More Manistee

On our first full day in Manistee, we headed into town to check it out. This is the Manistee River, on the River Walk, with one of the drawbridges in the background.

Like many towns along Lake Michigan, Manistee's heyday was during the timber rush of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Manistee River and its outlet to Lake Michigan were significant for shipping lumber from the timber mills in the area. Fortunes were made here, but when the best timber was used up, the so-called timber barons packed up and left. We heard quite a bit of that history of Manistee, with the years after the 1920s left unmentioned. Now the area relies quite heavily on tourism.

We saw a lot of these life buoys, which unlike most things, can be used as flotation devices.

Quite a bit of work went into making this river walk attractive, as you can tell from the pretty flowers.

We headed out to the public beach and found these cool sand castles.

And whaddya know, it's a lighthouse on Lake Michigan. Who knew?! :-) You'll see more of these, as we saw at least two more during our trip.

Mike was pretty cool as we made the trek to see the lighthouse up close. Oh, it was a treacherous trip, as we braved the water crashing on the side of the walk, splashing very cold water onto us.

I, on the other hand, was more expressive of the beauty of the lake and its gentle wildlife. :-)

Later that evening, after dinner, we headed down to the lake to watch the sunset. It's nice being on the western shore, as Mike and I would rather watch sunsets than get up at the crack of dawn to see a sunrise.

A perfect end to a perfect day!

Manistee Trip 2009

This past week, Mike and I went on vacation to Lake Michigan. We stayed in Manistee, close to the lake. These next couple of days I will post some of the great photos I took. I'm not saying that I'm a great photographer; I just took so many photos that some had to turn out nicely. :-) Manistee is about 2 hours from Grand Rapids, and it's directly on Lake Michigan. We also went to the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, which is about 1.5 hours north of Manistee, and Ludington State Park, south of Manistee. On Saturday, we went to Traverse City and Torch Lake. I thought this map might be helpful for most of these sites.

Here we are, on our first trip down to the lake from the cottage we were staying. The house wasn't directly on the water, and we had to use the public access stairs.

I counted 93 stairs, which gave our evening trips to Lake Michigan some nice after-dinner exercise.
We were mostly lucky with the sunshine during the whole week, but it was a bit cooler than usual -- in the low 70s.

This beach was not particularly busy, which made for some nice sunset watching.

Mike's Garden

At the beginning of July, I spent a week with Mike and worked in the Ohio State University Library on my research. In the evenings, I also helped him with house stuff, including some gardening. His garden really is beautiful, and since his parents haven't seen it in full bloom, I thought I would post some photos here.

He even has tomato plants from the previous owner. Here's what they looked like earlier this month. I'm looking forward to hearing how they are now after our vacation.

He has also inherited dillweed, which has definitely been growing in a weed-like fashion. I cut some back and pulled some out completely. He still has quite a bit, and we're hoping that one of his neighbors comes to take some.

His real estate agent dropped off some small flags for the 4th of July.

I planted some flowers in the already existing flower boxes. Mike helped pick them out.

Earlier in the season, Mike had some grass planted in the back yard, making it a bit greener than that of the fall and winter.

Classic Houses of the Twenties

I found this Cranston plan in a book, Classic Houses of the Twenties, at the public library. Although the first homeowners must have made some changes (i.e., front porch, closet placement, etc.), this plan is pretty close to my house. (The kitchen nook, 1/2 bathroom downstairs, and the den were added later on.) I thought it was pretty cool to find this. I was just thumbing through the book, out of curiosity, and I stumbled upon this one.

Finally, House Project Completed!

Yay! The house project of 2009 is now complete. Here are some final photos, contrasting before and after. I'm thinking that the brighter green will make the house look better even in the winter. What do you think?

I took the above ("before") photos when I first saw the house and fell in love with it in 2006.

I love the splash of "Moroccan sun" on the side door.

This side was peeling really badly, and now it looks so clean.

Now I just need to add a bit of black to the numbers so they are more visible. But that's about it. It's finished. Yay!!!

Chris had quite a bit of prep on this house, especially the trim and windows on the garage. But it looks so much better, don't you think?!