Get Up And Enjoy The Day!

Tuesday, June 11 2013. 6:00 pm.
My best friend (and co-worker) Sandra and I leave work and go upstairs to Captain Chuck's for some dinner...we sit with a few other friends from the front office and talk for about a half hour. We're all female so it's the usual - boys, work, boys, boys again, and then a little more about work. After getting a serious lecture from one of my friends (totally unwarranted!!!) Sandra and I get up and go back downstairs to get our stuff out of the office and head home for the night. After doing nothing but 10am-8pm shifts for the last week or two, leaving at 6 feels so incredible. So, as we're leaving, S tells me she wants to run back to the operators office, where a couple of our other friends work, to talk to one of them about something. We walk back, and go into their office and end up staying and chatting for about ten minutes. As we're talking, I mention that I have tomorrow off, and then my friend Rhonda tells me she's off tomorrow too..! Then I tell her that I'm planning on going to the mainland for the first time, and she tells me that she's going there as well..! Cool. Exchange numbers. Bada bang, bada boom..and the exciting day off is on its way.

Fast Forward.

Wednesday, June 12. 9:51 am. After getting up late, rushing out the door to get my coffee and bagel from my favorite coffee shop down the street (on Market street..hint) and then rushing out to mail out my mysterious package to a mysterious person for whom we are all celebrating a special day this coming sunday, I call R. She doesn't answer. So, in my head I decide that I'm probably going to the mainland by myself. Not a problem, it's still going to be fun! Fast food! Yum! So anyway, I walk up to the ferry dock and 9:51 (6 minutes late), and there she is! Yay for not going alone! So we go up, get our tickets, and as we're getting on the ferry Rhonda tells the ferry ticket-taker person that she needs them to pull her car up for when she arrives.

Wait what?

Car. That changes the plans.



We get to the main land, and are immediately swarmed by bugs. Not quite the welcome I was expecting, but hey. It's land. And there are cars. And fast food....
So we hop in her car and talk about going to walmart, but then R mentions Taco Bell. Mind you, the nearest TB is more than 30 minutes away.
Before I go on, I would like to ask you all a question. If you hadn't had the chance, choice, or opportunity to eat fast food for 36 days and had been trapped on an island eating pretty much nothing but chicken and rice for those thirty six days, would you have driven 30 minutes out of your way to go get Taco Bell?
Yes, we did. But there's a twist! We did make it to the TB in Petoskey, but the adventure doesn't end there. While we were driving, Traverse City came up.
Traverse City is 2 1/2 hours away.



Traverse City, 1:30 pm.
We arrive at the mall in TC. (TC versus TB -- are you following??) I must say, getting in a motorized vehicle going 70 miles an hour is probably the most frightening experience of my life. I spend most of the time on the way there praying to God that he will deliver me safely...and I don't say that jokingly!
So, we get to the mall, shop around for an hour or two, then run out of things to do and start heading back. On the way back, we stop at this cute little fresh fruit market on the side of the road..while there isn't much fresh fruit, I do walk away with a little tin of THE most amazing granola in the world. Oats, pecans, almonds, coconut, maple sugar, maple syrup, butter, salt, cinnamon, and dried cherries. Yum.
After we leave there, we drive for another hour and a half or so and then see, in the distance, a Ferris wheel. Fair? Yes. We stop, ride the Ferris wheel, play a few carnival games, get an elephant ear and two bags of cotton candy for the road, and get back in the car.
Next stop, Walmart.
Oh, Walmart. Why oh why is self checkout always so difficult? All I want is a few different types of apples! What do you mean I have to go back and put them all in separate bags? And after doing so, why does your self checkout station never just work properly without assistance? Really, why. Sigh.
Back on the road, next stop: the ferry. Top deck on the way back. It's 70 degrees out, did I forget to mention that? Clear, blue skies. The sun is shining. We get back in time to see the sun lowering over the bridge, shining on the hotel...our beacon from the mainland.

Even after living on the island for over a month now and spending all day in that hotel, I still crane my neck over the railing to watch it from departure on the ferry to arrival at the island. You can see the hotel the whole way there, stretching out across the top of the island. It's surreal. It's beautiful.
And for now, it's home.