Been a While!
Yes, yes, I know… I’m terrible at keeping up the site. We’ve done all kinds of different family things from June through now and I haven’t written a snit about them. Here’s a short ‘trip’ note to keep you all busy until I get to our vacation and reunion. 
June - we visited my friend and her partner in Buffalo, NY. Had a great time! We started out Friday evening, driving through Illinois, Indiana and into Ohio. BIG mistake! Chicago was a bear! 3.5 hours in traffic and low on gas… which meant I needed to stop and fill up in a not-so-nice area of Chicago with bars on windows and a detour taking us further away from the highway. Stopped at a hotel in Ohio. We got up early the next morning, headed out, drove through Ohio, Pennsylvania and into New York by 1pm. Fun drive that day! Beautiful area. We’ll have to go back!
Our friends took us to a couple small towns on Lake Ontario and then over to Niagara falls that night. Before the falls, we ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Niagara River (where it meets Lake Ontario). Amazing!!! Judy described it perfectly when she said it was an almost ’sublime’ moment in time. Great dinner… good friends… a blues band playing behind us… sitting on an outside deck overlooking the River on an absolutely perfect evening. Heaven! We will DEFINITELY be going back again!!
Our visit to the falls was amazing! I never thought it would be so beautiful! We’ll also be going back there! 
We left Monday morning and decided we didn’t want to drive back through Illinois, so we chose a route that would take us back through Canada, up Michigan and into the U.P., back down and around into Wisconsin.
Excellent choice! We had great weather most of the drive back. Canada and Michigan were nice! We got to Mackinaw Island late Monday night and got a hotel room there. Got up early Tuesday morning and headed back through Upper Michigan on scenic route 2. Gorgeous!
We took our time driving through those areas so we could soak up the scenery. We arrived back home around 3pm that day, unpacked the car and enjoyed the rest of our evening before going back to reality the next day.
All-in-all, the trip was a roaring success! We’re hoping to plan a weekend up in Mackinaw with our Buffalo friends sometime soon. We can’t wait to see them again, and are looking forward to going back to da U.P.!
Okay… that’s it for now. I’ll be back with our vacation info and pics at a later date. Hey… a person can only do so much! Just keep your pants on! (Please! Really… I beg of you!)
Aloha!
Julie
