November 5 One last walk

Saturday afternoon:  After we girls ate lunch--SO delicious--I voiced wanting to walk somewhere by the LAKE. How can we be this close to Lake Michigan and NOT do that??!?!?

A few of us ladies had spent about an hour prior to eating lunch playing Banana-grams--it was so much fun. We each won one game!

No one else was particularly interested in going for another walk. They were planning on playing a game of Mexican Train and I wasn't sure I could tolerate playing! Too many memories of playing that game. SO Margaret offered to drive me over to the Lake where I could explore for perhaps an hour and then she would come back and pick me up. Isn't she the sweetest? Margaret decided on a little place right at the base of Old Mission Peninsula in Traverse City. I took a few pictures ... it was kind of drizzling--thankfully I was wearing my rain jacket.

This marina was almost completely empty!

I took the boardwalk down to the very end ...

In my younger days (much younger), I would have stepped over on these rocks to see what I could see. But it was raining and they looked slippery ... I figured the last thing I needed to do was to fall in and wreck my camera ... so I did NOT walk on the rocks.

I saw this boat from a distance and decided to walk over to check it out. Definitely not a freighter, but an interesting looking boat nonetheless.

I never did figure out what the boat was used for. I could only get so close because of the fencing all around it ...

The wind was really picking up and the rain was coming down pretty hard by now. Thankfully, it was time for Margaret to pick me up, so I was rescued before becoming completely drenched. We went back to her condo, ate more food, cleaned up, packed up, and headed on back to Grand Rapids. What a nice 24 hours!

On the way north yesterday, I was in the car Tamela was driving. I heard some of her "story" ... the part where her mom was killed in a car accident when Tamela was just nine, and then she was raised by her step-grandma, who was a Christian and brought her to church--where eventually Tamela met the Lord. It's always nice to hear another person's difficult story--helps to keep one's own story in perspective. I also got to know Beth better on the way up. Beth was a nurse/missionary in Nepal in the mid-70's and met her husband over there. He was a single physician/missionary from the Netherlands. Beth has very interesting stories about Nepal and her years there, as well as living in the Netherlands for a year. Beth travels back to Nepal almost yearly with nursing students from Calvin College--to give them a first-hand experience of nursing in a third-world country. 

I rode back to Grand Rapids with Margaret. Driving with Margaret is a fun experience. She gets lost almost as much as I do! No ... not that much. She did just fine, except when she was talking and not paying attention to where we were. That happens to me all the time! We arrived back safe and sound and that's all that matters.