Blogging from the shores of Lake Huron, about 100 miles south of the Straits of Mackinac (pronounced, mak-in-awe, with accent on first syllable), near Alpena, Michigan.
Eric is spending a week at his family's cottage. Known as “Sandcrest,” it has been in his family since the 1940s. Eric's immigrant grandfather left Russia in 1914, learned a trade as a tool and die maker while working in Detroit, made good money working overtime and freelancing during WWII, and then bought the cottage as a second source of income. He rented it to wealthy Detroiters for about twenty years, at which point it was getting a little run down (Eric can scarcely remember the grass tennis court in front that was quite serviceable for many years). By the late 1960s, his grandfather just let his sons use it for family vacations and then, in the 1970s, sold it to the sons. The place burned down in 1983, insurance rebuilt it, Eric's father bought out his brothers' interests, and now it's in Eric's family. Eric has been coming here every year since birth.
The setting is gorgeous. Sitting on “Thunder Bay,“ the water is shallow. One hundred yards from the shore, the depth is less than seven feet. The water is also clear: at the same 100 yards, you can see the bottom clearly (subject to the water's refraction). Trees, including stately pines, line the sandy beach. Eric isn't much of the outdoors type, so he spends much of his time on the patio, looking out the door-wall windows as the kids play. It's a rough life, especially with the threat of running out of beer or wine hanging over your head (as of this typing, we're down to 15 beers and three bottles of wine). When he wants to sit at the beach, he can use the picnic table or a beautiful free-standing wooden swing that his brother, Dean, bought for the place.
The cottage is also fairly isolated. Though cottages and homes sit all along the beach, they're rarely occupied. On Thursday, Eric and his family sat and played on the beach for three hours; not a single person walked by. The same thing happened on Friday. Traffic will increase on the weekend. Today, we're liable to see three or four people an hour.
Typically, the water is rough, with waves frequently hitting five feet. Eric loves the waves. It's splendid to sleep to the background noise of crashing waves, and during the day their roughness keeps annoyingly-loud jet skis docked.
Change of Topic: Things are proceeding well at TDE. Weekday visitors normally exceed 300. On Saturdays and Sundays, we get 200-240.
The TDE Kiosk has been running for a week now We're already getting decent Kiosk posts, though it appears that only 10% of our visitors are accessing it. We're sure that'll increase as the number and quality of Kiosk posts increase.
As a reminder: You're welcome to post anything you want to the Kiosk. List your blog or favorite site, solicit charitable donations, cut-and-paste interesting essays. Whatever. You can even put up a personal classified, as long as it's not inappropriate. One warning, though: The Kiosk is self-cleaning. If no one responds to your post for 30 days, it will automatically be deleted, at which point you're welcome to re-post it.
As we mentioned on Thursday, posts will be a light for a few days as we continue our relaxation at Sandcrest, but we will add fresh content (probably three to six posts) every day.
