Lake Orion, Michigan

We arrived in Lake Orion just in time for "Flare Night" a tradition where the home owners all around the lake set off flares on the shore the night before the Fourth of July fireworks. It is very beautiful and Michael, Josies son, had plenty of them to line his shore line. On the fireworks night, which was on the 2nd this year, everyone went out in their boats to watch the fireworks, which are shot from a barge in the middle of the lake. The lights from the boats along with the fireworks, make for a beautiful sight from the shore where Josie and I watched them.

On the 4th of July, Josie and I went into Detroit to see the Tigers take on the Guardians. It was a great day for a ball game and the Tigers won!

We spent some time around the lake with Josies family. Cathy and Scott were in from Florida as well as their father, Jim and Aunt Gail. Cathy tried her skill at riding the paddle board, and was able to get up and around  the lake. Josie's grand-daughters, Abby and Anne were very adept on the paddle boards and scooted all over the lake.  We had a few nice dinners together and one evening played a lively game of beer pong. We also had a bourbon tasting one evening that proved that no matter how much you pay for a bottle of bourbon sometimes the cheaper ones taste better. 

We spent a few hours one day at the Oakland County Fair. It was the first day of the fair so many of the livestock exhibits were not open yet, but we did see the pig races, and the chainsaw artist carving an owl. Josie got to feed the cows and goats. She even tried her hand at milking an artificial cow which she was very good at having milked a real cow once at the Purina Farm in Missouri. Of course, what would a fair be with out eating fried food, and we  shared a fried snickers bar, sooooo good!

We have been having a lot of fun finding Geocaches here in Lake Orion. We found all of them in the park where we were staying and even repaired one of them that had cracked open. We found one of them inside of a sign in a cemetery and we found one in a small birdhouse. Another interesting cache was located near the grave of Minour Yamasaki, the designer of the World Trade Center in New York. Odd that he and his wife are buried in such an out of the way cemetery in Lakeville, Michigan. We leave golf tees in the caches that are big enough to hold them. We got that idea from Mike Weirich, who got us started on this treasure hunt. We also are unable to find a few of the caches, which makes it frustrating.  

One evening we had dinner and dessert at the two of oldest and highest rated restaurants in Rochester, Michigan. Lipuma's Coney Island, where we feasted on Coney dogs and French fries by the river. Then we walked up the street to Sander's Chocolate and Ice Cream Shoppe, where we split their famous Cream Puff Sundae, A cream puff split in half with ice cream added between the halves and then covered with chocolate and caramel sauce. 

I played the Old Course at Indianwood with Glen and then a few days later we played at the Flint Country Club, both courses were in top shape. The Old Course is a Links Course and the Flint course was lined with beautiful trees. The next week I played with Russ, one of our fulltime RV friends. We played the Hadley Acres Golf Course with a front nine made up of tight fairways and very small greens and a back nine with larger fairways and much bigger greens.