David’s Father’s Day

Sunday June 15, 2014
Woodland Park
Grand Marais, Michigan

 

First I want to mention that on the Friday post I showed what the campground looked like when the week-enders arrived.  Usually they are quite irritating but this park has a lot of nice people and they were very quiet and mostly all gone by noon today.  I really didn’t mind having them and now the park is ours again.  They did get in the way of some sunset shots though. :-)
If you didn’t see the model T car club in the last post you might want to check them out.

 

What did David do for Father’s Day?

It’s his day so what did he do?  Bet you can guess at least some of it.

For his breakfast, he had pancakes with chocolate chips and pecans AND either maple syrup or cherry syrup from The Cherry Republic

 

 

He talked to his darling daughter on the phone.  Wedding plans are progressing.  Sometime next May or June just outside of Baltimore Maryland where they met.

 

 

He fiddled around while I went for a walk on the beach at the campground.  He took a picture of me coming back. Why didn’t he come down and check for agates?  Who knows.  It’s his day.

 

 

Rocks on the shore, rocks in the water.  Looks like the perfect place to hunt for agates and you could keep them if you find them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a lovely day in the 70’s but the wind is strong and gusting to over 30 mph.  So he decides to go for a bike ride around the darling town of Grand Marais.

They use stone for lots of things here as you can imagine.  Beautiful porch and chimney.

 

 

Many boats in the yards.  This first one is the last tug hand made in Grand Marais.  How about the name of the second one.

 

 

 

Downtown Grand Marais

 

He finds out how they are able to locate what look like brand new fire hydrants during over 200” of snow.

 

 

 

He bikes down to the old Coast Guard Station now National Seashore Ranger Station  and gets sand blasted.  He sees the Light keepers house and the two range lights which guided ships into the bay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He stops at the oddly shaped old post office.  Why in the world did they abandon this beauty for a square box on a back street? He plays postmaster.  He reads looks at ALL the pictures and reads some of the information about the history of the town and the building.

 

 

 

 

He visits the most unique thing in town.  The Pickle Barrel House was built for William Donahey, creator of the Chicago Tribune cartoon story The Teenie Weenies.  The small vacation cottage stood on the shores of Lake Sable from 1926 until 1932.  The house was constructed as a typical barrel would have been only on a much larger scale.  There are actually two barrels.  The main barrel was two stories and contained a living area on the first floor and a bedroom on the second. A pantry connected this barrel to smaller single story one which housed the kitchen.  Donahey and his wife Mary, herself a noted children’s book author, spent 10 summers here until the notoriety of the house and two many visitors forced them to give it a friend who moved it here where it was used as a visitor information center for years. It was refurbished based on pictures and plans from the Donahey estate and is on the National register of historic places.   Bet it’s the only pickle barrel on there.  It really is darling.  Look at the out of plum door.  It is a barrel after all.   If you, like me, didn’t know about the Teenie Weenies, you can find out about them here.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Any occasion he can turn into a restaurant opportunity works for David. But he has to decide where he wants to eat dinner.  There are 4 restaurants in town.  He’s eliminates two of them for whatever reasons.

 

So it’s The diner, very classic,  OR

 

The brewing company

 

After the last “don’t diner” as Carrie called it, he goes for Lake Superior Brewing Company.  Now the most important decision, which of the 6 beers should he try?  He doesn’t like wheat and 4 of them are wheat so that makes it a bit easier.  See the two taste glasses?   He says they don’t taste all that different.

 

 

 

He chooses the  ???  and says the salad is excellent.   LOL

 

 

The waitress recommends their garlic and parmesan popcorn as an appetizer and boy is she right.   DElicious. 

I totally did not take a picture of David’s absolutely fantastic white fish dinner.  He had the dinner, I had the basket so that we could try each.  His was the winner hands down although mine came with home made chips and they were the best I’ve ever had.   The beer may not pass muster with the beer snob, but the food is great.

 

 

 

The sunset cooperates to give him a very fine grand finale. The sun set into a bank of clouds and we thought it would be a bust but then it came back out below the clouds and sank right into the lake.

 

 

 

Many thanks to Carrie for making this day possible!!

 

THE END