Last night

We're in Perry, GA tonight staying at the Quality Inn. It's an older hotel but it's nice. There are 13 acres of gardens and lawns which is the main reason we picked it. Evidently they haven't started gardening for the season. The lawns need mowing and the bushes need pruning but it's still nice for the dogs. The peach and cherry trees are in bloom so they're pretty even with shaggy grass. We took the girls over to the fairgrounds and let them run in one of the grass parking lots. It looked to be about 30 acres of grass so there was plenty of room.

Kentucky

We got to Richmond, Kentucky yesterday. We stayed an extra day to see the sights here. The girls got to play in Fort Boonesborough State Park. The ranger was watching us from the top of the hill. I think we were breaking the leash law but there was no one else in the whole park except for one fisherman so he didn't hassle us. Not to mention, Lisa has more control of those dogs off leash than a lot of people have of there dogs on leash. We went to Natural Bridge State Park too but it had been raining and looked like it would rain some more. It's a hike through the woods to get to the bridge and we didn't want to get caught in the rain. Besides the signs said "no dogs" and "no specimen collecting". How rude! We'll be heading south tomorrow early. The plan is to make it to Perry GA and stay the night. Perry because the National Sheltie specialty show is there in 2009 and we wanted to check out the hotels and make a reservation early. We' should be home Saturday afternoon.

Videos of Michigan trip

The Drive out of Michigan

We left Mackinaw City, Michigan yesterday morning in the middle of a snow storm. We knew it was a snow storm because there was a winter storm warning for all of Michigan. It was coming down pretty hard. The plows were running on I-75 most of the way but in the higher elevations it was coming down faster than they could plow it. It got a little scary in places when the wind was blowing and the snow was coming in sideways. I was creeping along wit a couple of other cars for about 100 miles. I think they were as happy to have us nearby as we were to have them. The traffic was light until we got to around Gaylord. It had stopped snowing by the time we got to Bay City and it started with a snow/rain mix. That wasn't bad because at least you could see the whole road. We stopped for the night in Toledo. It was still early but we were exhausted from the trip. It was a very intense. The hotel was pretty bad, an Econo Lodge. It had no Internet and no Sprint reception for my cell modem.

The pictures are all from I-75. It's a regular Interstate, 4 lanes, median strip. It seemed narrow to a Florida boy. I was glad it was mostly straight.

Mackinaw City, MI

We made it out of the U.P. today. We stopped in Mackinaw City at the Hamilton Inn Select. It's the nicest hotel we've stayed in yet. There's a jacuzzi in the room which we plan on trying out. The girls had fun playing down at the park by the bridge. We ate at Bob's Big Boy for dinner. The lighthouse in the picture was at Manistique, MI on Lake Michigan. This hotel is on Lake Huron. These lakes are great.

White Easter

Happy Easter everyone! It started snowing sometime in the night. Everything was covered with a pretty white blanket. Floridians that we are we had to take pictures and play in the snow. We're staying in today. There is a Walmart and a Pizza Hut close to the hotel so we're set until tomorrow when we plan to start heading back south.

Houghton, MI - 2

We slept late today. I guess the girls were still on central time so we got an extra hour. After breakfast we headed out on the Keweenaw Peninsula. Last year we found a bunch of beaches to search for rocks but this year the snow was so deep we couldn't get to any of them. So we'll have no new cool Lake Superior beach rocks. We haven't decided what we're going to do tomorrow. We talked about staying in and watching it snow. If it snows. Hey we're Floridians! After a late lunch at Ming's Asian Bistro we went downtown and did laundry. The laundry parking lot had a nice view so I took some pictures. Those buildings on the top of the ridge are an old abandoned copper mine.

Houghton, MI

Yep, we're back in Michigan. We had originally planned to come to Michigan Saturday but didn't want to travel over the mountains in a snow storm. It's supposed to snow Saturday and Sunday here. We're booked at the Country Inn and Suites Hotel until Monday. We stopped to see the sites on the way over here. It's about a seven hour trip that took us almost thirteen. Fourteen if you count changing time zones. These are the pictures from today.

Grand Marais Day 2.1

Our North Shore excursion today was fun. We went all the way to the Canadian border. We had originally planned to go into Canada but we thought of it too late to get our passports in order. Maybe next time. We talked to a guy in a local rock shop who told us about an amethyst mine in Canada about 3 hours north of here. For a fee you can go and collect all of the amethyst you can carry out. We might have to try that. The girls got to play in the snow at the indian reservation at Grand Portage,MN. We stopped at the general store and had cappaccino and chai tea. I bought a pair of warm pair of gloves. It was 10 degrees this morning when we got up and 15 after we finished breakfast. The high was 26 so I really needed the gloves. We've seen hundreds of deer alongside the roads. No moose yet but we're watching out.

Grand Marais Day 2

We're staying here another night. It's a beautiful place. It was 10 degrees when we took the dogs out this morning. We just got back from breakfast and it had warmed up to 15. Clear and sunny so its a bright and cheery cold. The picture is the view from our balcony.

Grand Marais, MN

Northern Minnesota in mid March is colder than any winter in Florida. We just got in from walking the dogs and the thermometer says 21 degrees. We didn't get to Grand Marais until after dark so we couldn't find any grass for the girls to pee on. We had stopped at a park just north of Duluth so they got to get out then. It will have to do. Coming up through Iowa we saw these giant windmills. They looked like the ones we had seen in Texas a few years ago but we couldn't get as close to them. We're easily amused. And Barbara, you'll be happy to know that I finally got Lisa to change out of her backless Crocs (with the vent holes in the front) into some warm shoes. You can see the shoes she was wearing next the van in the one picture (click on the picture to make it bigger). Not good for snow.

Iowa Falls

No pictures today. It rained most of the day so I never got the camera out. It was so dark it was hard to see anything anyway. We made it to Iowa Falls, Iowa. We found a Super 8 Motel with vacancies so that's where we are staying.

More pictures from Monday

Crater of Diamonds

We went to the diamond mine today. There were a lot of people there. Everyone had their kids who were on spring break. We didn't find any diamonds but there were a bunch of cool rocks. Mostly jasper and conglomerate rocks and of course mud. We only stayed at the mine for a couple of hours then headed north. The girls got to get out and run around (and lie in the flowers) on a high school practice field. We ended up at Carthage, Missouri and checked in to the Best Western. They make the "Precious Moments" figurings here so everything has a reference to "Precious Moments". It took me a while to figure out what all the fuss was about. Lisa had to explain it to me.

The video is a panarama of the diamond mine.

Hope

We left Mississippi this morning. It was fun seeing Cathryn again. The trip up to Arkansas wasn't bad. We got to the BestWestern in Hope at around 5 pm. After checking in we went looking for someplace for the girls to run around. There was a small airport about 3 miles down the road with a nice field. They got to chase the tennis ball and bark and poop. The little airport is also a FEMA temporary housing storage area. There were tens of thousands of trailers. You can see some of them but they were lined up for as far as you could see.

The Hattiesburg Swans

Businesses in Hattiesburg have an interesting municipal project "The Festival of Swans". They are erecting these artistically decorated swan statues throughout the city. It was fun today driving around with Cathryn finding them. We got these and there were many more.