Arrival Wednesday, July 1
331 Miles | 5.5 hours plus 3 hour layover
We head out at 3:30, with hopes of getting to Jackson before nightfall for dinner with Patrick and Betsy. Along the way, service is spotty in several areas and everyone is getting hungry so we make a stopover along the way to get a bite, refuel and most importantly find stable LTE service for Mari to take care of two important Webex meetings before continuing home.
This pushes our projected arrival back to after 11pm, so we call ahead to send our regrets for dinner with Patrick and hope to see them sometime soon in Florida. When we get to Camp Anderson at 11:15, Jim has waited up and guides us in to park the Airstream at a good resting spot in the gravel driveway, where Datta levels her up while Sibri runs to grandpa and plants a big hug.
We arrive with a broken computer and the Audi dashboard lights still flashing, and we have picked up quite a collection of bugs on the grill, racks and trailer face, but 36 days later we are finally at our destination and look forward to our first night’s sleep in a regular bed at the blue house. It’s great to have arrived at last!
The first morning Datta takes his computer up to Lansing where he learns that due to Covid closures things are backed up and a repair could take 3-4 weeks. For an extra $60 fee they can give next-in-line priority service which will cut the turnaround time considerably but the fastest it’s going to happen is not less than 14 days, so it looks like we’re going to spend a solid 2 weeks visiting grandpa and hanging out by the lake at Camp Anderson, one of our favorite places on earth.
Mari is able to set Datta up as a guest user on her MacBook so Datta can handle essential tasks as usual while his computer is in for service. Life could be a lot worse.
While in Lansing, Datta also checks in with a shop that specializes in VW and Audi repairs to see if they can diagnose what’s going on with the AdaptiveAir and Tire Pressure Monitoring System, but they’re booked out 2 weeks as well, so he takes the appointment as a fallback plan in case he can’t find another shop that can look at it sooner. When he hears that the owner worked at VW for 24 years, he asks for a source on the engine for his VW Thing and gets a referral to a place called Recycled Jack’s VW parts in Auburn Hills just outside of Detroit. He adds that to complete a trifecta of repairs to get handled during the visit, including the airstream heater and the Cyclone pinball machine down in the game room which has stopped working entirely since our last visit.
Our Initial planned visit of 7-10 days indeed stretches to 2 weeks to make time for repairs to the Airstream as well as finding a dry cleaner who will clean the upholstery when they get left in the rain, addressing the Audi whose check engine light has gone out as soon as we started putting high decane premium diesel in her, only to be replaced by the adaptive air systems warning light, and our beloved Cyclone pinball machine, which we get repaired with the help of neighbor Dave loaning us his brand new F150 to take it to a random building lined with literally hundreds of classic pinball games at an old VFW outpost in the middle of nowhere called the Michigan Pinball Museum.
While we’re in Jerome, Datta and Mari work pretty much every day, but it’s to the backdrop of Mirror Lake and in the afternoons and evenings we catch up with friends and family around the lake.
The first weekend we all pile into dad's SUV to go strawberry picking. It's the end of the season so the first farm has already closed, but they direct us to another farm about an hour further south. We're not sure it's worth it but it turns out it is. Dad, Katie, Datta, Mari and Sibri pick 2 pecks of strawberries--that's 32 pints. They're super tiny but incredibly ripe sweet and delicious! We make pies for days out of them as well as strawberry topping for ice cream. We also get raspberries and rhubarb.
We take a day trip to Germain Audi in Ann Arbor where their 20-year-old wunderkind mechanic figures out the issue with the suspension but we can’t get it fixed there because the part has to be ordered. Datta gets his annual chiropractic adjustment from Dr. Brian to help undo the effects of 30 days on the road, having his shoulder and hips adjusted, plus a great tip on places to visit on our return trip.
We get to tour around Clark Lake with Katie, dad's better half for the last 3 years, and watch multiple private fireworks displays during the course of the 4th of July week, many which rival any municipality’s fireworks both in firepower and sheer length of time. In fact, the fireworks on the lakes in Michigan on the fourth remind us of Diwali in Amritsar years ago: basically a battle zone of total anarchy that rages on for hours with no single cohesive theme other than the celebration of pyrotechnics along with some great parties featuring local bands and lots of friends and family of all ages gathering to celebrate.
We also get to hang out in South Haven and go out on Lake Michigan with Patrick and Betsy in his cabin cruiser before he sells it and moves permanently to Florida.
The highlight of our visit has to be watching Hamilton outdoors on the big screen over at the Clarks by their tiki bar overlooking the sunset on Mirror Lake. Mari gets the technology to work with the help of and old-school projector and Disney+ streaming on an ancient PC, and cousin Diane brings an awesome homemade screen that she and her boyfriend have concocted using a combination of PVC piping and bungee cords. We had seen Hamilton on Broadway from the second row, which was an amazing experience in terms of sheer impact and sensory overload, but this time we know the story and all the songs and get the feeing of really experiencing the drama of each scene of the historic events as they unfold.
Mari manages to successfully recreate the incredible Raspberry Rhubarb Jalapeño pie we fell in love with back in Custer and Becky cranks out strawberry mojitos using the fresh berries we picked from the last farm in the area that had the sweetest little strawberries ever—Mari says they remind her of the ones they used to pick when she was a kid.
A good time is had by all and two weeks flies by in a blur of productive relaxation that also includes a giant yard sale put on by the girls after clearing out a large chunk of things in Jim’s downstairs that grandma Pat had collected over the course of many years.
It's sad to say goodbye and we're so grateful to have had such a relaxing long fun visit.
Departure Wednesday, July 15
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