Midland or (Damn Near) Bust!

Our typical view forward (from a standstill) for a disgusting percentage of our 750-mile drive to Michigan

Thursday, August 3–Friday, August 4
Kimberly B.’s cousins in Michigan had planned a family reunion for this weekend, and so we decided some time ago that we would attend. With flights being crazy expensive, we opted to drive, as we have several times in the past. What we hadn’t done was drive to Michigan at the height of highway construction season. Our plan was similar to our previous road trips here: leave home and head to Ripley, WV; stay the night at the handy-dandy Super 8 Motel there; and then drive the rest of the way the following day. Ordinarily, this makes for a 12- to 14-hour trip, including occasional stops. Thanks to countless construction holdups, the inevitable accidents, and miles-long traffic jams courtesy of too many motherfucking people, we ended up with a damn near 18-hour drive.

Bloody exhausting. At least I managed to find a handful of decent geocaches along the way, and we listened to an audiobook (Casino Royale) and some fun 70s and 80s music to mitigate the frustration. It rained most of the way on Thursday, but at least it wasn’t blinding. Friday’s drive felt like the endless traffic jam from hell since we easily spent as much time crawling (or motionless) as we did moving at a clip. After a particularly egregious delay just north of Ann Arbor, Brugger suggested we stop at a nearby Mexican Restaurant and have an early dinner (along with a margarita for good measure). That was just enough to help us mellow out, and, finally, we made that last couple of hours to her folks’ place in Midland without undue delay.

Saturday, August 5
The family reunion was to kick off at noon, so at 11:30 a.m., Kimberly, Del, Fern, and I set out for the backcountry around Loomis, MI, about a half hour from Midland. I’d met only a couple of her cousins before, so for me, this was mostly a gathering of strangers, but the decent food and company made for a relaxing enough event.

This date is my dear, late friend “Old Rob” Isenhour’s birthday, so a while back, friend Scott (a.k.a. Diefenbaker) and I organized a geocaching event to be held today to commemorate his life and myriad contributions to our geocaching community. At the time, I didn’t recall our commitment to Ms. B’s family reunion. So, since I couldn’t attend Rob’s birthday event in person, Scott arranged for me to pipe in with a video call at 2:00 p.m. As the reunion drew to a close, I hoofed it down the long dirt road to a find nearby geocache, and at ground zero, I attempted to make the call. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t go through. Fortunately, once we got back to Casa di Brugger, the call worked, so Ms. B. and I were able to virtually attend the event for a time. It turned out to be the biggest gathering of local geocachers in years, featuring many old-timers who haven’t been active in years. That warmed my old heart since Rob had been such a noteworthy figure, both in my life and in our community.

Old Rodan on the hunt

A right purty view from GZ

For the evening, Ms. B.’s longtime friend, Linda, formerly of Midland, and her daughter, Hayley, who were visiting from Illinois, joined us for drinks and dinner at Whichcraft, a nice downtown establishment featuring Michigan-made spirits of all varieties. As it turned out, this was also the weekend for Midland’s annual River Days celebration, which drew a sizable crowd downtown. Happily, we managed to find easy parking, relatively mellow surroundings, and more refreshments at nearby Grape Beginnings, a fine local winery/wine bar that Brugger and I make a point to visit whenever we’re here. Linda and Hayley proved excellent company, and we ended up closing down the wine bar. Toward the end of the evening, we bore witness to what I would call the most spectacular fireworks display I’ve ever experienced. For a full half-hour, the myriad explosions lit the sky without even a few seconds pause. Apparently, River Days provides quite the blast here in Midland.

Sunday, August 6
I haven’t been a churchgoing soul for many years, but Del & Fern invited Kimberly and me to join them for the morning service at Midland Nazarene, and so... off to church we went. Theirs is what I would call a “modern” kind of service, with a band, contemporary music, and prerecorded video messages (which I found ironic since these focused on building personal connections) in addition to traditional churchy things. In the end, to quote the infamous Dr. Franklin Ruehl, it was better than being slapped in the belly with a wet trout. How about that?

The weather was drizzly and dreary all day, but Kimberly and I ventured out to grab lunch for the family from KFC, followed by a second outing to a downtown knick-knack shop she likes and then Live Oak Coffeehouse for some hot (or in her case, cold) refreshment. I stopped to hunt a nearby cache, but by all indications, the bloody thing was missing. It rained real water on me.

As is our custom when we don’t have other plans, Ms. B. and I spent the evening relaxing with the folks, mostly watching various TV shows in the family room. This was also better than the wet trout treatment.

Monday, August 7
This evening’s plan was for me to make dinner — meatloaf, at Del & Fern’s request — which meant I needed to go shopping at Meijer. However, I couldn’t bring myself to go shopping at Meijer without first going geocaching. So, I set out on this somewhat dreary morning (which, happily, turned undreary within an hour or so) to hunt some of the local hides I hadn’t yet found. I had mixed success. A couple of very tough ones eluded me (both of which I’ve hunted before; they eluded me then, too); several others I found without difficulty. All this amounted to about three miles of hoofing it on a comfortable morning, so I’m a happy cacher. Then I went to Meijer and picked up the dinner stuff (and some sushi for lunch, which was pretty awful; I should have known better than to buy Meijer sushi).

During the afternoon, I received the preliminary print file for Deathrealm: Spirits from Shortwave Publishing, so I spent a good while proofing it. I got pretty far with it, but soon it came time to prepare the evening dinner. It turned out danged good. Then... oy...! Migraine! Sure enough, it’s that time of year, when the weather begins to shift toward the next season. Today’s drop in temperature and low pressure no doubt triggered the damned thing. So, the evening turned out less comfortable than I’d hoped, but at least the headache wasn’t as severe as many that I’ve had in the past.

Much to our dismay, word from our housesitter is that Kim’s kitty, Ralph, who suffered congestive heart failure some time ago, isn’t doing very well. With the meds he’s been taking, he’s enjoyed almost normal health, but at this point, he may just be running out of time. Very, very sad. In any event, we’ll probably be leaving Michigan a day earlier than we had intended.

Tuesday, August 8
Our housesitter gave us a somewhat reassuring report this morning, but I think we’re still going to head home a day early. There’s nothing we can really do from here anyway, so we’ll have to enjoy our remaining time as best we can. Thus, after breakfast, I set my sights on the nearby community of Sanford, where a goodly number of caches awaited my attention. One of them was at a neat little covered bridge at the Sanford Centennial Museum, a cache I had hunted before — as my attempted 14,000th find — but it turned out to be missing at the time. It has since been replaced, so this morning, I was finally able to stake my claim. I also went after a trio of Adventure Lab caches, two of which were at the museum; I hiked and hunted along the Pere Marquette Rail Trail for a couple of miles; and I found caches at a couple of neat old graveyards. Once done, I put in three miles of hiking and logged a total of 26 caches. Not too shabby.

Once back at Casa di Brugger, I did a little updating on this blog and continued proofing the Deathrealm: Spirits dummy. For dinner, Ms. B. and I headed to d’Alessandro’s Italian Restaurant, which we’ve enjoyed several times on past visits. And again, very pleasant tonight. Manicotti with Bolognese sauce for Ms. B. and Angel Hair with Bolognese per me. We accompanied this with a delicious Bocelli Sangiovese. Until this, I never realized the great Andrea Bocelli came from a winemaking family. I approve of both his voice and his spirits.

From this morning — a few of the sights around Sanford:

Wednesday, August 9
I set out bright and early this morning on yet another geocaching quest, this time bound for Freeland, a little community a few miles southeast of Midland. I had picked up a handful of Freeland caches in years past, but today I managed to put a pretty good dent in the total. A couple of graveyard caches had caught my eye — both of which I had previously visited on hunts for older caches. Sadly, I had not been successful on those hunts because the caches were missing, and, even more sadly, I had no better luck today — and I’m pretty sure it’s because these newer hides, too, have gone missing. Still, I had a mighty fine time, and I added another 14 to my total find count, which now stands at 14,420.

Kimberly and her parents went antiquing, and it turned out they, too, ended up in Freeland after a run to Saginaw. I had already arrived back home before they hit Freeland, though, so our paths would not have crossed. I could have accompanied them and done some caching in Saginaw as well as Freeland, but I figured I’d still end up in some antique stores, and I didn’t really have that kind of spirit in me today.

For dinner, we opted for Japanese, at Fuji Sushi, which we’ve enjoyed on previous occasions. Now, I understand it’s all economics, but I sure miss the days of sushi restaurants serving a wide variety of fish and seafood on their sushi plates. Like most nowadays, Fuji gives you two pieces of a select few varieties, instead of a single piece of numerous varieties. I prefer the latter. That said, the selections were delicious, and I found the salmon skin handroll quite heavenly.

For our final evening of this Midland trip, we enjoyed the usual family gathering in the family room with game shows and cooking shows providing the entertainment.

This trip has not been without some unusual stressors. Our kitty Ralph isn’t doing well. We had a bit of a scare that we might have expensive appliance issues back home, but I think the issue has been resolved, hopefully for the long haul. We’re very close to getting our Greensboro house sold, but some of the scheduling on the last legs of the journey has proven problematic. I’m sure it’ll get sorted out. But sometimes, I tend to be the nervous sort. And Ms. B. has been more than typically stressed out.

From this morning — a few of the sights around Freeland:

On the hunt in Pine Grove Cemetery

Pick a hole. Any hole.

A little covered footbridge at Memorial Park

A lovely day at West Side Cemetery

Thursday, August 10
I realized yesterday that I had left my hiking stick near a cache the other day, and so, figuring it would probably still be there, I went out there this morning — and yes, there it was. So it was nice to recover that stick. Old Rob gave me that stick many years ago, and so it carries with it a little more meaning than just any old hiking pole. Anyhoo, since I was out, I headed after a handful of nearby caches, including one in the deep, dark underground, which is one of my favorite types of hides.

So, soon, it will be time to pack, and off we shall go. I just hope our drive home is less of a pain in the ass than the drive up here.

Heading in...

The cache