Island Get Away

As full fledged "fudgies" we had to stop by the many fudge shops on the island. We broke down and bought a few pieces and have been enjoying them each night after a homemade dinner.


Mackinac Island is famous for not having any motor vehicles (the only highway in the USA that has never had a car accident). We were riding our bikes to our condo and saw this. It is a horse drawn street sweeper. We are always amazed at the lack of horse dung on the trails and roads, so this explains how they clean it up so fast.


This is a view from the back of our condo. It overlooked the Straits of Mackinac which joins Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. We had some great sunsets!


Here Megan stands with roots in front of the Grand Hotel. By far the most well known and expensive place to stay on the island. It cost $12 just to stand on the porch! Needless to say we did not stay there or even go on the porch. We did walk around and enjoy the gardens from a distance.


The leaves are changing all over the island. It was so beautiful to ride on the trails that twist through and around the island. Despite it being fall we enjoyed sunny warm weather most of the trip (except at night when it dropped into the 40's, good thing we had a fireplace!).

Iceland. . .so much more than just ice!

Iceland was a country that really was never at the top of my list as places I wanted to travel. . .but having spent 4 days there, I am ready to go back. It is a country of about 300,000 people with a land mass the size of Ohio. The people are very friendly and helpful and most speak very good English, in addition to their native Icelandic tongue. We flew from Frankfurt after a great bike trip into Reykjavik, the capital. We landed in driving rain and thought we were doomed with bad weather for our stay. But as you can see from the photos, the weather cleared.
The pictures show some Icelandic ponies, which were first brought over by the Vikings in 870 A.D. They are all over the place and are used for sheep herding. The next picture was taken at a sheep roundup that we went to. The sheep are sheered in the spring (yes, this one has already been sheered - they just keep their coats long) and then let out to pasture to graze for the summer, then are rounded up for the fall to either be sold or bred.
The third picture shows the topography of this very volcanic country. . .not a lot of trees and in some respects reminds me of certain parts of Alaska. The buildings in the picture are at Thingvallir National Park, where the first Icelandic parliament was set up well over a 1000 years ago. Iceland became an independent country in 1944.
The fourth picture is Gulfoss, meaning Golden Falls. They were pretty impressive on the Hvitna River. About 11% of the land mass is covered with glaciers so there is always quite a bit of runoff water (and incidentally the best drinking water I have ever had). The final picture is of Helen and biking companions, Patsy and Joanne, at the legendary Blue Lagoon. We had a lot of fun there swimming in this geyser filled pool. The pool is thermally heated, a couple of acres in size and is in the middle of a lava field. The water is blue due to a certain algae in the water. We all had mud baths there with the white silica mud, which supposedly makes a person look younger. . .don't know whether I would go that far.
The one down side to this country is the high cost of everything. A gallon of gas costs $7.68 and a two-piece dinner meal at KFC was $11. Despite the expense, it is a great country to visit where we could all learn much from them about energy with their extensive use of geo-thermal energy.

Roots and Broken Roots

These are two pictures that Ster took of Roots last week. Megan had just spent a few hours at JC Penny trying to just get them to take a few pictures and not rip her off (no joke, they press a button on the computer to change it to black and white picture and charge $8 more for it because it is "enhanced"). Ster came home and took some real beauties. These are just a few of them.



Below is a picture in our backyard. I was just coming home with Roots after being on a bike ride at the park and I heard a loud snap. I looked up just in time to see a tree fall. The roots had rotted away so it fell in a light breeze. Luckily the garage was spared and there was just damage to the rain gutter and a part of the fence. We had some wonderful friends of ours come and help get it chopped up and cleared out.

Drum Rehearsal

Dan's good friends from Utah got this outfit for Gavin. They used to be part of a band with Dan and thought this might help Gavin get an early start.

Gavin's Playtime

Fun at Fenway!

Last weekend, Erin met Jeannie and a few friends in Boston where they attended the Red Sox versus the Baltimore Orioles game. It was fun for them to attend a major league game especially since the Red Sox won 3 -2. They loved being there with all the Fenway traditions like the Green Monster and enjoying ice cream in the upside down helmets. It looks as if they have found a fondness for the Red Sox and abandoned the west coast teams! You go, girls!

Frog Attack

I took this video tonight and could not resist posting it. I hope that Roots forgives me for posting a video of her in the nude. She has a pet frog and as you will see she will attack it when it comes near.

Akron Fun

This weekend we went to Akron Ohio to visit our Grandparents (and Rooters Great Grandparents). It was a great way to spend the last weekend of summer. Roots got her 8th state as we crossed over the border.



While in Akron we visited the zoo. Gram and Gramp had not been there since Megan was a little girl so many things had changed. It was a very nice little zoo. Megan and Roots are seen here with a Jaguar. Roots wasn't fazed by the huge cat.



Here is a picture of the gang under a waterfall at the zoo.


This is a picture of Roots that was taken out on our bike ride in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The river trail follows the old canal that ran between different cities in the east to transport goods. We saw turtles, deer, cranes and other creatures on our 14 mile ride with Rooter in the bike trailer.



Here is a quick family picture along the bike trail.

Back to School

We drove up to Provo this past weekend to help Alana move into the townhouse before school started for her at BYU. After a short time there, we all drove down to St. George and spent the rest of the weekend at the Christensen home, nestled among the gorgeous red rocks of Utah. Many thanks to the Christensen family for their unending hospitality.