Looking back on June

It's hard to believe that we are squarely into July now. June almost feels like it is nothing but a blur in our rear view mirror. Sadly, as we get older, the days, weeks, months, and years seem to fly by at lightning speed. It's one of those mysteries of the universe and there doesn't seem to be a way to pump the brakes on any of it.

With that in mind, I wanted to take some time today and solidify some memories from June on the blockchain before they are lost to me forever. While some might consider a post like this "spammy", I can't think of a better time capsule than our beloved immutable blockchain.

I hope you enjoy some of the photos I share. There isn't going to be a particular theme, just a lot of life.

It was made for living right?!

@mrsbozz took this photo of a seagull camping out on top of my trucks tonneau cover. I'm sure he was just looking for food, but I also have to consider the possibility that it was looking for payback.

You see, earlier that day I had smoked one of his brethren cruising down the road at 58 MPH. I don't rate the odds of it surviving as very high, so this fellow could have been looking to equalize my transgression.

Normally, we have a couple that we regularly camp with. Their kids are getting old enough now that they are involved in many extra curricular activities and that means they aren't able to camp with us as much as they used to.

With that in mind, @mrsbozz exclaimed that she wants to play more games together when we have to camp alone. She suckered me into playing Rummy and she handily destroyed me three games in a row.

We might need to rethink this "games" thing!

She'd probably freak out that I am sharing these photos given how messy it is, but when we are camping, this is our home away from home. We actually spend very little time inside of the trailer, but it is nice to have a good dry place to retreat to when the weather is too rainy or cold to be outside.

It gives us a fair amount of space to stretch out and has most all the comforts of home.

This was a cool old church that we came across while we were visiting Cross Village, MI. It's so small it doesn't even have bathrooms inside of it. If you go out the back, there is a small fence with a couple of porta-johns behind it. No thanks!

We also passed through the small town of Bliss, MI. Home of Blissfest, it also housed this interesting church with quite a dramatic roof. I've always kind of enjoyed the A-Frame style. It would be interesting to see what this place looks like on the inside. I imagine it is equally dramatic as the outside!

I promised @galenkp (not directly), that I would share some photos of the garlic that I planted last fall. As you can see, despite the dry Spring we have had, some scapes started to finally jump out. I cut those off and I grilled them up to have with a juicy steak one night.

I put them in some foil and drizzled them with olive oil before I put them on the grill. @mrsbozz didn't feel like they had a bunch of flavor, but I thought they were delightful. I'm looking forward to harvesting my garlic later this year and seeing how well I did. This is my first time trying to grow garlic, so I expect there will be some trial and error.

Back to Cross Village, MI

We had a bit of time to kill after our lunch in Cross Village, so we decided to hit Petoskey Brewing's Cross Village branch for a cold beer.

It's clearly a pretty new building, but the style has an old mission feel that is kind of cool. They were practically dead for the middle of a Friday in the summer and we almost thought they were closed.

It turns out, just the indoors was closed. They had the patio fully open and there were a couple of tables occupied out there.

@mrsbozz knows I know what she likes in terms of beer, so she usually just tells me to pick something for her. In this case, I got her a nice Heffewizen that she absolutely loved. I decided to try their flagship brown ale and it was equally delicious.

I don't have Heffewizens, but they often have a bit of a banana flavor to them that kind of turns me off. In turn, the darker beers like this often have a coffee flavor that my wife doesn't care for.

I am actually not a coffee drinker, I like the smell, but I don't care for the flavor. When you put it in a beer though, a switch flips and I absolutely love it. Call me crazy.

In honor of these two fine brews, I am submitting this as a #beersaturday post sponsored by @detlev

The haze from the wildfires was starting to clear off and we had a wonderful afternoon sitting on the patio enjoying our beers. We didn't try any of the food here, but the people around us did and it looked delicious. The problem is, being so close to the famous Legs Inn how do you not go there anytime you are in Cross Village?

Speaking of wildfire haze, those fires in Canada have been brutal. You might think that is fog in the photos above but it is actually wildfire smoke. There was one day at work the whole outdoors smelled like a campfire anytime you would go outside.

It has been really crazy. I can only imagine how bad it must be up there if it is like this down in Michigan!

I hope they can get some rain and get them under control soon!

Finally, since we are talking about fires, this is one of my favorite parts of camping. I can't count the number of amazing nights I have spent around the campfire with @mrsbozz and our friends. It's been a true joy to share those moments with them.

Given how dry it has been this summer, I started carrying around an empty five gallon bucket. We fill that with water from the campground so we can douse the fire if things get out of control or we are calling it a night.

Typically, we knock the fire down and just let it simmer overnight, but again given the dry conditions, we don't want to take the chance. It's just our way of being responsible for the campgrounds that we have come to know and love!