'Merica

Happy Fourth of July, America!!!

(HUGE record shopping day will be coming up in tomorrows' installment.)

Gang, we had a pretty chill Independence Day this year; kinda cobbled together considering so many others - family and friends - were busy with other plans. In years past, we Houghs spent the entire weekend up at Eight Point Lake with my parents, my siblings and their families, aaaaand a potpourri of dogs. All that changed last year, thanks to (shitty) weather, when we were forced to hang back in Midland and squeak out a Fourth of a July party over at the Bos residence with the Tribe.

The Houghs (and Sebastian) were first to arrive at the BBB (Bos Backyard Bar.)

This year, believe it or not, we ended up repeating this course of action. Mitch threw out a Facebook invite way back in early June, announcing to the usual 10 or 12 families we associate with that they'd be grilling and hanging out poolside all day on the Fourth. Several of us signed up immediately, because we're always down for a pool party, not to mention the fact that many of the guys in our group are grill ninjas. 

 Smoked pieces of hickory bacon for burgers and whatever else. . .

A day or two before the party, however, some of the families suddenly had to back out due to a double-booking the date (family vacation, somebody else's frickin' pool party, out of town, etc.), so this year's affair ended up being scaled down a smidge from last year's. The weather was far better, though, and so those of us who ended up coming out were able to get nice and bronzed without having to duck under their gazebo for shelter.

That's always a plus.

So yeah, another Fourth of July in the books, folks. Enjoy. . . .

Sebastian took a family picture of the Houghs right when we arrived (I wanted to do it before we all forgot as the evening dragged on, which tends to happen.) I have a new default Fourth of July shirt, which I picked up on Amazon a couple weeks back in anticipation of today's festivities. It's a polyester button-up shirt but I was able to cut it into a more-ideal-for-sunny-weather cut-off ('sun's out, guns out,' you know the rules.) My roommates, as you can see here, are more boring that I.

We were the first ones there, so Mitch wanted to send the rest of the guys a pic of us so they knew folks were starting to show up.

Gottta be careful on our Kings of the Hill thread, because folks will take your pics and do weird shit with them. Like, here's me and Mitch at a Gay Pride Parade somewhere. . . 

Here's another one, with us on the Moon. There were others but I'll keep it PG-13 since this is kind of a family blog. . .

It's cool, Abby - walk anywhere. Not like we're trying to get a picture taken or whatever. . . 

We brought a few sides for the day, since Kris and I aren't really the 'grill masters' that some of these other guys are. Everything you see here was consumed by various kids throughout the course of the day.

Burgers and dogs for Lunch

The Larsons showed up shortly after me and Mitch's pic went out. So Mission Accomplished, I guess.

Tom and Rob - sans families, who were busy doing other stuff for the day - swung by and hung out for a bit, but eventually they left to go golf 18 holes up at Curry.

The Griffins rolled in as the afternoon was wearing on - folks hadn't really gotten into the pool quite yet.

Baby Driver and The Pro

The sun was getting hot out, so it was time to get our collective asses into the water.

The Bos fam has a saltwater pool, which I'm not sure if I've mentioned before or not. It's pretty awesome.

As it heated up outside, so did the water - was like bathwater after awhile.

Playing some games around the table as folks go in and out of the pool.

Morgan, Mitch and Danielle

(It's cool to wear your hat swimming, kids.)

The three of us spent nearly six hours (according to our wives) circled up like this in the pool, talking over drinks. I've spent far shittier days in my life, that's for sure.

We hadn't hung out with Morgan in a long time, since he lost one of his finance managers at his new dealership and has had to pull double-duties (he's the general manager) until the spot is filled. Dude works like six-day weeks, it's nuts.

As evening drew on, it started to get cooler out so we finally got our prune-y asses out of the water at long last.

Snacking on various meat offerings (pork shoulder, pork belly bites, bacon, etc.)

Womenfolk, still circled up around the table.

Kelli and the Bos' newest family addition, Penny.

Abby and Sophie went back into the water and were there for most of the evening. The water had to have been basically at 'hot tub' levels so I'm sure they were fine.

Later on in the night, Mitch broke out this VERY pricey bottle of Booker's for the three of us to try. Probably not the smartest thing to do after drinking all day in the sun, buuut. . . . whatever.

Watching the Detroit Tigers barely squeak out a win over Cleveland. It's been hard to watch this season (so I'm told - I'm not a sports guy.)

This was a damn fine bourbon.

Kris, Abby and I went home around 11:30pm, and both dogs were freaking out over the ensuing fireworks being shot off by locals all over the neighborhood. Samson slept with Abby in her bed and we had to bring Watson into our room, since Alayna was out on the town with friends still. So that was our slightly scaled-down Fourth of July this year with the tribe - we'll keep you updated with what happens to the Houghs on next year's Independence Day.

- Brian

'Merica

Happy Freedom Day, 'Merica!!!

The Houghs.  Ready to celebrate freedom.

The day after we flew in from Florida, we had to turn an abrupt about-face and throw on our festivity pants for the Fourth of July.  Not ideal after a cross-country vacation, mind you, but we are Americans after all, and that's what you do on Independence Day.  You wear festive clothes, drink some beer, and blow some shit up.

We spent the better part of our July 4th morning unpacking our suitcases, doing laundry, picking up Watson from my folks' house in Clare, and otherwise settling back into normalcy.  This brief respite was short-lived, as our circle of friends were having a taco party over at Mitch and Kelli's house in the afternoon.  Everybody brought a few items to throw in on, and we all gorged ourselves past the tipping point on awesome Mexican food.  I will not envy everyone's toilets tomorrow morning.

Anyway, after hanging out over there for a few hours, stuffing our faces and having some drinks, we caravanned over to the Midland Country Club Golf Course to watch the city's annual firework show.  Doing it this way was by far a better way of doing than we had previously done in 2016, where we sat on a grassy hillside next to the courthouse downtown for HOURS in order to nab a decent seat.

All in all, a pretty chill Fourth, which we enjoyed thoroughly after our week of craziness in the tropics.

Enjoy.

Breaking in one of my new koozies from Universal Studios:  Duff Man.

Even my domestic brand was feeling all patriotic today.  I was totally down with this.

Brad prepares to blow a bunch of shit up to celebrate our nation's independence. . .

I helped him light off a few of these mortars in the street, and in the process suffered some pretty bad burns on my hand.  Brad is a cigar salesman, and gave me a fancy tube-shaped cigar lighter to use to ignite the mortars.  Unfortunately for Yours Truly, I had never used one of these fancy-pants lighters before, and couldn't tell which side was the side the fire came out of, so when I flipped the switch a high blue flame scorched my palm and fingers.  Hurt like a son of a bitch.

FOR FREEDOM

An attempt at getting a picture of all our kids together in a picture, dolled up in all of their Fourth of July threads. . .

. . . aaaaand this is more like it.

The Shepherds make a brief appearance (they had been entertaining relatives all afternoon, around the corner from Mitch's house.)  We'd end up seeing the fireworks with them later.

Abby and Jackson.  Partners in crime.

We all parked along St. Andrews and walked onto the Country Club golf course, getting our plebeian stink all over those snooty rich folks' greens.  There was a lot of traffic heading into this area - though, surprisingly, not on the golf course itself, which was nice - and in the process we lost the Larsons and Bardens.  So it was just the Houghs, Johnsons, Fischers, Shepherds, and Bosses together for the firework show.

 Everything's a competition with these fourth graders. . .

Alayna will have no part in a footrace, just like her old man.  We met up with the other four families on a hill overlooking the course, with a great view of the firework show.  I took no pictures or videos this year, just as in the previous few years - I'm sure if you were really desperate you could find a couple snazzy Youtube videos of fireworks, but I've reached that age where I'd much rather just appreciate what's in front of me.  Happy Fourth, 'Merica.

- Brian

As Falls Tahquamenon, So Falls Tahquamenon Falls, Pt. V

Happy 'Merica Day, Patriots!!!

(contd.)

Tahquamenon Falls - Day Five

In the previous couple of days, we had managed to check off two of our mandatory 'To Do' items from our Vacation Check List:  the hike from the Lower to the Upper Falls (for me), and the swimming in the Lower Falls (for Rita.)  Today, we'd be tackling two more:  the famous Oswald Bear Ranch (for Kris), and visiting the resort town of Grand Marais and exploring the surrounding area (for Smitty.)  We hit the bear ranch up first, since it was only, like, ten minutes from our campsite, and conveniently on the way to Grand Marais. . . 

Posing with a bear in the obligatory gift shop/entrance.  (It's not real.)

I can honestly say I've never seen something like this before.

I was designated the dude to hold the spoon slathered up in jelly and honey, which this black bear cub ate off while the rest of us stood about and posed with it.  We were given a laundry list of instructions before posing with this beast:  don't make any sudden movements, move away from the bear as soon as it stops licking the spoon, and, most importantly, do NOT touch the bear.  You can see how well our group listens.

Another probably-not-Native-American totem pole.

My kids were convinced this was a grizzly bear.  So was their mom.  I had to explain to my roommates that not all black bears are actually black - they come in various colors.

The ranch entailed four, HUGE caged areas, spread out around the ranch so as not to be anywhere near each other.  The large males over three years in age (shown here) were to the north of the ranch, and the young adults/teens (ranging between 2 and 3 years of age) towards the center, with the babies and cubs (less than two years of age) located at the western edge of the ranch, right at the entrance.  Finally, at the far southern reaches of the facility - as far away as humanly possible from the adult males - were the adult females.

Smitty bought some apples to throw at the caged animals.  'Cause that's how Americans roll.

Watching the teenage bears eat handouts. . .

Alayna videotapes ('records,' whatever) some gigantic adult males.

It was a bit of a hike to check out the female bears on the far side of the ranch.  Thank God it was so ridiculously hot and humid out (low 90s with relentless sun). . .

Oswald Bear Ranch

Kris and Abby atop the feeding platform for the female bears, who were slightly smaller than their male counterparts.  They had a similar setup for the other bear areas, but we neglected to use them.

I helped the girls stick their cameras out over the fence - making damn sure their straps were snuggly around their wrists - in order to take some pictures of these bears begging for apples.

After feeding the bears for an hour or so, we - of course - exited through the gift shop.  Here, a store clerk compares how similar the bear claw 'replica' that Alayna was considering getting was to the genuine article (they were pretty close.)

Heading north, towards Lake Superior.  From there, we'd turn west and hug the coastline until we rolled into Grand Marais.

At one point in time, as we hit Lake Superior and were driving along the coast, we came across a roadside overlook.  We decided to stop and descend a winding wooden stair down to where there was a beach - figured a twenty-minute stop to splash around in Lake Superior would be fine.  NOPE.  Almost immediately, Smitty and I were brutally attacked by biting Black Flies.  Somehow - don't ask me how - the womenfolk continued on over the beach and started wading into the water.  We yelled after them to get back to the van, and Kris turned around bewildered to ask 'why?'. . . . not realizing her entire bare legs were covered by Black Flies.  As it dawned on the rest of them that we were slowly being eaten alive, we made a mad dash back up the stairs and into the van, and high-tailed it the f*** out of there.

For the next twenty minutes or so, as we sped down the road (which had suddenly turned into chatter-bumped gravel), we occupied ourselves with killing all of the flies that had followed us back into the van.  They continued biting our legs - especially Smitty, who, as driver, couldn't really get to his own - and we more or less kept a flip-flop at the ready the rest of the way to Grand Marais.

Survivors

This stretch of road was brutal.  You can see the chatter bumps at the bottom right corner of the image, and they shook our van so badly and so loud that we had to yell at one another just to be heard.  For the ENTIRETY of the rest of the way to Grand Marais.  We swore to ourselves that we'd take the longer, paved way back to the campsite. . . regardless of how long it took us.

As we finally rolled into town, following our hellish one-hour drive of biting insects and terrible roads, we all grumbled that it better be worth the trouble 

This poor kid looks back towards an alternative mother figure for help, considering his own mom looks like. . . well. . .

Entering Grand Marais. . .

There was a big Fourth of July festival going on in town today ('cause 'Merica), and most of the town's small population was centered around the main street's pubs, taverns, restaurants, and beachfront.

An honor system in place at a local fruit vendor's stall.  Pretty awesome.

This was a huge attraction for the local population, who must be desperate way up here in the U.P. for any form of entertainment.

Here's a brewery we sadly didn't get to go into. . .

Abby nabs herself a free lemonade from a local stand.

This little town reminded me of an 80s movie.  Like the small resort town in Jaws or something.  Everyone was nice and knew one another, local good ol' boys were riding around in the back of pickup trucks with open beers, people were mingling on the streets with open drinks and joking with cops, kids were running about unsupervised.  And here I am living in stick-up-the-ass Midland like a sucker. . .

Not quite a museum, per se, but while we waited for a table at the next-door tavern restaurant, Smitty, Abby and I went in to check it out anyway.  We're history nerds, folks.

The former postmaster of Grand Marais.  Slightly more badass than Yours Truly.  Gotta respect the sideburn game.

Pretty decent food and service at this place, in case you're ever in the area.

Only downside I can think of is the amount of time it took to receive our food - over an hour for a pizza.  I'm sure they cooked it from scratch, but still - it was hard keeping the girls entertained for so long.  We still tipped the waitress well - it wasn't her fault the kitchen staff had their head up their ass - but you can rest assured I wrote a negative review later.

I detect a theme with their choice in decorating, here. . .

Two hours later - yes, it took nearly two hours to receive and eat our f***ing meal - we were ready to explore the surrounding area.

As we got back into the van, we saw this poor bastard - with a three-inch wingspan - impaled on Kris' radio antenna.  R.I.P., dude.

Our first stop was the lakeshore trail, leading up to the Sable Dunes, that neighbored Michigan's Pictured Rocks.

Before checking out the Dunes, though, we opted to hang a right and descend into the valley below in order to scope out Sable Falls.

Sable Falls, using a high shutter speed.

Same F-Stop, but using a slower shutter speed (note the water - I get artsy from time to time.)

There's always a couple assholes who have to ruin the shot for everyone else. . . .

Smitty, being forced to wait on someone else for a change.  Ah, the sweet, sweet justice of it all.

This guy remained in this position for over twenty minutes, really concentrating on his waterfall picture-taking.  It wouldn't have been all that weird, I suppose, if he had been using, like, a real SLR or something. . .  but he was using a SMARTPHONE.  What the hell?

There's so much Freedom in this picture it's at risk of splitting off from the rest of this blog and creating its own republic.

After scoping out the falls for awhile, we got our asses back on the trail and started off towards Sable Dunes. . .

Smitty, always willing to lend a hand to my lazy-ass children. . .

This trail wound through patches of dense forest and open glades such as this one, and was nowhere near as hilly and rough as our super-long hike a few days earlier. . . but we were all still sore from that feat of endurance, so today's short jaunt was downright horrible.

Crossing a stream, as our group constantly moves into higher ground. . .

This kid was NOT having a fun time with this.

In a nod to National Lampoon's Vacation, Sable Dunes pulled a Wally World on us.  After hiking for a half an hour through the woods, we arrived at the pathway to the dunes, only to find out that they were closed.  Everyone was so tired and sweaty that we didn't care all that much, though.

Not able to check out the main dunes and Picture Rocks, we decided to keep going in order to check out the dunes along the shoreline instead.

Trudging up the final stretch.

The Dunes. . .

More of Lake Superior (fortunately no Black Flies this time around, thank God.)

Dueling cameras. . .

Smitty captures the hazy glory of Superior.

After standing about in the open sun, sweaty and miserable, we turned around and made our way back towards the shade and comfort of the woods. . .

Shut up, sign.

Smitty still wanted to see more of the local area, as exhausted as he was, so we drove to the nearby Visitor Center. . . to find that it had closed about five minutes earlier.  The assholes were still inside, with the lights on and everything, but they refused to answer our knocks at the door.  I hope they get bit by black flies.

This was actually pretty funny:  there are parts of the dunes that are so steep, once people slide down the hills, they are unable to climb back up.  They're essentially stranded between the dunes and Lake Superior.  I guess this happens so frequently that there's a special service the local township fire department provides, where they drive out in a boat and essentially 'rescue' you.  To the tune of $500.  Per person.  Sounds fair to me.

Abby's not so sure about this whole 'Upper Peninsula' nonsense. . . 

We stopped off at yet another local attraction that Smitty wanted to check out - some beach where a stream emptied out into Lake Superior.

The black flies were back, but not as bad as before, so Smitty and Rita took the girls down to the beach to wade about in the stream.  Kris and I were pretty much funned out with flies by this point, though.

Shortly after arriving, Alayna, too, became funned out with the nature.

We cowards hung out on this bridge that crossed the stream, and took pictures of the others frolicking in the waters below.

What a beautiful family.

Gettin' bored.

Not gettin' bored.

This is getting to be quite a familiar sight these days. . .

We had to drive back through Grand Marais on our way home, after a long day of sight-seeing and being devoured by insects.

I'm sure this is just a place where guys that plow snow for a living meet up in the wintertime, but still. . . how badass of a name is that for a snow plow guy?

Ah, the ol' Pickle Barrel House Museum.

Huh.

(We didn't go inside.)

Before leaving once and for all, Rita took Abby to check out the beach while Kris, Smitty and I went to check out a local art shop. . .

A pretty badass diner, in all its 50s-ish glory.

Alayna bought one over-priced bracelet, the rest of the store was a bust.  We essentially walked four blocks each way, just for our health.  Like a bunch a' suckers.

Sun was beginning to set over the town, where most of the inhabitants were beginning to party in the streets, amassing near the beach for the evening's firework display.  We opted against this, seeing how we were about 90 minutes from our campsite, and wanted to get back at a reasonable time.

'Cause freedom.

Fast forward and hour and half.  Back at camp, the evening's campfire lit, the taco dinner served, the kids getting showered, and this IPA being opened.

Munching on some much-needed grindage.

Enjoying a fire after another long, hot, fly-ridden, exhausting day.

- Brian