Parkway in October, as a gear-up to Halloween. Last month, the Parkway was closed after damage caused by Hurricane Helene, but at least in the area nearest us, the closing was brief. Still, our schedules were pretty hectic this past month, so we missed going prior to All Hallows. However, more or less on the spur of the moment, to decided to drive up yesterday to Villa Appalaccia and Chateau Morrisette, our two favorite BRP destinations. Sadly, the restaurant at Mabry Mill closed a while back — having breakfast there has been an autumn tradition since my childhood — and there are no definite plans as yet for it to reopen. I certainly hope it will.

The weather turned out perfect for the outing, and though the fall foliage is a bit past its peak, some beautiful color lingered in various areas. At Villa Appalaccia, we did our customary wine tasting, grabbed a bottle of their San Giovese, and had an excellent picnic lunch in the walled terrace a short distance away from the main building (which we always think of as "ours" because, well, it's usually empty except for us, which makes it ours). Then we made the very short truck over to Chateau Morrisette, did the customary tasting, and drank a single glass each of Red Mountain Laurel, which is one of their sweet wines — something we almost never do — but since we'd already had our lunch and some dry red, we figured the Mountain Laurel would make a good dessert. It did.

There were several Adventure Lab stages in some very familiar haunts along the BRP, so on our way back home, we stopped off to grab the stages and take photos at some of the overlooks. We hit them at a lovely time, as the setting sun painted lovely colors out in the valley.

I do hope we'll have a chance to get back up there before winter weather sets in. And for the love of God, for all our sakes, please vote Blue tomorrow.

"Sky of Thunder, Island of Blood" — FREE!

Sad that Halloween is over? We had a really nice one, so I sure am! So, I thought, why not offer up some free, monster-ific fiction? "Sky of Thunder, Island of Blood" is a short story I wrote some years ago, which originally appeared as an Amazon Shorts, which — sadly — no longer exists. This one is a thrilling World War II tale with a touch of the outré. The link below will take you to a Google folder where you can access either Epub or PDF files, whichever is your preference.

For the cover art, I picked up a royalty-free photo of a Bf109, took a photo of one of my Rodan monster figures, and did a little Photoshopping.

Hope you enjoy the tale!

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Download "Sky of Thunder, Island of Blood" FREE!

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THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND Now Up for Pre-Order!

Artist Charles Hill's rendering of "Black Tooth Pond" (a.k.a. Lester Pond), as it appeared in the 1970s/1980s

My new novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond, is scheduled for release by Macabre Ink (the horror imprint of Crossroad Press) on February 11, 2025. The ebook is up for pre-order here; the paperback and audiobook will be available on release day. Just for shits and giggles, I thought I'd write up a little missive about the novel's setting. Also note that the novel is an expansion of my short story of the same title, which recently appeared in the anthology Shunned Houses, edited by Katherine Kerestman and S.T. Joshi.

The World of Black Tooth Pond
"Black Tooth Pond" is a name I coined many years ago for a small body of water hidden in the woods behind Martinsville High School. My introduction to it came by way of a tenth-grade biology class outing to conduct water-quality experiments. I'd had no idea the place existed, and finding this pond, shrouded in morning mist, an array of black, tooth-like tree trunks protruding from one end, really fired my imagination. The name "Black Tooth Pond" immediately sprang to mind, and as far as I was concerned, that became its official moniker. I discovered in later years that it was known as "Lester Pond," after the name of the landowner. In 2010, I wrote a fairly lengthy blog about my subsequent adventures at and around the pond, which you may find here.

Last year, after more than a decade, I decided to check it out again (blog entry here). To my dismay, I found that, while the pond still existed, all the woods around it had been clear-cut (as have all too many pristine woodlands in this county). I was informed that those woods were considered valuable only for their timber, which is, in my book, among the most deplorable attitudes of the entire human species, so the landowners can go fuck themselves. But that's a whole 'nuther story.

A fictional version of Black Tooth Pond became a semi-regular setting in my tales of Aiken Mill/Sylvan County, Virginia, a location loosely based on Martinsville and the surrounding counties of Patrick, Henry, Franklin, and Floyd.

Left: Black Tooth Pond (a.k.a. Lester Pond) in December 2010; Right: the pond in November 2023

The House of Cabiness
The place I call the House of Cabiness — the "haunted house" of the title — was an old homestead out in another part of Henry County that my brother, Phred, and I discovered back around 1990 while roaming the backroads in his pickup truck, which was a regular activity in those days, oftentimes with his dog Luther accompanying. I'm not going to state that we necessarily went out to the boonies to fire up illicit substances or anything, but... well, sometimes, we might have done some not-at-all smart things.

On one of our nighttime outings, we found a little dirt road that led back into some pretty deep woods, so we decided to follow it. We could only drive so far before the road petered out into a rough footpath, so we parked the truck and continued a piéd. After a while, I noticed that the silhouettes of the nearby trees against the starry sky became curiously boxlike, and I realized I was seeing the contours of a totally overgrown old house. Phred and I both loved finding such "haunted" places, so we wandered around the exterior of the structure as best we could with only cigarette lighters to light our way. Much in the way of Black Tooth Pond, this old place captured our imaginations, and so we decided to return to the house in daylight.

I don't recall whether it was the next day or sometime later, but anyway, Phred and I did return, this time with flashlights, and made a thorough exploration of the inside. Did you ever see The Blair Witch Project? Well, the inside of this house looked very much like that. We found a huge stack of old mail, twenty to thirty years old, some unopened, addressed to various members of the Cabiness family. (In the novel, I changed this to "Caviness," simply because the "cabin" part of the name somehow seemed a little too much given the title of the tale.)

The most ridiculous part of all this was that, not long afterward, one of my brother's college friends, who was getting married, decided to come visit Phred the night before his wedding, and — for his de facto "bachelor party" — we ventured out to the house. The next thing I knew, my brother, his friend, an additional friend, and I all piled into that house with not one flashlight to our names and went wandering about. I know not how, but we avoided the plentiful, bottomless holes in the floors; went up the fucking rickety stairs; and, somehow, did not die.

I returned to the place a few times after that and took some photographs, both inside and out, but that was all within a few months of our original adventure. I'm quite certain that the house no longer exists; for one thing, it was on the verge of falling down over thirty years ago, and for the second thing, Google Maps shows that in that area — sadly, as around Black Tooth Pond — all the woods have been fucking cut down. God awmighty, sometimes I despise humanity for the damage we inflict on our very home.

Anyhoo, all this gives you a bit of backstory for the settings you'll find in both the story "The House at Black Tooth Pond," and the novel of the same name. I surely do hope this whets your appetite.

Bye now!

Artist Charles Hill's rendering of the House of Cabiness, "cleaned-up"

Left: My pen & ink rendering of the old house, circa 1990; Right: a photo of the actual location, circa 1990

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Pre-Order The House at Black Tooth Pond
(ebook only; paperback and audiobook available on release day)

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Halloween Is in the Air

Yesterday, I trucked out to Fieldale, a few miles northwest of Martinsville, to set up some new geocaches — an Adventure Lab with five stages, and two physical caches — which afforded me a fair amount of trail hiking. The woods are just starting to look like fall, with a smidgen of color, which I expect will mature a bit by the end of the week.

The Fieldale Smith River Trail is my favorite local hiking spot, as it runs along the scenic Smith River for several miles, and there's lots of interesting terrain on either side. Several of my geocaches lurk out there, so after double-checking the coordinates and clues on my new ones, I took the opportunity to hike out to check on my older ones as well. Happily, all were fine. The best thing about the Fieldale trail is that it passes the old Koehler warehouse, known to me and those in the know as "The Spooky Place," which at one time doubled as the local Halloween haunted castle.

Today, to help establish the proper mood, while I was hiking, I put on my Amazon Music Halloween music playlist. This did the trick; Halloween is now officially in my blood for the season.

On the way home, I noticed that the local First Baptist Church was selling pumpkins, and since their pumpkin patch looked reasonably sincere (probably the best we'll get around here), I stopped in and purchased a couple of nice pumpkins. The Jack o' Lantern I've had out front for almost a couple of weeks is starting to look like a toothless old man, so the replacements are timely.

I hope your Halloween season is looking as awesomely grim as ours is.

A couple of the nearby haunted islands viewed from the Fieldale Smith River Trail

Coming in February 2025: THE HOUSE AT BLACK TOOTH POND

“Welcome to Aiken Mill, Virginia—The Cold Case Capital of the World.”
My new novel, The House at Black Tooth Pond, is scheduled for release by Macabre Ink (the horror imprint of Crossroad Press) in February 2025...and yes, I have the excitement!

AIKEN MILL, VA: A legend-haunted town in Sylvan County, located in a remote mountainous corner of the state. Now, a mutilated body has turned up in the town. During his investigation, Sheriff Bryce Parrott discovers frightening clues that lead him to believe that some inhuman force may be responsible for the killing.

While exploring the darkest corners of Sylvan County, psychology professor Martin Pritchett and his brother, Phillip, happen upon a crumbling, century-old house beside a body of water called Black Tooth Pond. A strange compulsion leads both men back to the house time and time again, but neither can remember any of the events that occur there.

As both Sheriff Parrott and the Pritchett brothers attempt to solve their respective mysteries, their paths begin to converge — paths that lead directly to the ancient, foreboding house at Black Tooth Pond.

Pre-orders will be available very soon. Stay tuned for more... much more!... about The House at Black Tooth Pond!

"Stephen Mark Rainey's talent is on display here like never before. His masterful use of imagery transported me to shadow-haunted Sylvan County. I heard the eerie cry of the whippoorwill, that cry that marks the presence of the evil entity that roams the woods and lurks within the walls of the house at Black Tooth Pond. You will hear it, too."—Mike Davis, The Lovecraft eZine

Cover art by J. Edward Neill; pen & ink rendering by me, circa 1990, of the actual house that is the basis for the setting in this novel.

Appalachian Horror Story: The Witch of Ferrum Woods

A little while back, I saw the image above posted on Facebook, which immediately piqued my interest. Ferrum College is my old alma mater, about thirty minutes from Martinsville, out in the boonies of Franklin County. During my two years at the college, I frequently explored the extensive woodlands in the area, sometimes hoping to find interesting critters, such as snakes (which I often did), sometimes to indulge in certain substances of not-necessarily-legal status (at least at the time). In more recent years, as an aficionado of hiking in deep woods, I've returned to those old stomping grounds many times, particularly when fellow geocachers have set out new caches.

I had bought tickets for a 9:00 p.m. starting time, so about an hour in advance, Brugger and I hit the dark, isolated backroads that lead to Ferrum. Little about that drive has changed since I was a student there, forty-plus years ago. Once we arrived at the parking area, a short distance from the campus, we found ourselves a little bamboozled — as did several other folks who had arrived at about the same time. The instructions were to park and follow the lights to the registration tent... except that we could find no lights! Eventually, we decided to follow the nearby paved road into the woods, and there, finally, we spied a line of glow sticks along the roadside, which led us where we needed to be, about a quarter-mile down.

The event info indicated that hot dogs, popcorn, and drinks would be available, and since we suffered from the Great Starvation, we destroyed a couple of hot dogs while we waited. I got to talking to a couple of the folks at registration, one of whom was a local author, so needless to say, the conversation turned to writing. Several years ago, I gave a talk to one of the English classes, for which I received a respectable stipend, and I indicated that if such an opportunity should arise, I'd love to do it again. Although I didn't run into him at the site, one of the professors involved in the Friends of Ferrum Park group, who sponsored the haunted trail, was a gentleman whom I'd interviewed for the college newspaper back in the days when I fancied myself a budding journalist. It's nice to know that at least one faculty member from back when is still there and going strong. And the Friends of Ferrum Park's mission is one that is near and dear to my heart, for it is devoted to preserving the natural areas there rather than allowing needless commercial development to destroy them.

The backstory for the haunted event was that a couple of students had gone missing, and that weird, uncanny forces might have been responsible for their disappearances. Our hosts gave us the unfortunate victims' descriptions as well as "special" flashlights to help us find our way in the darkness. Our lights indeed occasionally revealed certain sinister entities lurking in the darkness. Some of them were indeed frightening — at least to our companions! At one point, I ended up behind them and inadvertently startled them. After some screaming, one of them whispered in relief, "Ah, it's just the horror writer." That kind of made my night.

While the trail setup wasn't all that sophisticated, it was sure as hell fun, and the decidedly creepy atmosphere helped scare up some much-needed Halloween spirit. I do hope this event will become a regular Halloween tradition.

Once safely back at our starting point, our party still intact — sadly, having found no trace of our missing hikers — Brugger and I returned to Martinsville (passing my favorite Spooky Place along the way) and stopped at Renewal Brewing, where we topped off the evening with a couple of brews.

This is Halloween, this IS Halloween...

Deathrealm: Spirits — One Year Old!

Holy cows! Today, it's one year since the release of Deathrealm: Spirits from Shortwave Publishing. With 20 stories & rhymes by some of the finest authors & poets in the business, Deathrealm: Spirits was the first of a long line of best-selling titles from Shortwave. Thanks to Shortwave CEO Alan Lastufka for helping take this incredible anthology from dream to reality.

FEATURING: Linda D. Addison • Meghan Arcuri • Larry Blamire • Maurice Broaddus • Heather Daughrity • Tim Huguenin • Brian Keene • Ronald Kelly • Joe R. Lansdale • Kasey Lansdale • Eric LaRocca • Patricia Lee Macomber • Elizabeth Massie • Bridgett Nelson • Errick Nunnally • Jeffrey Oliver • Jessica Amanda Salmonson • Richard Thomas • Tony Tremblay • David Niall Wilson

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Got yours? If not, there's still one waiting for you...here!

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Hospital of Haunts Authors on NBC's House of Mystery Radio Show

I, and a few other authors in the new anthology, Hospital of Haunts, from Watertower Hill Publishing, recently appeared on the House of Mystery Radio Show on NBC. (Apparently, I am known as Mr. Grainey here; maybe because that's how I look early in the morning.)

My segment is here:

https://shows.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio/episodes/stephen-mark-grainey-hospital-of-haunts

Maria Lanza here:
https://shows.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio/episodes/marie-lanza-hospital-of-haunts

Rebecca Cuthbert here:
https://shows.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio/episodes/rebecca-cuthbert-hospital-of-haunts

Note: The frequency and length of the commercials on this show are INSANE. Sorry about that; I had no idea. It wasn't like that last time I was on the show, a couple of years ago.

Southern Nights, Northern Lights

It's damn near ironic that Ms. B.; our friends, Terry & Beth; and I returned from Michigan last week, where there had been talk that the Aurora Borealis, a.k.a. the Northern Lights, might be in evidence, particularly from the Upper Peninsula, where we spent a good portion of the trip. Sadly, the entire time we were there, atmospheric conditions failed to cooperate, and we never managed to view them. She's seen them plenty of times, but I have not, so it was a smidgen disappointing.

Now, the recent solar activity has made it so that the Northern Lights are showing up where here in Virginia and even points farther south. Now, they're not bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, other than perhaps as a bit of atmospheric haze; but cell phone cameras are frequently able to capture the light that our eyes can't.

This evening, Brugger and I drove out to nearby Forest Park Country Club, where we had a reasonably clear view of the sky with very little light pollution. We managed to get a few halfway decent shots of the Aurora, which was at least somewhat gratifying. One certainly doesn't see that every day here in VA.

Early in the evening, I spent some time putting out more Halloween decorations and carving a jack-o'-lantern. There will be more to come, but at least things are shaping up for the season. And we've shifted into high gear watching our regular Halloween-season movies. This weekend, we'll be partying at Terry & Beth's, the following at Joe & Suzy's, and following that, at our place. Busy times!

Oktoberfest Success

I've participated in Martinsville, VA's Oktoberfest as a vendor numerous times over the years, even when we lived in North Carolina. At some of them, my books have sold well, and at others... whoa, where did everyone go? Sales-wise, today's was probably the best I've ever had here. Once again, these local, not-necessarily-book-themed events have lately been a real boon as well as a dingy-dang fun time. It was all the more enjoyable in its way because I was set up in front of my old church from many, many moons back. I guess some of those folks always figured I'd end up scaring people.

Several old friends ended up dropping by my space, including my seventh-grade US History teacher, who is still going strong. She lives right around the corner from me, as a matter of fact, so I might better mind that do all my homework.

Charles Roark from Star News TV focused on my book table for a spell. Unfortunately, the sound didn't come out that well, but you can check it out at the 25:00-minute mark. Thanky, Charles!

Star News TV at the 43rd Annual Martinsville Oktoberfest

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Road Trip! Ishpeming or Bust! (Part 1)

And so it begins...

Although I had sworn off driving to Michigan after the trip from hell a year or so ago, for our upcoming sojourn — to include a few days in the Upper Peninsula — Brugger and I would be joined by regular traveling companions Terry & Beth. Therefore, we decided that, since could split up driving duties and the road construction that so complicated the last road trip would be mostly done, a road trip it would be. As with my first trip to Michigan back in 2014, prior to leaving, we ran the Jeff Daniels' brilliantly nutzo Escanaba in da Moonlight (2001), this time introducing Terry & Beth to the film. We figure it went over exceedingly well because Beth had to change her pants afterward.

 
Sunday, September 22, 2024: Aaaand...We're Off!
Ms. B. and I mounted up and left Martinsville bright and early (more like foggy and early), bound for Terry & Beth's place in Kernersville, a little over an hour away. Since they have a much larger automobile than either Ms. B. or I, they offered to provide the transportation. So, at 9:00 a.m. sharp, we set out for Dayton, Ohio — Beth's old stomping grounds — where we planned to spend the night in a bed & breakfast and have dinner with some of her relatives. It was a scorching hot day, but the roughly eight-hour trip, which included a handful of rest/geocaching stops and a fair lunch at a TGI Fridays somewhere near Charleston, West Virginia, was comfortable enough in our fully loaded chariot. We pulled into our lodgings, right across from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base/Museum, at 5:00 p.m.

Soon afterward, Beth's aunt and two of her cousins, whom she hadn't seen in a long while, came to visit, and we had a big honking pizza dinner from nearby Joe's Pizzeria. It was fairly late when the party broke up, but Kim and I decided to take a late-night walk down the road about a mile and pick up a geocache — which turned out to be good, scaly fun (see the photo).

Monday, September 23, 2024: Are We There Yet?

Front yard view from our B&B

At "This Is Not an Underground Entrance"

Terry and I rose early and went out to hunt a nearby geocache — called "This Is Not an Underground Entrance" (GC9J294) — hidden at the edge of Wright-Patterson Airbase. A very cool location it was: a metal stairway that led down to a heavy door set into a concrete column at the edge of the Mad River. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the damned cache, and there's every indication it's missing. Alas! Still, we enjoyed the hunt.

Again, we loaded up and hit the road. Somewhere in central Ohio, we found a Frisch's Big Boy restaurant for a late-morning breakfast. I've gotta tell you — I was damned hungry, and the scrambled eggs, bacon, & pancake combination struck me as the best cheap-ass breakfast I've had since our massively memorable IHOP outing in Seattle last year when we went to the Pacific Northwest prior to our Alaska Cruise. This one set me to hollering, I can tell you.

We drove for another while, and some of our party decided that a winery visit seemed in order. We discovered one not too far off the beaten track, which turned out to be a lovely little place, with great atmosphere and friendly service. For that reason, I'll not identify it because the wine was piss. I've only been to one winery whose product was that bad, and that was a  few years ago in North Carolina. I'm not sure that little enterprise is even around anymore. Still, today, we did have an honest-to-Yog good time. I also found a cool cache in neat little town nearby, as well as a seminary building that so resembled Lychhurst Hospital in the upcoming anthology, Hospital of Haunts, which features my story, "Insensate," that I had to stop and take pictures.

We drove, cached, and made pit stops here and there for several more hours, and we arrived at Kim's parents' place in Midland around 8:00 p.m. After introducing them to Terry & Beth and socializing for a while, our foursome headed to Meijer (a sacred Midland tradition) to pick up foodz for dinner and provisions for our stay in the UP, set to begin early the next day.

Then...bedtime!

Ms. B. having a Moment With Monet

So, the wine wasn't good, but the time we had was.

Is it Lychhurst???

Tuesday, September 24, 2024: Clare, Kitch-iti-kipi, and Ishpeming
We wasted no time in Midland this morning and hit the road fairly early. Our first stop was Clare, the town where Brugger was born, about 30 miles west of Midland. Clare is the home of Cops & Donuts, which, to my mind, has the best donuts of any donut place I've ever been. We've visited Clare numerous times, and I've found most of the caches nearby, but I did manage to snag a few stages of a newish Adventure Lab Cache in the downtown area.

Beth wanted some food more substantial than donuts, so we ended up at the nearby Herrick House & Mulberry Cafe, a quaint little place with decent sandwiches. I destroyed a double-bacon BLT. Once done there, we set out on the road, only to detour to a little town called Harrison so Terry & Beth could check out a particular cannabis dispensary. Computer issues at the shop prolonged their checkout process for quite a long while, so we were much later than expected getting back on the road.

Herrick House & Mulberry Cafe in Clare

It was another day spent mostly in the car. Once across the Mackinac Bridge, our next destination was Kitch-iti-kipi, a picturesque spring a few hours west. Kimberly and I had visited there a couple of years ago, and I do love the location. We arrived fairly late in the day, and most of the crowd had vanished, so we were able to enjoy our raft ride out to the far end of the spring without any hustle and bustle. I'd found a physical cache there on our previous visit, and I was pleased to see that it was still in place. In addition to that, there is now an EarthCache at the location. There's no physical container to find at an EarthCache; one answers questions about the geology of a particular location to get credit for the cache.

We stopped for dinner at a pub in the little berg of Rapid River, where I polished off some walleye, and, afterward, I found a nearby cache. Then, once again, we were off, and around 8:00 p.m. — considerably later than we had originally anticipated — we arrived at our domicile for the next few days: a comfortable bed & breakfast in the town of Ishpeming, a few miles west of Marquette. There was nothing for it but to mellow out for the rest of the evening, so we mellowed.

Tomorrow is another day. Our target: the city of Marquette.

Old Rodan with the raft in the background at Kitch-iti-kipi

The view down from the raft, with happy fish circling the bubbling spring below

A view from the deck of the raft. Many ducks in evidence.

The Usual Suspects at the Rapid River Pub

I quite appreciate the decor at our VRBO.
This happy fellow lurks just outside the
bedroom door.

 
Wednesday, September 25, 2024: Into Marquette
Our lodgings in Ishpeming are stylish and comfortable. From the outside, we weren't expecting much — Ishpeming was once a mining town, and it looks like one — but inside the house, the decor is nautical but very modern. Our proprietor set up the kitchen so we are hardly lacking for anything, supply-wise. So we're giving top marks for this VRBO.

There's a greenway near here called the Iron Ore Heritage Trail, so I set out on it bright and early to hunt a couple of geocaches. One I found, one I did not, though not unexpectedly, as the previous hunter indicated in his log that he couldn't find it either. I didn't go all that far — just about a mile — because we're heading into Marquette this morning, and my time was a little limited. But if I have a chance, I'd like to venture farther, especially since there are several more caches within hiking distance.

Mid-morning, we hit the road, target Marquette. However, beforehand, Brugger and Beth wanted to visit a nearby rock shop, where — coincidentally — there is what's known as the "Yooper Tourist Trap," the site of a virtual geocache. So, while the rest of the party went rock hunting, I wandered among the myriad, mostly humorous displays of the Yooper Tourist Trap, gathering info for the virtual cache.

One of the big boulder formations (and Ground
Zero for a geocache) at Presque Isle Park

Done at last, we piled back into the vehicle and set out for Marquette, about thirty minutes down the road. Lunch was calling, so we went to Iron Bay Restaurant, which, on my first visit with Brugger to Marquette back in 2014, had been a different establishment called L'Attitude. It was good then, and maybe better now. I had some fantastic whitefish chowder and a hefty chopped salad, along with an excellent local IPA. We had a nice view of the bay and the iron ore dock located a very short distance from the restaurant. Once done with chow, our group split up; the ladies went shopping, Terry went in search of coffee, and I set out after a couple of caches. An officer of the law appeared to take some interest in my surreptitious activities, but he didn't bother to call on me, thus sparing me the chore of educating him on the joys of the cache. I finished up my deliciously clandestine endeavor and then met Terry at a nearby coffee shop. Eventually, the four of us reunited and trucked out to Presque Isle Park, an extensive natural area just north of town. Here, we went wandering (and one of us went caching) among the Black Rocks, a massive rock formation overlooking Lake Superior from the park. Brugger and I had done a some exploring and caching at Black Rocks on our first trip to Michigan in 2014, but this time, we had a bit more time and got to experience considerably more of the area. What a fantastic, scenic location it is. And, happily, my geocaching venture proved successful.

All this activity took up the better part of the afternoon, so, once done, we headed back into Marquette proper and visited a nice wine bar called Zephyr. A couple of bottles of wine, one Italian, one Spanish, forced us to drink them. We didn't mind obliging them. Then we hunted and killed dinner at the Portside Inn, which was somewhat less healthy than lunch (I had a very spicy, very large, Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich). Yummo.

By the end of dinner, we all felt fat, dumb, and happy, so we headed back to our lodgings in Ishpeming and mellowed until bedtime.

Mellow good.

Iron ore dock in Marquette

A view of Black Rocks at Presque Isle Park

Marquette Harbor Lighthouse

Thursday, September 26, 2024: Munising & Pictured Rocks
On our previous sojourns in the UP, Brugger and I have stayed in the little town of Munising, along the shores of Lake Superior. Of all the places we've visited in the UP, Munising seems unique, with a significant quirk factor that makes me think of Twin Peaks. Today, we set out for a day trip to Munising, our first objective being a boat tour of Pictured Rocks, a line of colorful sandstone cliffs that rise above the lake. Ms. B. and I have visited Pictured Rocks on foot — most notably Chapel Rock, which is one of the lake's most notable features (see "Midland and More in da Moonlight," October 5, 2014).

Once in Munising, we went straight to the dock, and it wasn't long before we had boarded the double-decker catamaran, called "Spray Falls." I might mention here that my Ameri-Scares novel, Michigan: The Dragon of Lake Superior (a signed copy of which now resides on the shelf at our Marquette bed & breakfast), opens with said dragon sinking a tour boat out of Munising. My friends got on the boat anyway. We were underway very shortly, and the boat proceeded northeastward at a fair clip, skirting the coastline, giving us excellent views of the cliffs, some of which rise 200-some feet above Superior's surface. The series of photos below can only hint at the cliffs' awesome size and multi-colored rock faces. The only incident to mar a perfect outing was Beth taking a spill on the gangway on her way off the boat. She doesn't appear to be seriously hurt, but she did take a bit of a battering.

Here's a little gallery of photographs from Pictured Rocks.

After the boat tour, we ventured over to the nearby town of Christmas, where we killed a late lunch at The Duck Pond, a nice UP pub where you can get fresh whitefish for dinner that was still swimming in the lake that morning. Mine was delicious. I had a couple of local brews to accompany, one of which was fabulous, the other not so much.

Since Beth wasn't feeling up to a more difficult trek, we drove back to Munising to visit Wagner Falls, which isn't as huge or as spectacular as many of the waterfalls in the area, but it's still very scenic, and there was a cache along the trail, which I snagged as we made our short hike.

Our last stop was Muldoon's Pasties & Gifts, on Highway 28 just at the western edge of town. Pasties, you must know, are the official food of the UP, at least in our book. (You should watch Jeff Daniels' quirky Escanaba in da Moonlight (2001) for a better understanding of this point.) We picked up a bunch to bring back to our VRBO for dinner. Mmm.

L) Ms. B. always did like men with a full head (and body) of hair; R:) Wagner Falls

Friday, September 26, 2024: Mackinac Island

For all her years living in Michigan, Ms. B. had never gone to Mackinac Island, in Lake Huron, a few miles east of the Mackinaw Bridge, which connects Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas. The island isn't very large, but it has a long, colorful history. To film buffs, it may be best known for having been the setting of the film, Somewhere in Time (1980), particularly the Grand Hotel, which dominates a fair portion of the island's southern bluffs. The sprawling Fort Mackinac, built by the British in the Revolutionary War, is another prominent, imposing feature on the island.

The island is also loaded with geocaches.

We left our Ishpeming lodgings much earlier than any of our somewhat travel-weary bodies felt was at all fair, but we figured we'd better if we hoped to spend much quality time on the island. It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive to Mackinac City, and a twenty-minute ferry ride to our destination, so by the time we set foot on the island, we were plenty ready to have lunch. Somewhat randomly, we chose a spot called The Pink Pony, where I killed another very fine whitefish sandwich (in the UP, whitefish is THE thing, don't you know). We decided to take a private carriage ride around the island at 3:30 p.m., so that gave us a couple of hours to split up and do our own things. Terry sought drink, Beth and Brugger sought shopping, and I sought caches. And what a goldmine. There were numerous Adventure Labs, traditional caches, and virtual caches, so I availed myself of any of these that I could find nearby. Most were nicely done, and several took me to some extra-lovely locations I might not have otherwise found, including the gazebo from Somewhere in Time. I've always been very fond of this film, and now Ms. B. and I are going to have to work it into our already crowded Halloween movie line-up. Not that it's really a Halloween film, but we'd like to see it again while our memories of Mackinac Island are still fresh.

At 3:30, we gathered near the Mackinac Island State Park Visitor Center to meet our carriage. Our driver was a loquacious character named Brett, and we enjoyed the hell out of his lively, humor-filled narration as he took us on a fairly extensive, hour-long tour of some the island's most historic sites. He even helped me figure out a stage to a nearby Adventure Lab cache. Along with my personal, private tour of the island while geocaching, I found the carriage ride among my favorite experiences on this trip thus far.

No carriage ride is complete without ice cream at the end, and there happened to be an ice cream shop nearby. So we had ice cream. Damned good ice cream. We did.

We opted to have final drinks at a tavern called the Gate House, near the Grand Hotel. The drinks were excellent, but ridiculously expensive. This we expected, given the location, but that does not mean we approved. We did not approve.

The final ferry back to the Mackinac City left at 7:30, so we made tracks to get back to the dock. Once back on the mainland, we found a nearby place called Nonna Lisa's Italian Ristorante, and since we had about hit the burger-sandwich-tavern-food wall, we decided to give it a try. The interior of the place looked more like a Yooper hunting lodge than an Italian restaurant, but it simply added character. Their wine selection was somewhat wanting, though, so most of us drank water for dinner. Both Kimberly and went with the traditional spaghetti with meatballs, which was decent, if not remarkable. Our server was excellent, I will say, so top marks for him.

Our accommodations for the night were in Cheboygan, a little town about twenty miles east of Mackinac City. We had chosen this location mainly for its attractive price, and it was, correspondingly, a bit cramped. However, we found it clean, generally comfortable, and well-appointed, so the place gets a solid thumbs-up from us.

Tomorrow... we return to Midland.

Fort Mackinac, which looks down on the bay from the island's highest southern bluffs

At the gazebo from Somewhere in Time

The Grand Hotel

Looking down on the bay from the island's bluffs

One of the many mansions situated along the island's highest ridge

The Mackinaw Bridge, viewed from our ferry as we returned to Mackinaw City

"Road Trip! Ishpeming or Bust! (Part 2)"