Star One Smart Blog's

I've just returned from a great mini-vacation in Michigan, where we spent time with family on Fish Lake, near Kalamazoo.

'Get away' is the key phrase...leaving the fast-pace of city life, returning to the country, to watch the corn grow.

There's lots of corn growing in southwest Michigan, to keep up with the Ethanol boom. Corn is worth a couple more bucks a bushel now. It seems every field that can support corn has corn growing, with some occasional soybean plantings, and of course, blueberries.


Check out these pics I grabbed using my Bushnell Northstar 'scope with the digital camera attached...again, I'm not too happy with the thing, but you can see the magnification, from the same deck as the top photo. It's difficult to focus, and with the lack of aperture control (it's wide open, baby, no stopping down this beast) there's only a tiny depth of field.

Oh well...

I took all the womenfolk to Amish Country in Indiana, a quiet place, Shipshewana, but full of quilts, it seems...of course, I was bored beyond tears, and I still don't know a thing about quilts.

The Amish in Indiana have deigned to place warning placards on their rides, and are also stuck with some Indiana Tax Plates that the Tennessee Amish have refused to put on their buggys. I think the Indiana Amish are more open than their Tennessee counterparts, but that's just a casual observation.

We got some return on our Indiana investment, when we took the load of protesting ladies to South Bend to visit Notre Dame.

My goal was to get a shot of 'Touchdown Jesus', from the Stadium, but alas all I got was a few pics of the campus. But, the Notre Dame-South Bend Campus ranks in the top tier of all North American Universities I've visited. Tennessee, you could take a few notes from Notre Dame...

OK, the highlight of this trip (besides, you know, utter relaxation) was the AACA 2007 Annual Gand National Meet, held at the Gilmore Car Museum, just northeast of Kalamazoo. I got so many pictures that I couldn't begin to put them all in one post. So, I'll have to append every post with a picture of an old car, maybe for the next few months! But here's a couple of my faorites...the '59 Cadillac, representing the best of Detroit Steel in that era, IMHO.



And the '48 Tucker, the car that never took off (too much pressure from the big 3 automakers; heck, this thing was marvelous and well ahead of it's time, but couldn't get off the ground...even with it's helicopter engine!)
Enough of this for now. I've got to find a way to get back to work, tomorrow, and find a way to get angry enough about politics to post some scathing commentary about my favorite liberals and their antics. I missed AlGore's bittersweet weekend (jetting about promoting Global Warming, while his son did his part in a Prius, while stoned out of his mind...that's the AlGore I know and remember...)

Look for those old cars to show up in the oddest places, in future posts.

Michigan? Hey, if I had gone there first when I left Arizona, before Tennessee, you know I might have actually wanted to stay there? But, the politics are somewhat blue, and I didn't visit Detroit, so I guess I haven't seen much.

But, I will go back, to visit.

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BTW...
I missed the Cowboy's Photoshop contest. I didn't have (or want) internet access in Michigan, so there was no reading or time-wasting online. So, here's a quick 'chop of a Buick, from Gilmore. Can't wait to get more of these posted... ;D