Even though I take a shower every morning, there are some days that are not complete until I take a second shower in the late afternoon. Unless it’s one of those rare days that I can take a dip in Gitchee Gumee. Today was one of those days. I mean a second shower day, not a dip in Gitchee Gumee day. I’m nowhere near Gitchee Gumee today and it is not warm enough to swim anywhere in the Great Lake State. I know I waste water taking a second shower but one thing we have here in the godforsaken Great Lake State is fresh water, so I guess frequent showers is one of my vices.

I began my morning here at Houghton Lake by walking along the point road toward Orion. Alas, I never quite got to him. I kept walking and walking and he didn’t get any closer. And then he faded away as dawn approached.

The Twinz of Terror put together a bit of a breakfast, then we hopped in to the Ninja and headed north, wending our way toward the hopping little burg of Gaylord. Our missions were multiple. Hike. Eat lunch at the Sugar Bowl. Shop at the Saturn Bookstore. Check out the real estate situation. Yes. Oh, not for us. We are gonna be on The Planet Ann Arbor forever, no matter how much the GG starts to resemble Stormy Kromer. After a long and successful financial-type career down in the Day-twa Megalopolis area, the Uncly Uncle has accepted a wonderful new job offer in Gaylord and he and The Beautiful Gay will be moving there as soon as they find something up to snuff according to TBG’s standards. The UU officially begins work on Monday but has been meeting with people throughout the week and getting his office and computer stuff [email, et al] arranged.

We were only grazing the real estate situation today. We did some drive/walk-bys of places the UU had scouted out but we didn’t talk to any owners or agents. I must admit, I am just a wee little bit envious about living in the Gaylord area. It is less than two hours from the Moominbeach, i.e., the place I call home. And The Commander, of course! Houghton Lake is less than an hour away and Petoskey and Traverse City are easy drives. It’s close to all kinds of hiking and skiing and kayaking and, well, wilderness. But I love the Planet Ann Arbor. It is where my work is (and loverly dog-poopy cube) and it is the place the beach urchins call home. We’ll stay there and bumpity-clunk up and down the I75 SUV Speedway whenever we can. The UU doesn’t have a place yet but it isn’t impossible to commute from here at Houghton Lake, so he’ll be doing that until he finds something closer.

The Sugar Bowl Restaurant. Cocktails. Established 1919. That’s the year that Grandroobly aka the old coot aka my dad was born. During a certain era of my childhood, we would always stop at the Sugar Bowl on our way south to visit my grandparents in Day-twa or cousins on the Planet Ann Arbor. Grandroobly would get out of work a little early on Friday so we could leave when school got out and we’d hit the Sugar Bowl around dinner time. The order would be the same for everyone at the table: steak sandwich medium rare and french fries. Cokes for us kids and probably beers for the adults. It was a great place then and it was wonderful today. Friendly fast service and a greatly expanded menu with my favorite lunch combo, a half-sandwich and cup of soup. Chicken salad with dried cherries and greek lemon-rice soup, thank you very much. And Opa! The UU ordered a bit of saganaki! Manhattans for the twinz and cabernet for me plus MI vs. IL on the bar TV rounded out our stop. Of course, I don’t care much about feetsball, so I was checking twitter/fb/email on my iPhone. We were all happy.

The twinz were both dead tired by that time and they snoozed on the way back to Houghton Lake. Even while I shopped at the Grayling Glen’s grokkery store. When I returned to the Ninja, they were still both crashed out.

And so. End of day. Gotta get off this cute little beastie and start swinging in the kitchen. Miss having The Beautiful Gay here this weekend!!!

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 6th, 2010 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.