The Mushroom Houses of Charlevoix

When Jana and I told people we were doing some sightseeing on our way back to Traverse City they all mentioned the mushroom houses.   They are stone with thatched roofs that look like something out of a fairy tale.

They were designed and built by Earl Young to show that small stone houses could be as impressive as a castle.  (I got that off wikipedia. For all I know he thought he was a Hobbit and wanted to built himself a little Hobbit House)  I know the one below doesn't look like a mushroom but I love all the stone work.

This was the giant mushroom house.  When you really look at it, it looks pretty normal underneath but with an undulating thatched roof.  (I like that word - undulating….undulating….say it out loud - undulating.)

The most interesting was the half house. It was the most interesting one we saw at least because I read on line that there are actually 31 such houses and we only saw about 4.  Anyway, there was a little tour going on while we were walking by and there was a history about some sort of dispute…maybe to do with a property line? that resulted in this strange configuration.  I tried to google it but I didn't see a back story right away and gave up.  Anyway, they were pretty cool and worth a mini detour to see them on our way to the airport.

Still Booktopia

Even though it's a week later, it's still Booktopia on the blog.  

Monday and Tuesday were the author talks, yankee book swap and speed book chat.  Most of the events I went to were at the bookstore.  

The bookstore's chairs were signed by authors like Jamie Ford and Jan-Philip Sendker.  

One day Lisa had the pesto grilled cheese at the cafe next door and the next day they tried to tell us it wasn't available.  Let me tell you how long Lisa put up with that b.s.  She marched right down to the kitchen area to talk to the chefs about how much she liked it and really wanted it again.

Pesto grilled cheese for everyone!!

Of course, if you are going to eat pesto grilled cheese for lunch, you need to walk so it doesn't sit forever on your ass.  Lisa and I might have missed a book event for a walk on the India Trail but it was a good trade.

We got back in time to sneak into the Q&A with Simon and Thomas - - they are bloggers who also have a podcast.  If you listen to BOTNS you probably also listen to The Readers.

The final event!!

We had an impromptu FaceTime chat with Chris - or maybe it was the ghost of Chris since the phone is glowing white.

Clearly it was a funny conversation. 

Another author, Bruce, came in as we were saying goodbye to Chris, so he had a little chat with her as well...

And then talked Jana and I into going out for one last drink.  As you can see, we closed the place.  But that's not saying much because I think they stopped serving at 10:00.  They let us sit with our drinks while they mopped the floor, put all the chairs up,  and did everything they needed to do before leaving.

When we got back to the inn Jana thought she smelled gas (as in natural gas…not human gas) so we started breathing in deeply.  These are our smelling faces.  I really threw myself into it but couldn't smell anything.

I called Bill when I got to my room and woke him up.  When we are at home he is up until all hours of the night watching shows on his laptop, smoking his cigar etc.  When I'm away he seems to go to bed early. Sorry, honey.  I just wanted to talk to you one last time before I was killed in the gas leak.

Booktopia Continued

Since this week I'l be posting about Booktopia I figured I ought to include some books.  

Lisa and I went for a walk along the lake and ran across this little gem.  Nate Nick's Ittle Lib Ary.

I hope people really use this - it had several good books in it.

Monday morning was the Hemingway tour.  Petoskey has a lot of Hemingway history.  Unfortunately, most of it isn't very visual but this guy had a ton of stories.  Hemingway grew up in this area and came back here after he was injured in the war.  He drank and partied and fought with his family here. 

This was the boarding house where he wrote.  Much of this material was lost when Hadley left his satchel on a train.  The house is now a single family residence.  I wonder if it's weird to have a group of people stand in front of your house every day and take pictures of it.  Obviously this family knew the score when they bought it…would that be a selling point of something to knock down the price?

And now for some of my favorite pictures of the trip. 

At dinner, Lisa's mom Jo Ann found out that she was sitting next to the author of one of her favorite books….this was her reaction:

I would think that kind of reaction would make an author's day, wouldn't it? 

The author, Janis, turned out to be fun and ready to hang with the cool kids.  So we took her over to the post dinner bar.  (Hemingway drank here.)  We taught Janis about upper deckers.  I'm hoping that in her next book someone will do an upper decker and I'll know she has me to thank.  (For those of you who don't know here is the Urban Dictionary definition: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=upper+decker) 

As you can see, these events are all about seeing people we don't usually get to see.  Melissa and I were so happy to see each other back at the hotel….

But also sad that some of our buddies couldn't make it.

Mackinac Island

Booktopia is really FABBIETOPIA!!!

Sadly we only had 4 of the 7 Fabbies on this trip but the other 3 were with us in spirit and technology (texting, Facebook, Face Time, etc).

Sunday was a free day before the events on Monday so we spent it on Mackinac Island.  

We called it our Mackinac Fabbie Attack.

And mascot Miles has made his way back to me in the rotation!

You have to take a ferry to get to Mackinac Island and there are no cars there.  Everyone gets around by either walking, riding a bike, or by horse drawn carriage.

Lisa set a course for adventure with Nancy as her first mate.

I realize now that I hardly took any pictures of the harbor town.  It's a shame because it was very pretty but this probably tells you everything you need to know - they bike everywhere, the flowers were gorgeous and every other shop sold fudge.

This woman was getting her lunch at the counter and it was served in a Fritoes bag!

Fabbie Lisa was shocked that I've never heard of Fritos Pie.  She said it as though it was something the pilgrims ate at Thanksgiving and I was hundreds of years behind the times in junk food sensations.

Side note - what do you think of the color of this nice woman's nail polish?  I am not a fan…it seems like the color of nails a corpse would have but, again, I think I'm off trend.

Adirondack Fabbie Attack!

And this is the one where I was taking the selfie, closed my eyes because of the sun, and still took the picture.  You'd think I would be well aware of when I was taking my own photo.  Maybe I'm just blissed out.

The shore line was cairn central. Bill would have been busy for hours.  You were encouraged to build them as well as add to the existing ones.  Nancy did her part.

We took a nice long walk all over the island.  Over 25K steps that day.

This is the Grand Hotel where the movie  Somwhere In Time was filmed.  You are not allowed in unless you are a guest or you pay a $10 admittance fee!!  WTF?  

They have the longest front porch in the world. (I mean that literally - you can google it.)

We walked by this pretty garden and saw this sign - they hid 10 items for people to look for as they pass by.  We had a ferry to catch so I couldn't stop to play.  But I do see a cat!

We loved our time on Mackinac but we needed to get back to Petoskey for dinner. 

They were flying kites as the ferry headed for home.

Booktopia!!!

I'm back from Booktopia!   I got home late last night and haven't had time to get my blog posts ready.  I know Fletch is eager to see what shenanigans we got up to in Petoskey Michigan.  Here are just a couple tidbits and more to follow…

As this is the last official booktopia, Ann and Michael (the hosts) had a blanket specially made for their most loyal follower Linda.  She has attended ever Booktopia (there are 3 a year in various locations - I only go to the ones in VT).  The blanket has the name of every author that attended every Booktopia so she can curl up with all of them.

This is Ann and Michael on the last night.  The night was perfect actually, we gave them a standing ovation but there wasn't a lot of farewell talk…better to just let it end happily and upbeat.   The last night is called the Celebration of Authors - each of the authors at the event gets up and talks for 5-10 minutes.  This night often drones on way to long and the authors in the past have sometimes done the same spiel the they did at their daytime events.  But this time they were all very different, entertaining and brief!  The perfect ending.

Our motley crew - - Lisa, Thomas, Simon, Jo Ann, Jana and me.   You'll be seeing these faces a lot more in tomorrow's post!  

What my life could be ....

Jen is Booktopia-ing this week.  Thus you get a shabby blog.

When I am alone, here are some things I do.

Go to breakfast with my Mom and her family.

It was good to catch up.  Italian family, who have great nicknames.

I like the story about how my Grandfather (nicknamed Firp, after boxer Luis Firpo, who had a legendary fight against Jack Dempsey.) used to participate in dice gambling when he ran a fish market.  The guy who ran it was Two Ton Tony.   

 I've been watching movies.

Last night I rewatched Moonrise Kingdom.

Brilliant.

 I actually paid to re-watch Pitch Perfect.  Please don't judge me.

Jen told me to learn the cup song that Anna Kendrick auditions for the Barden Bellas.  She and Noelle learned it when they visited Mother Entwistle.  I will not be learning it.

 I binged watched the final season of Parks and Recreation.

The best sitcom since Seinfeld.

You would never see a post like this a year ago.

Hurry home Jennie.