Upper Peninsula blog break

I leave this morning for my annual trip to the Michigan Upper Peninsula, so blogging may be light for the next few days. Life on the island is more conducive to reading words printed on paper than on computer screens; the internet connection goes down, the power goes out, or my laptop interferes with the TV reception thanks to our ancient electrical wiring. Plus I’ll be busy with essential chores like burning wood, hauling wood to the fire pit, chopping wood so we can burn it, etc. Or maybe I’ll be sailing, playing tennis, or gazing up at the clear northern sky rather than spending time online. I’ll try to get a few posts up, but either way I’ll be back in Portland and on the regular schedule by Wednesday.

In the meantime, here are few photos from the Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden Boat Show, one of the largest in the country. Wooden boats are a way of life in the UP. Daily use has our own boat, The Kid, short of show quality, but there’s nothing like cruising along the channel in it or mastering the art of maneuvering the unwieldy thing into the boat house. Every year the family talks about trading it in for a more practical fiberglass boat and every year we keep it. I hope we always do.

The boat show usually takes place after I leave, but during last year’s period of being unemployed and driving across America I was able to stay long enough to see it. The pictures are below. My photos aren’t that great, but the boats are beautiful.