Just got invited to a wedding on Beaver Island Michigan

Up in PK's territory. I used to go with my golf group to in my opinion the most beautiful golf course in America.....Crystal Downs, and love northern Michigan. So we start looking into what time and money it will take to go to the wedding. It is about the same distance from Illinois to Beaver Island, as it is to go to Pensacola. My wife does not want to spend 15 hours in the car, and she is not happy on the pricing. To take our car over to Beaver Island is going to cost $200 round trip, plus $100 for our fare. So it is $300 and over a two hour ferry ride. Now because the ferry in the off season only goes once a day, we would be forced to get a hotel on the island for about $200 a night, or we can fly over on a charter right before the wedding and return after the wedding to a hotel casino I would like to stay. You need five people to get a charter and we are only certain one couple is going to make this trip, this would end up costing close to $375, but we would avoid being stuck off season on a remote island, when we could be staying at a casino.

I now see all the casinos PK has to choose from and it is a poker player's dream as native Americans get even with the foreign invaders, however we are looking at a couple thousand bucks as we would do the whole drive around the lake thing and stop at casinos along the way, with hopefully comps on non indian owned casinos taking about a week vacation pending my health. I will know by September 1 how the health is doing after the second PRRT treatment. I would like to do this trip because the around the lake vacation was the last one I did with my dad before he died. It is beautiful country.

Let us know what you decide.   Weather could be very iffy, of course, but it's nice that you're dreaming of doing it.  Can understand Mrs. Sea's reluctance to undertake such a long drive, however.  

One of my very favorite places in the entire world, experienced while I lived in NW Ohio, is Torch Lake, Michigan.   Not on the UP but northern lower MI not far from Traverse City.  Gorgeous Christmas tree country, evergreen rolling hills, and a 20-mile-long, relatively narrow, clear glacial lake in nine shades of turquoise.   Our little family rented a small lakefront house with a little sandy beach and a pontoon boat for a week, went fishing every day, ate famous Traverse City fudge, and the memories are absolutely precious.   Have often said if I were to become a snowbird that's where I'd want to summer.

I didn't get along all that well with my (now late ex-) husband, but will forever be grateful to him for taking me to Torch.  I doubt I'll ever see it again.   {{{sigh}}}

I'm not far from torch lake. It is something to behold. I hope those plans work out.

Btw... firekeeperscasino.com is on your way up and would be a nice place to spend the night. It's the best poker room in the state... tourns and lots of cash tables every day. Turtlecreekcasino.com just east of traverse city is smaller but nice. Hotel is attached. Depending on the day there are tourns and cash games.

PkrBum wrote:I'm not far from torch lake. It is something to behold. I hope those plans work out.

Thanks, but whose plans? Sea's? I don't have any plans; can't afford to purchase a second home, nor do I really want to, I guess. Just like to dream about Torch once in a while. I do wonder if it could possibly be as clean as it was forty years ago. (OMG that long? Yes. Good grief; time flies.)

Very cool that you don't live far. How close is close? (Just curious.) Ever spent any time on the lake?

I was referring to seagoat. It is as beautiful as you remember... I've been there many times as i have friends there. I live about 45 miles east of there on another beautiful glacial lake. It's just so different up here. I love it... except for the dead of winter... lol. Like today will be 80 and then tonight it'll be in the 50's. Heaven.

Does sound like heaven indeed, Pkr.   But you do remind me what kept us from the northlands -- we left NW Connecticut because we could no longer deal with the cold, snowy, icy winters.  

Still, if I were a whole lot wealthier, I might consider renting a nice house on Torch for a month or two in summer.   Trouble is getting there, especially as we no longer like to fly -- nor do I like to pack for lake or shore with airline baggage restrictions.

We're not unhappy homebodies, and good thing, 'cause this is where I think we'll be staying.    

I love it down there too... just not the heat anymore. I honestly didn't think about moving here until a visit several years back. But now i just love it and 3 of the seasons... lol. I visit pcola often tho... still have friends and family there. I don't even stay up here during the winter. I have a place in grand Rapids and fly out. This year I'm spending xmas in Gatlinburg and then grand canyon in February... along with a couple of trips to Pcola. If you plan ahead you can find good deals. Airbnb.com is a cool site and is where i found the Gatlinburg cabin.

Well, the wedding is probably not going to happen as our mutual good friends with the father of the bride is returning to Florida. I just loved visiting friends and wading into Crystal Lake after a day of golfing on what Golf Digest once rated as the 8th best course in America. The weather in July and August is just stunning, but I remember my father getting caught in an early storm while near copper harbor and we literally froze because back then if you did not pack something, you could not just go to a Wal Mart and get a kids jacket on a Sunday morning. I still would like to do it, but with us having only so much time together, she is letting her feelings be known. I just would have liked to take a leisurely trip around the lake, but she was quick to point out that if I had a problem on the ferry, it would be a full day before we could get back with our car. If we do not take the car, my weakness would make three block walks from the ferry dock, next to impossible. I just love that area this time of year.....oh well, I took the granddaughters home, and stopped at the casino and won $150 and we are treating three couples Sunday night, so I now have some money to pay part of the bill.....all is good, but adjusting to my now fixed income is beginning to bother me now that I can visit a casino.

Probably wise... dammit.

Coincidentally, I am also headed to southwest MI for a wedding in September.    Hoping to also make it up a bit north of Traverse City a few days to see some cousins I haven't seen for years and years.  

(I was actually born a bit south of Detroit and lived there when I was little till the '67 riots after which my family and all my relatives got the h*ll out.  Some went north, some went south.   I don't really claim to be a Michigander though.)

September is spectacular on the Western side of lake Michigan. I felt like I was in heaven playing Crystal Downs and had some of the best Walleye and whitefish in this little stone clubhouse which overlooks the course. So I would give anything to find a way to go to this wedding, but not if it means the wife is not happy.

Also, there are some cool history on Beaver Island. It was a separate country for awhile.

EmeraldGhost wrote:Coincidentally, I am also headed to southwest MI for a wedding in September.    Hoping to also make it up a bit north of Traverse City a few days to see some cousins I haven't seen for years and years.  

(I was actually born a bit south of Detroit and lived there when I was little till the '67 riots after which my family and all my relatives got the h*ll out.  Some went north, some went south.   I don't really claim to be a Michigander though.)

You should visit torch lake... it's just east of traverse bay. It's amazing.

PkrBum wrote:You should visit torch lake... it's just east of traverse bay. It's amazing.

I second that suggestion!

(Lake Leelanau, where my late ex's Toledo family vacationed when he was a child, is another pretty one, but I like Torch better.)

PkrBum wrote:Probably wise... dammit.

Dammit but wise is right. Sorry, Sea. Good of you to be sensitive to your wife's wishes right now.

I am sending an email to the groom's dad that we probably will not be able to make it. We called or emailed other friends and nobody is going. Usually when you spend $500 to get to the wedding and spend the night, not to mention the 12 hours in the car to get there......it is hard to justify, but it sounds like nobody we know is going, and the wife is pretty much putting a veto on this wedding. I just want to do the Lake loop before I pass, but she is good with us taking a road trip when we go to Florida, so I will visit some civil war battlefields, and before I die we wanted to see Andersonville prison camp one more time. It is a very powerful visit.

The road trip to FL sounds like a reasonable plan.

Too bad no one you know is going to that wedding. I sure hope they have other family/friends who will! Pretty remote, seems to me, unless one lives up that way.

My wife was telling me what a gig the bride's family has because their family was one of the first permanent settlers on the island as her great great grandparents were fisherman on the island. The parents of the bride still usually have to pay for a wedding, but they are going to have the reception in the church hall and I really doubt that they are not aware of folks spending $500 are not going to attend and the wedding is going to be small. There was a strange request on the invitation that the couple wanted cash to fund their honeymoon. Never have seen that, but if people are not going to attend, they will send cash and the parents will just have a few family members and probably close friends of the couple getting married, and it will be quaint and beautiful. We had over 250 at my daughter's wedding, and we should have suggested that we would pay for the wedding and reception on Beaver Island, and I bet we could have got that number down to 50 who attended....

Oh, and the original fisherman in their family was involved in the attacks on Mormons on Beaver Island. The leader was in cold blood murdered, and the shooters got on a navy boat which witnessed the murder and never held the three shooters and took them to Mackinaw Islands where they literally got away with murder because the mobs did not approve of Polygamy. This was also happening a few years earlier in Carthage Illinois where Joseph Smith was murdered in jail by a mob. Their relative got off from criminal charges because the mob had taken them from a cottage owned by the mormons. It was fun to read some of the history of Beaver Island.

2seaoat wrote:Oh, and the original fisherman in their family was involved in the attacks on Mormons on Beaver Island.  The leader was in cold blood murdered, and the shooters got on a navy boat which witnessed the murder and never held the three shooters and took them to Mackinaw Islands where they literally got away with murder because the mobs did not approve of Polygamy.  This was also happening a few years earlier in Carthage Illinois where Joseph Smith was murdered in jail by a mob.  Their relative got off from criminal charges because the mob had taken them from a cottage owned by the mormons.   It was fun to read some of the history of Beaver Island.

How insensitive!    Do you still say "homos" and use the "N" word, Oatie?

Haven't you heard?  You're not supposed to call 'em "Mormons" anymore.

Stop calling the Mormon Church ‘Mormon,’ says church leader. ‘LDS’ is out, too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/08/17/stop-calling-the-mormon-church-mormon-says-church-leader-lds-is-out-too/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.30e7a0177c3e

 

At that point in history, they were known as mormons. They have tried to change their name about four times, but until I see them change the name of the Mormon tabernacle choir, I will use the term. It is impolite to question the beliefs of a religion, but I have never met a Mormon who are not wonderful people....hundreds, and they share a very peaceful demeanor compared to my aggressive overbearing demeanor. However, having been raised as Christian, their new name putting emphasis on Jesus, when what is alleged to have happened in upstate NY, does not jive with my understanding of their tenets. Again, I am not a theological expert on their doctrine, but this sounds very much like a branding problem.

I would urge all people to make a trip to Nauvoo Illinois to see where the great mormon temple was built before Joseph Smith was murdered in the Carthage jail. It is a great road trip, and they have a family style restaurant which we really enjoyed when we visited. America should be ashamed as to how the Mormons were treated, and after Joseph Smith's murder, Beaver Island became very important, until the mobs literally rounded up the people without their possessions and put them on boats and dumped them on mainland Michigan, as religious persecution went unchallenged.