Niagara Falls, New York; Monday, June 29

Sunday about 6 pm we got to our Sleepy Hollow Campground, about 45 min. from Niagara Falls. Today was a lot longer in the car than we planned. It only took us 8 hours to get here from Granger; and we stopped to make sandwiches for lunch, etc. We opted for camp sight in the woods; things were pretty wet here; must have had lots of rain recently. Our blue sky returned and things are just nice and comfy; about 65 degrees. Should be good sleeping tonight. Dawson is trying to build a fire. Not a whole lot of success yet; the wood that is laying around is pretty wet.
Monday morning: rained a bunch last night; good thing we buttoned up and put chairs in the truck. Had biscuits and gravey, then off to Niagara Falls. As usual, had some problem putting the pictures in reverse order....so here they are.
This is a picture of the falls from the BOTTOM!!! Yup, we took an elevator down about 175 ft.

Dawson looked like an elf in his rain poncho.....

We took the Maid of the Mist to the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls....never did this before. was super.

Dawson and I gettong on the boat....

Picture from the top of the American Falls. Walked a LOT today.....tired footsies tonight.

Gonna race back to the camp now because Chris has popcorn done, a fire going good and chilled wine ready!

Tomorrow heading to Ontario for a few days; might take a bit until we get internet connection when we leave Canada.

Till we connect again.....

VanderHorst Family Reunion; Saturday June 27

It was an awesome day dawning with a clear sky and warm.
By 9 am the first of the clan arrived. By the time all were here there were 52 people. By a quick “guess-timate”, we figured that was about half of the whole family…a mighty good turn-out.
Charolette & Julio, who love to throw a good party, out-did themselves. They had both been working hard painting (which was going to happen anyway), yard work, making plans and more plans.
Lots of plans were made to ensure that the kids had a good time: a jumper...

Andrea with little Charolette....

the Kona Ice man...What a yummy frozen treat on a hot day!

"King Kameamea"......

and a water balloon fight….which started out as a game of lobbing a balloon back and forth between two kids or two adults…..and climaxed as a wonderful, cooling free-for-all.

People lingered as long as possible and some folks stayed and visited, cooked marshmallows and continued to enjoy the company. The cooks out-did themselves and food was in a wonderful abundance. I hope we can get some of those yummy recipes.
What happy family memories. Thank you Charolette & Julio.

"Say YES to Michigan!"

A month or so ago, Andrea & I "cooked up" the idea to go see the retired icebreaker Mackinaw, which is now a maritime museum docked in Mackinaw City, MI. This is the icebreaker that Chris was stationed on in the 60's while he was in the Coast Guard, and perhaps more noteably :-) was commissioned the year he was born! So, we co-ordinated and packed and re-packed to get everything into our camper and headed north on June 11th, last Thursday. It was tight but good-natured in our truck. Little Charolette was a wonderful traveler....and she kept us smiling as she knew how to stop the truck! when she said she had to go "pee pee"....and it worked! We had a wonderful campground that Chris and I had stayed at before....The Tee Pee Campground in Mackinaw City. The wonderful thing about this place was that our camp sight was right on the shore of Lake Huron and in clear view of the modern marvel that is the third longest suspension bridge in the world ....the 5 mi. long "Mighty Mac" Mackinac Bridge.Since David had never been north of Lansing, MI, one of the important things for us to do on this trip north was to cross the bridge to St. Ignace in the "UP"....the Upper Penninsula of MI....home of the "yuupers".

Of course the above is the traditional "we were there" picture of the group.

Of course I was "shutter bugging".

Charolette was the best trooper in the world when we literally drug her all over Macinac Island. She always smiled and kept on going. Above we are on the ferry to the island and she is enjoying the water. She called the ferry the "water bus".

Believe it or not....here's the proof....I biked around the entire island. Wasn't cute....but I did it! I was proud of myself since I had not been on a bike for 50 years!

After watching fudge being made, taking loads of pictures, and doing a little shopping...I became officially a "fudgie"....i.e. a tourist with a camera around their neck, and fudge in the hand.

Our other destination on this trip was the maritime museum, Mackinaw. It was lots of fun. Since Chris was crew, the folks at the museum offered that if there was anything that was not on the tour, and he wanted his family to see, they would be glad to show that area to him. In other words, he could go anywhere on the ship. He was looking for some obscure place in the deepest forward area....and the docent wanted to find it too....he said there was a camera there that was functioning, but he had not been able to find the room. So off they all went....up ladders, down ladders, through port holes....finally comming across some old maps of the ship. And they figured out where it was! Chris' only problem with finding it was that walls had been moved, port holes had been changed over the years....but they succeeded!

Here was Chris returning from one of the unsuccessful attempts to find the forward engine room.

Around the camp fire was lots of fun. We were only steps away from the shore, the play ground and lots of fun. Charolette was so ready for anything. Here she is amazed at sparklers....

She loved being on top of the world ont he slide and saying "Hi!"....and then "Wheeeee" on the way down.

At dusk we often went down to the shore and looked at whatever. One thing for sure was that she didn't want to miss anything and didn't want to go to bed...

Our last morning there, Andrea and David took some bread sticks to the shore to feed the sea gulls. It was almost like a scene from "The Birds"....They really flocked to her.

This was only one of the beautiful sunsets that we saw. God certainly had his color palat out those nights.

And Charolette finally crashed on the last evening before midnight.....at about 8:30....only because mommy zipped her inside the tent. It took her about 10 minutes....and she was out. It had been a long day for her....and for all of us.