Hereya go, unkly uncly uncle.
Or however you spell that. Mrs. Commander or Dogmomster, do y’all have any ideas? Just kidding, you guys.
Anyway, way back on Saturday, when we were up at Houghton Lake and decided that it wouldn’t be prudent to go hiking in the woods on the opening day of the firearms deer hunting season, we took a drive instead. We drove back roads up to the ski ranch and then we made our way over to the other side of the tracks west side of US127 and wound our way through snow showers on more muddy back roads checking things out. Missaukee County is a beautiful area and at any other season of the year, we drive through there and see very little traffic. Opening day of deer season? We shared the road with many, many hunters. It was a festive atmosphere and everyone was friendly. Lots of multi-generational hunting expotitions by the looks of it.
If anyone ever gets tired of looking at great big ugly boxy McMansions in carefully groomed former farm fields, go and take a tour of Missaukee County. I dunno. About the only time you ever hear about Missaukee County is when there’s a tornado warning there. And that’s sad because it is a beautiful county with lots of forested land and the Deadstream Swamp. How many black bears are in there? So, the area we were driving in looks a little like Deliverance. You will see a few sorta decent looking, well-kept houses around. Mostly ranch style or “Dragon houses” as Grandroobly used to call double-wide trailer houses, an old banker with many years of experience appraising pieces of property. Well-kept-up houses are in the minority and, at least in the area where we were driving, there was very obvious poverty everywhere. This is despite the fact that there are WORKING OIL WELLS absolutely everywhere in that county.
I don’t even begin to understand economics but it seems like everywhere we go in mid-northern-Michigan, there are oil wells. What is going on here? And why does our beautiful Great Lake State with all of its resources continue to have such a hard time. Who is getting the money from all of those oil wells?
Anyway, we photographed this piece of property. I am pretty sure it was abandoned, otherwise I’d’ve been reluctant to photograph it. Does anyone know what the heck that old rusted out vee-hickle is? The Engineer probably wouldda been able to say what it was and when it was made and how many of them he had seen on the highway and how many times they changed the engine. But he’s not here and I dunno.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:44 am
The square “gun ports” on the side (if that’s what they are) have me intrigued and a little weirded out…. wow, one could make up with all SORTS of “history” about that car/truck/whatever based on those two square holes…
Um, it’s not been converted to a “hunting blind” … or has it?
November 18th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Anne should put up a little slide show to see more of the car. It has nice chrome bumpers.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
i think i always wrote “uncliest uncle”… man, that was a favorite uncle bob line when we were kids.