go back again and stay for a month.  I realize this probably won’t happen, but you never know…

meanwhile, i’m happy to have spent a few lovely days there.

here’s the view from our porch at the windermere hotel on our final morning, friday, sept. 24th.

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we didn’t have any kind of schedule, except that once we got off the island, we’d have a few hours drive to the hotel we’d stay in halfway home.  so we decided to take a “short walk.”

we headed around the west road, coming again to the plaque in the stone where a scene in “somewhere in time” was filmed, and kevin posed against the tree, like christopher reeve was standing.  hmm, we need to get that movie and see how accurate he was.
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once again, there were almost no other people around this morning.

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how lucky were we with the weather?

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we kept walking and walking down the road, and got kind of a long way around, and then tried to find a path going into the middle of the island, but we didn’t have our map, and there were no clear paths, except a couple that were off limits to tourists.  we finally scrambled up a steep and rocky place that was probably a path and got to a nice little shaded path, and eventually up to the road in the interior of the island.

we found our way to a place called hubbard’s annex – i wrote about it briefly the other day – it was filled with so many charming cottages!

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these must be some kind of garden stakes – i wonder if you could ever buy something like that.  so cool.

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a house with a very nice view of the water.

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we ended up again on the trail along the west bluffs, and this time i took a picture of the card showing what it looked like n the 1910’s.

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i thought it funny that it said “no horses,” because the path was really narrow for people, much less horses.

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we walked by the west bluff houses again, and sat for a few minutes in a little garden at the back of the Grand Hotel that we hadn’t noticed before.

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back at the hotel, about two hours had passed.  it was a pretty long hike, especially since we had no water or map or snacks or anything.  we saw two greyhounds walking right by.

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here’s kevin, before we set out for our 30 second walk to the ferry.

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when we got in line, the greyhouns were right in front of us!  they were very good dogs, both rescues, and i was happy to pet them a lot.

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this sweetheart sprawled out right after i petted him, comfortable enough to doze on the dock.  regular greyhounds are somewhat more calm than the italian variety.  plus they’re so huge!

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the view as we sped away from the island.

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we’d spotted a big boy restaurant on our way, only about an hour from St. Ignace, and decided we’d stop there.  kevin had never experienced a Big Boy, and i was excited about going.  we had one called Tops Big Boy here in springfield when i was growing up, and we used to go there a lot.

mmm, they have such delicious burgers.  i felt like being healthy and had mine with a side of broccoli, which was quite tasty.

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i bet this Big Boy has a better view than any others, with the lake shimmering outside the window.

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we need a Big Boy back in Springfield.  they seem to be mostly in michigan and indiana, i think.

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driving, driving, driving…

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we spent the night in OshKosh, WI, at a hotel i found on trip advisor.  people had commented that it wasn’t so great on the outside but nice inside.  the “not so great” didn’t do it justice – it was butted up to the highway, and the parking lot just looked scary.  but the inside was, indeed, quite nice, and it was an uneventful night and another drive the next day.

lester was very happy to see us when we got home!

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and now we’re about to leave again this morning, this time to go to Sterling for Kevin’s dad’s visitation and funeral…

ok then,

mrs. tuesday hughes.