THE ROVING POLLOCKS
2010

Bill's note: Well, I guess I have really painted myself into a corner this time: I have gone over a year without writing anything about our travels. That’s no problem if I don’t ever intend to write another thing about the Pollock’s Rovings. However, since I have not made that decision and every now and then someone…today it was Penny Pelzer…says ”Are you keeping a journal?” or “You should write a book.” Or “Why don’t you do your travelogues any more?”, I have decided to draw a line in the sand and get back to it.

A few caveats: Even with Gisela’s help, I will probably forget some things and thus, fail to mention some people. For that I apologize in advance. I will also probably get some things wrong and some stuff will be made up to make the story better…that’s just the Irish in me…you know, the Blarney (Yes, I have kissed the Blarney Stone.) Last, Gisela helps me a lot with this and deserves tons of credit and none of the blame for the errors. That is mine alone and is usually caused by refusal to listen to her advice. Having said all that let’s get on with it.

The last reports of substance that we wrote and posted to the Roving Pollocks blog: http://rovingpollocks.blogspot.com - was about the fall and early winter of 2009. These included our foray to the Big Apple and our cameo with Al Roker on the Today show. Many of you, including Bill’s own children, did not even know about Al Roker and the Guy in the Lobster Hat. That’s because many of you, including Bill’s own children, won’t click on a link in an email to go to our blog. Some will go to the blog but not click on links in the blog. So for those of you who missed it, go to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?=vbb6Z0b9By5A and see our 15 seconds of fame.




We also alluded to our ‘roadside rip-off’ following another brake failure just before Thanksgiving 2009 on our way to the Chambers Farm Pow-Wow Boomerang in Florida. Again without boring you with details, we received a refund of $1000 thanks to Investigator Moon who investigates violations of the Florida Motor Vehicle Repair Act. The good news is we have not had another brake failure or fire since then thanks to Walt’s Brakes in Ocala who got us the right calipers.

Paul, Yvette and William flew to Orlando to visit Disney World and take a Disney Cruise with Brian and Judith, Yvette's Dad and Step-mom. We took the opportunity to pick them up at the airport, take them to dinner and then deliver them to their hotel. Actually, the whole thing was an excuse for Bill to buy another hat...this time it was a Mickey Mouse ears hat that he claimed was for William. In the final analysis, William did end up with the hat but Bill really wanted to keep it...he looked so good in it. Right!


We left the Beav in Florida in early December 2009 and hustled back to Virginia in Wally (our Jeep) for the Holidays – Wally and the Beav…get it? – We had to get the cabin back in shape for a stream of visitors. All was going well until about five days before Christmas when it happened. A “two-footer.” Yes, that’s right, two feet of snow. It took four two-hour shoveling sessions to clear our one hundred foot long driveway. The first three sessions, 10:00 PM, 1:00 AM, and 4:00 AM, were handled by Bill. The last at 9:00 AM was accomplished by Gisela and the best neighbors on the planet, Scott and Missy White, who are also young and fit. Yes, folks, Gisela got suited up and shoveled…mumbling ‘never again…no way…no how.’ (Other mumbles are not printable.) We did succeed in getting things clear and got Ann and Dwayne in for Christmas.












However, because the mountain was still pretty nasty with ice and snow we took our New Year’s celebration with Don and Kathee Larmee to their house in Virginia Beach. We had the usual wonderful dinner thanks to Kathee and Gisela followed by the usual idiotic lowering of the Acorn at midnight by Don and Bill. When will they ever grow up…never if we are lucky.


















We continued heading south stopping by to see Paul, Yvette and William in Kill Devil Hills, NC. We heard all about their Disney Cruise, a mixed review, and just enjoyed more family time. It was then on to Florida.

When we returned to the Beav in Orange Lake we found that the hydronic heating system was leaking diesel fuel. Sooo it was back to Wildwood for more repairs. We had previously spent a week there before we went north for the holidays…the good part of that visit was we met Johnnie Depp’s father, John. The bad part was the mucho dollars we left behind.

While we were in Wildwood we took the opportunity to visit our former High Knob neighbors, Tim and Louise Fahey at their new house in The Villages. They were pretty darn happy to have finally realized their dream.

We pretty much stayed parked at near Ocala until we started our move north in the spring. We made a circuit of Florida and actually stayed in a motel at Clearwater Beach while attending the Tampa RV show with Ron and Ginny Norton. There we ran into Boomers Mary Lane and Elaine Cannell who we had last seen in Virginia in October. We turned south to visit Liz Banta for a few days. While there we saw Bob and Francie Storey and Bob and Peggy Bloom. From there we made a run down to Marathon in the Keys to visit John and Ellen Albin and our favorite Westie, Piper. On our way and while there, we saw the impact of the freezing weather. Acres of dead tomato plants around Homestead, the devastation visited on the sea turtles in the Gulf of Florida and the massive fish kills in the Everglades…well fed ‘gators. We visited the Turtle Hospital in Marathon and heard the story of how they rescued over a hundred sea turtles that had be shocked by the cold waters of the Gulf where normal water temperatures in the seventies dropped into the forties.









There were two big events in February. Bill’s birthday which we celebrated by going on a short cruise to the Bahamas with Ron and Ginny Norton. Good food, conversation and lots of Pegs and Jokers with good friends.

The other big event was a Cedar Springs High School Class of 1963 mini-reunion at our RV park at Orange Lake, Florida. We had Ivan and Janis Opperman, Chuck and Mary Crosby, Art and Penny Pelzer and the Pollocks. We almost had Shirley Duncan but her sister broke her arm so she had to stay with her on the Gulf Coast. We were able to conjure up an online video conversation with Lisa Van Someren. What fun!


Along came March and it was time to move west to one of our favorite destinations, Betty’s RV Park in Abbeville, LA. We rendezvoused with Ron and Ginny Norton at a park on the Suwannee River…as in ‘Way down upon the …’. We proceed to the Apalachicola, Florida area where we stopped at an RV ‘resort’ that we heard about at the Tampa RV show. It was a work in progress but the owners were very friendly and accommodating. It was located in the town of Carabelle, which was a work where progress had come to an abrupt halt. Several half completed developments that had fallen on hard times. The first night we were there the owners prepared and served a whole bunch of topped oysters that were great. The next night one of the park residents prepared homemade pasta. The owners whipped up a tomato vodka sauce for the pasta…this was beginning to look like a future ‘Betty’s.’ Until the next morning that is, when we were scheduled to move on but Ginny and Bill we soooo sick they could hardly move. They both stayed in bed all day. We are not sure it was the vodka sauce since Ron and Gisela appeared to be unaffected but to this day Bill can’t even look at a jar of the stuff in the grocery store. We did get to enjoy some famous Apalachicola oysters at Papa Joe’s on the waterfront. Worth the trip to sample some of the country’s best oysters.

After a day in bed we were able to continue on to the Pensacola Elks and then on to Foley, Alabama where we went in search of an old established Elks lodge with a new RV parking area. Turns out it was a new Elks Lodge building with an old run down RV parking area. But it was just down the road from a Dodge Dealer which was good because Ron and Ginny’s drive shaft decided to give up the ghost. A high point of our Alabama stop was a visit to Fairhope and lunch in a restaurant that had been featured on the food network…OK, so it was on’ Diners, Drive-ins and Dives’ but it was still good.

From there we made a beeline to Betty’s with a brief overnight stop at a Sam’s Club in Slidell, Louisiana. At Betty’s we were meeting up with other good friends who had journeyed from the west, Tom and Jil Mohr, Geoff and Nancy Justiss, and Chris Christianson. We were gonna let the good times role in Cajun country. And we did. Being at Betty’s is always a treat. Betty goes out of her way to make sure all her visitors have a great time. We enjoyed lots of crawfish, took a great swamp tour on Lake Martin, savored the Po’ Boy sandwiches at Bon Creole in New Iberia (Dave Robicheaux and James Lee Burke’s hometown), enjoyed some great Cajun music by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys at a Catfish festival in Washington, LA…food and music - two great themes of Cajun country.



For nearly a year before arriving at Betty’s, Gisela has been making Jewelry. It is made with sterling silver, brass and copper wire and various beads and stones. She took a few classes and enjoyed the artistry of making each pendant, necklace, bracelet, and ring. We began to be faced with the problem of what to do with the accumulating art. Our stop at Betty’s, presented the beginning of the solution. Another guest at Betty’s brought out her beading to show the group. Gisela showed some of her work and …lo and behold…people asked if she would sell a couple of pieces…which, of course, she did. That marked the beginning of what is now a budding small business: MostlyWire, Jewelry Handcrafted by Gisela. She now has an online shop on ETSY, www.mostlywire.etsy.com and she is now selling at street fairs, craft shows, farmers markets, etc., as we travel. More on that later.

With much regret we departed Betty’s and went our separate ways although Geoff and Nancy, Chris and ourselves headed for New Orleans for a few days. During our visit to Betty’s and NO, both Geoff and then Nancy were fighting some sort of malady that kept one or both in quarantine most of the time. Nevertheless Geoff and Bill were able to tour the World War II museum and Gisela and Chris took a city tour that showed the lingering devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

While in NO, we received word that Bill’s daughter, Ann’s husband, Dwayne’s mom, Ginger Carpenter passed away after a long battle with various respiratory ailments. We hit the road for Virginia in order to get to Fredericksburg for the funeral. We did arrive in time for Ginger’s funeral and we were glad to be able to express our condolences in person to Dwayne and his dad, Lee.

The only excitement on the trip north was when another motor home decided to plunge its left side into our driver’s side mirror while we were stopped at a Flying J truck stop in Alabama. Just another aspect of the RV lifestyle. Upon arrival in Front Royal, we off loaded our stuff, took the motor home to the body shop to have the mirror repainted, and then put it in storage for a whole three weeks during which we checked on Gisela’s mom who is at an Alzheimer’s facility nearby, visited Paul and Family and Ann and Dwayne before heading for Michigan for Pat Pollock’s wedding. Pat is Bill’s brother, Mac’s widow. She and Mark Rodak were married in Lake Leelanau, Michigan on May 1. We were really glad we could be there.

We then took the motor home down to Rockford to Camp Opperman, AKA Shaner Avenue Nursery where celebrated Gisela’s Birthday on May 3.

Leaving the Beav there we returned to Virginia for a few weeks of additional medical, dental and family visiting. The biggest event was Mostly Wire’s (Gisela’s) first ever craft show. It was the Front Royal Wine and Craft show. And it was a success…that is, she took in more than the entry fee.

When we returned we enjoyed visiting Ivan and Janis and their family for a week or so. After which, we headed for Kalamazoo to visit Bill’s Brother, Bob, and to join up with Geoff and Nancy again. This time they were both healthy! And we took a trip to Elkhart, IN to see the RV Museum and visited the fabulous Frederick Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. We also were able to visit Gisela's pal Rosie Brock in Saint Joe, Michigan.

By mid June we were on the brink of our great “Summer out West.” That will be the subject of the next installment of our 2010 report.

2010 Rovings of the Pollocks

Absent popular demand, since not a single loyal reader of the Roving Pollocks blog noticed that I did not publish a single word in all of 2010, (or if they did they decided not to mention it to me), I am committed to chronicling all of 2010 to get caught up before 2011 rings in.  That gives me four days.  Yikes!!!!

Here you see Bill working with some fellow Boomer bloggers to learn how to use Windows Live Writer so that blogging will be easier, faster, and better. 

THE ROVING POLLOCKS
2009 FALLISH

It has only been a couple of months since we last reported on our travel and travails. The latter has been winning as you shall soon see.

After our brief auto trip to North Carolina to visit our Grandson William, and his parents and to Virginia beach to catch up with Don and Kathee Larmee, we returned to the warmth of our mountain cabin …and our hot tub.

The first order of business was to get Pollock's Midway B & B into shape for the semi-annual visit from John and Ellen Albin (John’s lovely wife) and Piper, the wonder Westie. The Albins were migrating from Maine to the Florida Keys winter fishing grounds…at least John was. Our place is midway between. We had our usual great time hosting them. This time we explored historic Leesburg, Virginia and the less than historic nearby outlet mall. We did some windshield touring in the Virginia piedmont and Gisela prepared some gourmet chow.

This is Bill and John - Lobster Heads both.

Falling leaves, cooler days, and earlier sunsets told us that we better start thinking about our trip south before we were caught by falling snows, cold days and 4:00 PM sunsets. We had some work to do to get the motor home in shape for the winter.

We had been having problems with the tail lights on our “toad” vehicle, the Jeep nicknamed Wally (goes with the Beaver motorhome nicknamed the Beav. Any one out there that does not understand Wally and the Beav is too young to be reading this.) We thought the problem was in the motorhome wiring so we sought out an expert on towing stuff. He rewired the motorhome and replaced a gizzmo that combines two lights into one wire. We then hooked it up to the car…and promptly blew up the new gizzmo. We concluded that Wally was the culprit and took it to the trailer expert. He did some rewiring to make the system simpler and more fool-proof…just what Bill needed. Now it was time to return the Beav to get a new gizzmo. Turns our our selection of experts was a tad misguided because it was discovered that he had wired the first gizzmo up incorrectly. Thanks to Cliff Bedore for spending countless hours trying to make sense of our gizzmos and how they should be wired up. I learned that if you mention a technical problem to Cliff he does not like to see it remain unsolved. Thanks, Cliff. Our towing stuff expert did come through in the end and showed that his ethics exceeded his gizzmo wiring savvy since he more than made up for this mis-wiring by fixing it and giving us a new top of the line gizzmo for free. We really came to value small town America business ethics as shall be seen a bit later.

Back to our travails. On our way to deliver the Beav to the towing stuff expert, Gisela, who was following in Wally radioed to Bill, “White Smoke, White Smoke, White Smoke.” That would be OK if White Smoke was Bill’s call sign, you know like Navy fighter pilots call signs. Tom Cruise was Hollywood in Top Gun, John McCain…Playboy, and there was Booger. But it’s not. Bill’s call sign is Bill or sometimes "Hey, you." That meant White Smoke was a sign of... Big Trouble. Bill pulled the Beav over on the shoulder of Interstate 66 and went to look at the business end where the engine and transmission are located. He noted the location of the fire extinguisher on his way aft. However, the source of the White Smoke was soon evident…it came from engine coolant flashing on a hot engine and transmission. It seems that the folks that assembled the Beav back in 2001 ran a forty foot hose from the rear radiator to the dash heater a little bit too close to the hot exhaust system and after eight years that part of the hose was terminally dried out and it cracked under pressure. We love roadside repairs. If you refer back to March 2007 in this blog you can learn why. (Hint: Double front brake lock-up in the middle of the Florida Keys.) In this case it turns out that the hose could be spliced and after doing that and adding four gallons of coolant we were on our way. Did I mention that is was the expensive, long-life coolant…roughly $30 a gallon? Did I mention that roadside repairs always cost twice as much as repairs done in the shop? Well it was and they did.

But by the early days of November Wally and the Beav were loaded out, the hot tub was drained and winterized, we had our last dinner with Scott and Missy White, the best neighbors on this or any other planet, we said goodbye to our mountain amigos at the Coffee and Bagels Club and headed for Richmond. We spent nearly a week visiting with Bill’s daughter Ann and her husband, Dwayne. It was really great to be able to spend time with them.

Leaving Richmond, we headed for the Great Outdoors RV Resort near Titusville, Florida area and a rendezvous with Ron and Ginny Norton. Our visit was a bit different from past visits in that Ginny was taking pain pills instead of drinking wine. It seems that a “routine procedure” went wrong resulting in surgery and a long period of convalescence without wine. We still enjoyed our four days in the area. We were reacquainted with Pegs and Jokers and had some good seafood at the world famous, Dixie Crossroads. Never heard of it you say? OK, so, maybe it’s only fairly well known to snow birds in eastern Brevard County…good seafood nevertheless.

After four days with Ron and Ginny, we said our fairwells and see you laters, and headed for a Thanksgiving Indian Pow Wow near Fort McCoy, Florida. We were having the second annual, east coast, Escapee Boomer Thanksgiving ‘rang hosted by Cynthia Lee. As we drove east along State Route 40, we smelled something funny…but not as in 'funny ha ha.' Funny as in 'Oh, no, not again.' We stopped, inspected, sniffed, checked the front wheels for excessive heat and did not find the tell tale symptoms of brake lock-up. Relieved, we proceeded. A few miles later the smell was back and just like on the overseas highway in the Keys, there was no safe place to pull over. So we proceeded until we found one a couple of miles up the road at an abandoned doctors office now occupied by a guy selling Jerky. No mistaking the problem now. Thank you, Mac McCoy, known in RV circles as The Fire Guy. Mac had refilled our big foam extinguisher discharged in Michigan in the summer of 2008 when the left front wheel locked up and caught fire. This time it extinguished the fire in the right front wheel. We then headed down a familiar path. Call the Camping World Road Service. Get a mobile repair guy dispatched, etc. etc. etc.

This road side repair was the “mother of all roadside repairs.” We can’t go into detail about it because it is now under investigation by the Florida Attorney General, in litigation in small claims court, the subject of a Camping World Road Service complaint and a disputed MasterCard charge. You should be glad that the detail is not being provided…the complaint to the state of Florida runs over thirty pages. The good news neither us nor anyone else was killed or injured because we found the woefully negligent repair before the right front wheel came off a 29,000 pound Beav towing a 4800 pound Wally sending them crashing into a day care center. We took the Beav to another brake shop to have the melted ABS sensor replaced. The technician crept out from under the Beav (he was lying on a creeper, thus he crept.) and said, “Did you know one of the two bolts that holds the caliper on is sheared off? Well, folks, that and the fact the some astute price analysis by an old Navy contracting officer uncovered a serious case of “rip off” lead us to the current state of litigation, etc. No small town America business ethics here. More like ‘let's do defective repair work and then cheat those rich dummies driving those big motorhomes.‘ Stay tuned for the next chapter. Who knows, we may make it all the way to “Judge Judy.”


The Pow Wow Boomerang was great fun. We again met up with our old Boomer Amigo, Chris Christiansen and her dog Rufus. Chris had spent the summer in the Canadian Maritime Provinces had stopped to visit for a long weekend in Virginia on her way South. A big event on that visit was a Trader Joe's and Wegman's shopping spree. Chris was a bit starved for that sort of shopping since there is nothing comparable in Newfoundland. We also visited Chateau O’Brien in Markham, VA where we saved Chris from buying an $80 bottle of wine. Actually we were hoping she would. The Pow Wow featured a free Thanksgiving dinner of smoked turkey and wonderful stuffing but no gravy or mashed potatoes. Bill was told he should feel fortunate because the Indians at the first Thanksgiving served Swan and Maize according to his Cedar Springs High School classmate, Lisa Van Someren who has been living is the same state as Plymouth Rock since the 1970’s, and therefore, knows all about such things. We also got in a great boat ride on the Saint John’s River thanks to Chris’ friend, Barry, whose brother has a house on the river in Palatka.

At long last we headed for our winter nesting grounds on the banks of Orange Lake (what isn’t named “orange” or “gator” in Florida?) We arrived just in time to celebrate Jim Jaudon’s birthday with him and his lovely wife, Anne. Bill and Jim were ‘mates in the Navy. Can’t really say shipmates since they served together in buildings not ships. You know, like the Pentagon and Headquarters, Naval Material Command…buildings all.

We barely got oriented at Grand Lake RV and Golf Resort before it was time to head to Wildwood, Florida for the Grand Opening of Alliance RV Repair Center. The party was fun but we probably would not have gone if we did not have an appointment to have a few things fixed on the Beav. Five days and a few thou lighter in the bank account we returned to Grand Lake. It was the 20 labor hour “strip and seal” that got us. Remember the eight year old hose. Well, the same goes for eight year old roof caulk and sealant on windows, etc. Hopefully, we have put an end to the many nagging water leaks that have been plaguing us lately.

After a day at Grand Lake, we headed for Orlando International Airport to meet…. Mr. Cuteness himself, William Pollock V (Bill being IV), and his traveling companions, one of whom resembled Bill’s son and the other the nice girl with the French sounding name that Bill’s son married. We had a nice dinner together and took them to their hotel at Cocoa Beach where they were meeting up with Yvette’s dad, Brian and his lovely wife, Judith, who were taking William V and his parents on a Disney Cruise out of Port Canaveral. Lucky them. We did a RON -military lingo for remain over night- at Patrick Air Force Base. Lucked into a Distinguished Visitor Quarters suite right on the Atlantic Ocean for 48 bucks a night…pretty nice compared to the Super 8 down the road for twice that. The Air Force does a nice job with amenities.

Grandson William V and Son Paul



Another Silly Hat

We then headed back to Grand Lake for a couple of days before buttoning up the Beav and shooting up I-95 in Wally to spend Christmas and New Years with family and Friends.

We hope this finds you all well. We were saddened to hear of the passing of two alumni of the Navy Submarine acquisition community, Floyd Bedsole and Ed Washington. Our deepest sympathy goes out to Delores Washington and Floyd’s family.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Bill and Gisela

The Roving Pollocks - Summer 2009 Part II

Because we spent a couple of extra weeks in Virginia getting Gisela’s mom resettled, we missed the opportunity to visit with ND classmate John Lancaster and his wife, Chris in beautiful Potsdam, NY. We couldn’t make our schedules mesh…we’ll try again.

We, instead, proceeded to Maine via Elks lodges in Frackville, PA and Hudson, MA. We parked at the Fairgrounds in Cumberland Center for three weeks and for most of that time had the whole place to ourselves. It was a good location for exploring the Portland area and is near our friends at Forrest Lake and in Yarmouth. We had seen the fairgrounds over the years and had tried to find out if we could park there but could never find a way to contact them. This year we discovered a web site http://www.cumberlandfair.com/ and clicked on camping. We emailed them inquiring about a site, prices, etc. They came back and said that even for two weeks it would be $35 per night. We responded that we thought that was high for water and electric …30 amp… and a dump station…no security or other amenities. They responded with an offer of a weekly rate of $100 and offered to put in 50 amps at our site. For Maine in the summer, that is pretty darn good…better that anything except the some Elks lodges. Most full hookup campgrounds we have used in the same general area run $800 per month or more. For our RV friends, if you are interested you can email Bill Fischer, the campground manager, at: camping@cumberlandfair.com or call him at: 207-829 3283

We love Maine! We have been visiting there almost every other summer for the past ten or more years. This year we hit the ground running. As soon as we were parked, we headed for Day’s Lobster Pound. Three 1 1/8 pound lobsters, steamed…$18.…total. That’s a whole lot better than the $18 cup of coffee we “enjoyed” in San Marco Square, Venice, Italy. You can see the impact of our lobster quest…Lobster head.

On our second day, which weather-wise was the first day of Summer (August 6), we were invited to go sailing on Casco Bay with our friends John and Ellen Albin on their friend Robin’s boat. It was an absolutely perfect day. There is something special about looking at the rock-bound coast of Maine from offshore. Like this view of the Portland Head Light:

John and Bill enjoy boating together…It goes back to their days at Navy Officer Candidate School where they spent a bit of the Summer of ‘67 boating on Narragansett Bay and doing other fun Navy things.

The next day we gathered at our friend Liz Banta’s Forrest Lake cottage for a family gathering. The lake is small and quiet…you know a lake is quiet if it has loons . We love loons, too.

We joined Liz on the Casco Bay mail boat ride, had chowder at Gilbert's, took pictures of the Portland Head Light, had lunch at DiMillo’s (Liz loves their bread pudding), had lunch at Five Islands Lobster Company with Bill’s nephew James and James’ daughter, Katie who drove up from Danvers, MA, and took a day trip to Rangely with John, Ellen, and their wonderful Westie, Piper and, of course, had lunch. We love Five Islands.

It is east of Bath and is the most picturesque place in Maine to have lunch…and we love lunch.

Gisela had fun adventures at Caravan beads in Portland and discovered the Beading Path in Freeport. She enjoyed some quiet moments with her beads and wire. Her inventory is really growing….between tools, supplies, books and completed projects, we may need a larger motor home.

We visited the Christmas Tree Store in South Portland which sells everything under the sun except Christmas Trees or any Christmas stuff at that time of year. Bill was thrilled to find a Weber grill cookbook for $3. Bill loves to make lunch…or dinner on his Weber grill. Gisela found enough bargains to entice her to return again and plan a visit to another branch in Hagerstown, MD.

We traveled to Cornish, ME with Liz and her friends, Stan and Lucia. Cornish is the home of the biggest and best fried seafood platter on the planet. It is so big that three people can share it and still need to take home a doggie bag. In the name of good health, we settled for baked Haddock…I thought Bill was going to cry…He loves Cornish fried clams, shrimp, haddock, oysters, etc., etc., etc., Did I say fried clams? Maybe next time?

We did have some neighbors at the fairgrounds during the big Maine craft show. A few of them came by RV and some tent camped. We had a lot of neighbors, most of them canines, when the dog show came to the fairgrounds. We had never seen a dog show. This one did not seem to be designed for outside spectators. It was a competition much like you see once a year on television …the Westminster Dog Show from New York. Judges judging dogs, handlers handling dogs, some obedience trials, lots of people up early grooming dogs, etc. It was curious seeing handlers in coat and tie or skirts in a rural fairground field. People were very focused on their dogs and the competition. We did not see many smiles or get many greetings as we walked around. They had their ‘game faces’ on. Lots of beautiful dogs…six barking boxers outside your window at 6:00 AM tells you there is a dog show somewhere nearby.

In the small world department, we ran into fellow Escapee Boomers (RV Club) Mary Lane and Elaine Cannel in the Portland Wal-Mart. They had just spent the summer in the Canadian Maritime Provinces, primarily in Newfoundland. More on them later.

It was with a heavy heart that we broke camp near the end of August and headed back to Virginia to check on Gisela’s mom. We hated to leave Maine but it was time and Winter was just around the corner up there. We don’t do cold, snow ice, etc.

We spent a couple of weeks in Virginia. Bill ran down to Richmond and spent the day with his daughter, Ann. She showed off the ‘book’ she is putting together on one Arthur L. Vissers, a real character she ran across while doing genealogical research in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. It is hard to briefly define him but maybe saying that he had thirteen wives...three at a time…twice, was a Texas, Ranger and an auto mechanic as autos were being invented early in the 20th century gives you a flavor for old Art. It is an amazing story. It was great to see Ann and Dwayne.

Richard and Sarah Shong, Boomers whom we had not seen for several years were in the area and we caught up with them at a combination BBQ competition and Blue Grass Festival in nearby West Virginia.

The next big event was a car trip to New York City to visit Tom and Jil Mohr who had just returned from two years in Vencie…the land of the $18 cup of coffee. We drove to Staten Island and parked our car at the Navy Lodge at Fort Wadsworth, the former home of the Navy Exchange (PX) Command (NEXCOM). Why is there still a Navy Lodge 15 years after NEXCOM moved to Norfolk, VA? Beats the heck out of us but we’re glad it’s there.

We hopped on the free Staten Island Ferry and were met by Tom and Jil when we disembarked in Manhattan. Of course we passed by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island on our crossing. Gisela had a similar view in 1957 as her family entered New York harbor however, she was too young to remember it. It is possible that she remembers it in German and not in English?

We stayed in a building overlooking the World Trade Center site which was where Tom and Jil lived before 9/11. The building survived but the 23 apartments were all filled with debris and required over 18 months to be made habitable again. By then, Tom and Jil had decided to become full time RV’ers. They were staying with friends in their old building and we were able to stay in another apartment in the same building. Building…I guess we learned about ‘buildings’ from Seinfeld as well as other aspects of living in Manhattan.

The WTC site is still largely a hole in the ground.. It was sobering to look down on it from seven floors above and remember that day.

We had a fabulous five days in the Big Apple. The first night we went out for Indian food…a wonderful meal in a small, neighborhood restaurant. The next day we took a city bus tour of Manhattan that had been written up in the NY Times. We were riding with New Yorkers rather than tourists from Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin and Michigan. We went all the way to The Cloisters which Bill instantly recognized as the location of the closing scene of the movie, Coogan’s Bluff, starring Lee J. Cobb and a very young Clint Eastwood. We had lunch…yes, lunch again…in a little local Greek diner, walked the sidewalk in front of the Apollo Theater in Harlem, zipped by Central Park and too many other familiar landmarks to mention. We also wandered through the Union Square street market. Wow, what a market…they had it all. Gisela was so taken with it all she mentioned getting an apartment .

On Sunday, we took in a great show at the Planetarium in the Museum of Natural History, and had Sunday brunch in Tribeca with Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC (he was at the next table… we recognized him…he doesn’t know us from a bag of hammers.). We capped off the day with a wonderful gourmet Mexican dinner at one of Tom and Jil’s favorite restaurants. All the appetizers and entrées were unique but clearly Mexican. No Taco Bell stuff here.

Early Monday morning found us heading uptown to Rockefeller Center with Tom Mohr to participate in the Today show. By that we mean standing around the plaza with folks from all over the country holding up signs, waving and hollering in an attempt to get on television. Did we have our own sign? Nooooo, we did not. Everyone had a sign. But we had ….the guy in the Lobster Hat. Did it work? You’re darn tootin’ it worked. As the photo clearly shows:

To see our whole seven seconds of fame go to YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb6Zob9By5A. What fun.

After our TV debut we headed for Broadway and breakfast at Ellen's Stardust Diner. Here the wait staff are all aspiring Broadway musical stars. You get lots of great singing with your eggs and toast. Tom was obviously impressed.

It is amazing how many musically talented people there are who will never get their big break. Is it better to have no talent that to be very talented and disappointed? Bill says that he would vote to have some musical talent however he knows that voting for it will not help him. He is hopelessly untalented musically. We finished Monday with a wonderful home cooked meal at Tom and Jil’s friend Susan’s apartment.

Tuesday morning found us on a boat heading for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We only went ashore at Ellis for the tour. We took the audio tour which added a lot of texture to the exhibits. Tuesday’s other big event was attending a taping of the David Letterman Show. We were there two days before Dave’s big confession. It was fun but you have the feeling that you are not much more that a prop expected to laugh and applaud on cue. As soon as the taping is over the exits open and you are out on the sidewalk two minutes later.

We headed back to Staten Island on the ferry and had a horrible cab ride back to the Navy Lodge. On the way Gisela got a call that her mom had pneumonia and had been admitted to the hospital. We drove straight to the hospital the next day, It was sad…we are not sure her mom recognized us. We mentioned to her she had pneumonia. She said that nobody told her that. It was not clear to us that she realized she was in the hospital. Good news was that the pneumonia was not severe and she was released after a couple of days.

We left the hospital and went directly to the Elks Club in Front Royal where Mary and Elaine were parked. We really appreciated their hospitality. Appetizers, dinner, wine…just what we needed after a long day on the road and several hours at the hospital…Thanks, Mary and Elaine. We were able to return the favor by entertaining them for dinner at our cabin before they headed south.

We, too, headed south for a visit with Bill’s son, Paul, daughter-in-law Yvette, and GRANDSON, William…Mr. Cuteness himself. We had a great time and were just thrilled that William is no longer pooping his pants…Yea, William! We had lots of fun going to gymnastics, the beach, the park, etc.



We also stopped off in Virginia Beach for a catch-up visit with Don and Kathee Larmee. Good friends, Good food, Good wine, Good time. We will see them again for New Year’s Eve.

We were also able to give our neighbors, Scott and Missy White a ride to Dulles Airport for their two week trip to Croatia. We take turns doing this plus we watch each others house. We get the best of that deal since we are gone eight months and they are gone about one month. They are terrific neighbors and we are lucky to have them.

One sad note: In September Bill had reconnected with a long lost friend, John Songster, through Facebook. He had exchanged emails with John and nearly missed stopping by for a visit on our way back from New York City. A few weeks later, Bill learned that John had passed away suddenly on October 15. John was the Senior Instructor/Professor of Naval Science at the Notre Dame Navy ROTC unit when Bill was in college circa 1966-67. John, or Lieutenant Commander Songster as he was known then, was a bachelor who enjoyed spending time outside the classroom with the Midshipmen that he was educating and training for Navy life. There were lasagna parties at his apartment, staff meetings at the Linebacker Bar where we hatched the ill fated plot to kidnap the US Military Academy Mules when Army came to South Bend to play ND in football, an introduction to Michael's Bar in South Philadelphia during a trip to the Notre Dame - Navy game, etc. The gang thought so much of John that we invited him, along with First Sergeant Jim Barnett, the Assistant Marine Instructor, to attend our 25th reunion in 1992. John taught us many valuable lessons that helped us all in our careers and our lives. We all lost track of John after he retired from civilian life about ten years ago. We were all excited to find him again but alas...

That pretty much covers the last half of the summer and closes out September and a bit of October.

Roving Pollocks - Summer 2009 Part I

The Summer travel season began in late June when we left Virginia and headed toward Wisconsin and Gisela's family reunion in Milwaukee. Our first stop along the way was Dayton, Ohio where we visited the famed United States Air Force Museum at Wright (as in Orville and Wilbur)-Patterson (as in I don't know enough USAF history) Air Force Base. It lived up to all expectations. We have also visited the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport and the U.S. Navy Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida but the Air Force Museum was probably the best - although they were all very impressive, if you like all that airplane stuff. We are partial to submarines but it is not easy to get a lot of different submarines in one building.

From Dayton we headed to Milwaukee but gave Chicago a wide berth. The idea of driving a motorhome towing a Jeep Grand Cherokee up the Dan Ryan Expressway makes us break out in a cold sweat. We found a county park just north of Racine that was just great....we had a quarter acre all to our selves.

Before the reunion festivities began we were able to get together with Don and Sandy Hempson who we had not seen since their daughter's wedding in Washington about five years ago. Don and Bill served in the Navy together and were carpool mates. It was really fun to catch up with their lives. Staying in touch with friends and family is a major reason for our travels.

The reunion was terrific. This was a Leck family reunion, Gisela's Mother's side of the family. They came to Wisconsin from Germany in the late 1800's. The patriarch, Ludwig (say Ludvig) was a brother to Gisela's grandfather Cornelius Leck. Gisela's mom and dad were sponsored by Ludwig and came to Wisconsin in 1957 when Gisela was five. Ludwig and his wife, Millie had six children so that five generations later there is a pretty good bunch of Lecks available for a reunion as you can see from this group photo. They came from as far away as Arizona...and Gisela's first cousin, Anne and her husband, Michael came all the way from Germany.






During the weekend a large group of us toured the Harley Davidson Museum, had a reunion picnic in a park on the shores of Lake Michigan and hung out at the hotel catching up on everyone's lives and meeting the newer generations of the family.

After the reunion, Michael and Anne stayed with us in the motorhome for a couple of nights. We took them to Lake Geneva and to Summerfest in Milwaukee. They are fun loving people and we really enjoyed our time with them. We were able to send Inge, Anne's older sister, birthday greetings back in Germany.

Gisela also had the time of her life at the best bead shop she had ever been to. Bill called it the $100 store but what the heck....it was priceless.

As Anne and Michael headed north toward the Minneapolis airport and their flight home, we headed south... acutaly southwest to avoid Chicago again so we could go east to Michigan. We paid another annual visit to Camp Opperman near Bill's hometown of Cedar Springs. We had a great time, enjoyed Ivan's mom's baked goods (at 91 Marie still bakes a mean apple pie.), visited with Don Koster, and spent the fourth of July in Ludington at Ivan's brother, Steve and his wife Karen. They have a really neat log home in the woods. It was a real treat to see some of our European traveling companions, Jim and Louise Opperman and John and Jan Simmons. We also had dinner in Grand Rapids with high school classmates, Chuck and Mary Crosby, Gaylen and Diane Demarest, and Ivan and Janis. We were having such a good time they nearly closed the restaurant with us still inside.

As instructed by Bill's daughter, Ann, we spent many hours in the Grand Rapids Library and at Saint Andrews Cemetery tracking down Bill's mother's side of the family...the MacGregors and the Rogers and Giblins from Scotland and Ireland respectively. We also made a day trip to Saginaw to meet up with Bill's cousins Bonnie and Jimmie MacGregor who he had not seen since the late 1980's. Bonnie had a treasure trove of family pictures that are just fabulous. We made plans to meet next summer at Ottawa Beach near Holland, Michigan where Grandpa MacGregor had a cottage.


After a whirlwind week with Ivan and his lovely wife, Janis, who also knows her way around the kitchen, we headed south to Kalamazoo to have a much smaller family reunion of Pollocks. We visited Bill's brother, Bob. Our sister-in-law Pat Pollock (brother Mac's widow) and her friend, Mark came down from Leland in her motorhome. We really had a nice time together.

In mid-July we left Kalamazoo to head back to Virginia to visit Gisela's mother who was in an assisted living facility. On the way we stopped in Lima, Ohio for a Beaver Ambassador Club rally. The highpoint was Gisela winning the appetizer competition with her famous Italian Cheese Terrine. Bill was amazed to discover what is left of the once proud Kewpee Hamburger empire in Lima. They were one of the two earliest fast food chains in America founded in Flint, Michigan in the 1920's. They were hurt by the depression and rationing of beef in WW II, but one of their customers of their Kalamazoo location was a young boy named Dave Thomas who used their square burgers and Frosty (nee Frostee) as the foundation of his franchise...Wendy's. Kwepee's in Grand Rapids was a big part of Bill and his brothers' childhood memories. That speaks volumes, doesn't it?

When we returned to Virginia it became obvious that Gisela's mom's dementia had progressed beyond the point where assisted living was appropriate. It took a couple of weeks but we were able to find a new facility specializing in Alzheimer's disease with which we were very favorably impressed. We saw some that were pretty bad so we were really pleased to find Greenfield Reflections in nearby Strasburg, Virginia. It was kind of rough emotionally to go through this but we feel good about it now that it is done. Alzheimer's is really tough on the family as anyone who has been touched by it knows.

In early August we headed up to Maine. What did we have for dinner the first night we arrived?



We will fill you in on that part of the summer in our next post including more on the Guy in the Lobster Hat.

THE ROVING POLLOCKS
2008 FALL
2009 WINTER-SPRING

We returned to Virginia in mid-October after Red Flannel Day in Cedar Springs, Michigan. We felt like we were running a B&B as we had back to back to back visits from Chuck and Mary Crosby, Bill’s high school classmates, John and Ellen Albin on their way south to the Keys and Bill’s cousin from Canada, Greg Pollock. It was hectic but great to see everyone. We also made it down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for some family time with Paul, Yvette, and William and Ann and Dwayne.

In November we did something we had long talked about but never could quite get together…we headed for Florida in the Motorhome instead of winterizing it until January. We spent about three weeks on the Atlantic coast including a visit to Ron and Ginny Norton and some time at the military family camp at Patrick Air Force Base. We stored the motor home at Grand Lake RV and Golf Resort in Orange Lake where we had reservations for January. We drove to the car back up to Virginia for the holidays…Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s. Thanksgiving found the whole gang at the cabin, as well as, Gisela’s mom. This normally doesn‘t happen but we surely enjoyed having everyone here. We had a repeat performance for Christmas.

We started 2009 in pretty much the same way that we have started the past 15 years. We gathered in the cabin in the mountains of Virginia with our wonderful friends, Don and Kathee Larmee and rang in the New Year. For those of you who have been following our saga since the dawn of the twenty-first century, you know the whole deal with lowering the acorn at midnight, etc. For those of you that are new to our blog, I refer you to the history section (2004-2008) of this blog.

We were blessed with a no snow so we were able to depart on January 3 without any problem. We took up residence at Grand Lake and once again learned that Gainesville, Florida is too far north in January…we had lows of 18 degrees F several nights. But we did have fun including a visit from Ivan and Janis Opperman and spending time with Jim and Anne Jaudon including several U of FL basketball games.

February saw us head further south to the Great Outdoors in Titusville where we took up residence across the street from the Nortons. We did lots of exercising and had many happy hours, great meals and fun games of “Pegs and Jokers.”

In early March we headed north to Moultrie, Georgia to a rally of the Beaver Ambassador Club followed by a Family Motor Coach Association rally in Perry, GA. The BAC rally was held on the old Spence Air Force Base…you knew it was an AFB when you saw the street names…Mitchell Road, Spaatz Street, LeMay Lane, etc. We enjoyed catching up with some folks including Don and Kathie DuCharme who we had met the previous summer in Michigan. We made a side trip to FDR's Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia. Among other things, we learned that the origianal Roosevelt who emmagrated to New York from the Netherlands spelled his name Rosevelt...as did my grandmother...go figure

After the rallies we headed back to Virginia via Athens, Georgia, home of the U.S. Navy Supply Corps School of which Bill is an alumni. He did the nostalgia walk and got together with old Navy paes, Len and Eileen Sapera and George and Patsy Huban. Len and George are both former Commanding Officers of the School.

Our trip had been pretty trouble free until we pulled out of the small campground near Athens. Bill got a little bit overconfident in executing two quick 90 degree turns to exit the campground. Unfortunately, we got hung up on a rock that twisted the black and gray water tank dump connection 45 degrees aft. This is a bad thing. Luckily we only had two more nights on the road. When we returned to Virginia we found a good collision repair place and had it fixed along with a bit of repainting that was needed after seven years of adventures.

Next stop was Lexington, NC and some famous Barbeque. We relearned an old lesson…If you call ahead to the Elks lodge and you don’t get an answer, don’t assume they are still where they used to be. We went to the address which was now a church and, of course, we recognized that just after passing the parking lot. And, of course, the street was a dead end with no possible way to turn around with out unhooking the jeep from the motor home. We finally recovered, found a new Wal-Mart to park at overnight since there were no RV parks in the area and still made it to Lexington BBQ for dinner…and it was mighty good.

We had less than a week in Virginia before we departed for another Italian adventure. Six days in Venice with Tom and Jil Mohr; then we all took the train to Naples. We spent four nights in Naples where we found the world’s most authentic pizza, several times. We found the people of Naples to be extremely friendly and helpful. Where else would you find someome willing to walk four blocks to show you where to catch the bus or when talking to a doctor at a bus stop, have her recommend treatment for Jil's sprained ankle. While in Naples we took the train to Pompeii. For those planning a visit, check out the locked houses. These require prior reservations but it is well worth doing. Naples has great museums, wonderful seafood and a fabulous historic district. We sampled them all.

After Naples we then headed for Praiano on the Amalfi Coast and the Villa Gisella. We spent seven glorious days exploring and thoroughly enjoying the sights of Positano, Ravello, Amalfi and the spectacular views from our terrace. We can't say enough about how beautiful this area is. We really enjoyed having our own lodging, cooking meals, sipping wine, playing cards and basking in our view. How often do you have your own olive tree? We did ...on our terrace. Plus the landlady would lower a basket from above containing homemade cake, marmalade, fresh eggs, etc. Sweet! It was worth each of the 94 steps up to the Villa Gisella (Gisela with two l's).

After our glorious week in Praiano we headed for Sorrento to catch a ferry to isle of Capri where we spent three nights in a charming B&B in Anicapri. Franco, our host, and his family were wonderful. Jil actually proposed to Franco probably because of his wonderful gardens and views. Most people only get to do day trips to Capri and only see the haute shopping. We were able to spend time on the back "streets" exploring the beauty of this island. We also had our two best meals on Capri and enjoyed the Roman ruins and gardens. The pictures accompanying really tell the story. We headed back into Naples and caught the train back to Venice where we had one perfect day to enjoy this amazing and unique city before flying back to the US. It was a fabulous trip in every way…and Bill still failed to get a gondolier’s hat to add to his collection. We have uploaded the best 83 pictures (of the 1400 we took) to the web. You can find them at http://picasaweb.google.com/rovingpollocks/AprilInItaly#

We spent the rest of April, May and three weeks of June in our mountain cabin. We enjoyed visits from John and Ellen Albin and Piper the Westie on their way north to Maine and a long weekend visit from Ann and Dwayne to celebrate Ann’s 38th birthday. The following weekend we visited Paul, Yvette and William in honor of Paul’s 40th birthday…Bill’s son is 40...Yikes! You know you are getting old when…

We have spent most of June getting ready to head to Wisconsin for a gathering of the Leck clan featuring a visit from on of Gisela‘s first cousin from Germany. Gisela’s mom is a Leck. We will also spend a couple of weeks visiting friends and family in Michigan, attend another BAC rally in Ohio, come back to Virginia for a week to check in with Gisela’s mom before heading back north to New York, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts

We hope this finds you all in good health. We have come to realize that is something that is not as sure of a bet as it was a few years ago.

Bill and Gisela

The Roving Pollocks - Summerish 2008

The Roving Pollocks

May found us back in our cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Front Royal, VA. We spent a couple of weeks doing the doctor and dentist things and catching up with Gisela’s mom who lives nearby in an assisted living facility. At mid-month we headed southeast to gather with Paul, Yvette, William, Ann and Dwayne to celebrate birthdays (Gisela, Ann, & Paul) and Paul and Yvette’s 8th anniversary. On the way we stopped to catch up with special friends Don and Kathee Larmee in Virginia Beach. We had a fine time with the kids, (they will always be the kids won’t they?) good food and, of course, we were entertained by William who at 2 ½ is a pretty fun and cute little guy. We returned to the cabin in time to host Liz Banta on her semi-annual pilgrimage between Florida and Maine, and Ron and Ginny Norton, who were making the same trek.

We got busy with auto and motor home maintenance including the new refrigerator. We also entertained and were entertained by our neighbors and erstwhile house watchers, Scott and Missy White and had dinner with neighbors and former RVers Don and Bonnie Day. By the end of June it was time to start our summer travels.

We departed for Michigan by heading south to Richmond for a visit with Ann and Dwayne. We then headed west toward Louisville, KY to visit Bill’s Notre Dame Classmate, Jim Thornton and his wife, Dee. We made our first visit to Churchill Downs where Jim has a box and did the obligatory tour of the Louisville Slugger bat factory. Another ND classmate and member of the 1966 Fighting Irish National Championship Football Team, Tom Rhoads and his wife Kathy came down from the Cincinnati area for a day. The Rhoads family is developing the ultimate in Pet Resorts and Spas in Raleigh, North Carolina, Suite Paws, which will open in September. We wish them well in their new endeavor. Jim and Dee were wonderful hosts who really introduced us to the Louisville area. We hope to return the favor some day so we can show them the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the wonders of the world inside the capital beltway.

At the Races

Our next stop was Bloomington, Indiana where we caught up with Gisela’s cousin Glorianne Leck, her partner, Susan Savastek, her other cousin Henry Leck, his wife Merry, daughter Anya and grandson Rhonan. We really like the Bloomington area. This time we enjoyed a tour of the University of Indiana campus which is one of the prettiest campuses in the country…it even rivals that other Indiana University to the north. Bloomington and the University are really interwoven resulting in interesting shops and a great variety of restaurants. We enjoyed Ethiopian and Thai this time. We also made a trip to Henry and Merry’s cottage on a lake near Nashville, IN. They have recently doubled the size of the cottage. What a nice place! They had just returned from South Africa where Henry had taken the Indianapolis Children’s Choir of which he is the director.

We were only a few hundred miles from Rockford, Michigan where we were headed for Bill’s 45th high school reunion. However, it was only July 9 and we had three weeks to get there. Sooo, we headed west and north to northern Wisconsin. We stopped by Gisela’s home town of Merrill, Wisconsin. Actually Gisela’s home town is Grebenstien, Germany but that’s difficult to get to by RV. We stopped by the cemetery to pay our respects to deceased family members and continued “up north.”

We headed for Mike and Beth Myers’ cottage on the Turtle Flambeau Flowage. It looks like a lake to us but what do we know? Geoff and Nancy Justiss, who we had not seen in over two years, also converged on the Flowage after spending a month or so dodging flooding and tornados in Iowa. We had a fun filled days of good food, fun games…pegs and jokers; thanks, Ron…good wine, boat rides and, of course, the obligatory Friday night Wisconsin fish fry at Shane and Molly’s Midway Tavern. Wisconsin taverns tend to be named for their owners, e.g., Stosh and Debbi’s in Stevens Point, and Dar and Slim’s Pair-o-Dice in Butternut. They all have “Old Style” beer signs out front but only have Bud and Miller Light on tap. Go figure. Fish fry was allegedly started by German Catholics who immigrated to Wisconsin but it has become a religion unto itself. Damn the carbs, full speed ahead!

Mike and Beth were great hosts....we'll be back again....if they will have us.

Cheers!

We then proceeded into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in caravan with Geoff and Nancy plus Chaco (15 year old dog) and Franklin (15 year old cat). Mike and Beth headed into the Minnesota Boundary Water Canoe area for a two week tent camping canoe trip. Living in a log cabin on the Flowage is clearly not rugged enough for them.

We first camped at the city park in Houghton, MI which is right on the Portage River separating Houghton from Hancock which are both in the heart of the Keweenaw Peninsula. The Keweenaw Peninsula was the site of America’s first “Rush” after the discovery of large deposits of Copper. There is a great deal of mining history not the least of which revolves around the ‘pasty,’ say past tee. The pasty is an invention of the Cornish miners originally from Cornwall, England. It is meat, potatoes and rutabagas in a pastry shell that make the perfect lunch when you are a thousand feet down in a copper mine. According to Bill, the best pasties in the Keweenaw Peninsula are found at Toni’s in Laurium, MI. Of course, we had to try them. When we arrived in Laurium, Bill reminded us that it was the home of the real Gipper, George Gipp, Notre Dame’s first All American. So we visited his memorial, his house, his grave, etc. Of course, Gisela had been through this all before. It was almost worth it as the pasties were wonderful.

At the Gipp Memorial

We also toured Fort Wilkins in Copper Harbor, took the scenic Brockway Mountain Drive to Eagle Harbor, and were amazed by the incredible mineral collection at the Seaman Mineral Museum. Geoff and Bill toured the Quincy Mine including a horizontal decent down to level seven. If that sounds confusing it is but it was cold, dark and damp. The high point of our visit to Houghton was the Finnish breakfast at the Soumi Restaurant.


After Houghton we moved the Marquette area where we camped for free at the Ojibwa Casino for three nights. Bill went into the casino to make a contribution through the slot machines and inadvertently won $14. Oh well, we tried. At Marquette we met up with Bill’s sister-in-law, Pat (Bill’s brother Mac’s widow) and her friend, Mark as they RV-ed through the UP. We converged on Munising and did the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore boat trip. It was a chilly, foggy morning so that the 60 person boat only had 10 passengers. We felt special. We then had a Michigan fish fry lunch before Pat and Mark headed for Tahquamenon Falls.

Pat and Mark

Pictured Rocks

We also did the Maritime Museum in Marquette which has an annex dedicated to the exploits of the WW II U.S. Navy submarines DARTER and DACE. Why, you ask…CDR McClintock, the commanding officer of DARTER was from Marquette. You can read their story at http://www.csp.navy.mil/ww2boats/darter.htm.

After Marquette, we headed south to the Lake Michigan shore. First we went to the city park in Gladstone. The highlight was the pet casket factory. Don’t laugh…it’s the number one pet casket manufacturer in the country and we got a guided tour. Geoff and Nancy have several travel ‘bibles.‘ One is “Made in America,“ which helps you find factories that give tours.

Yooper Boomers

We then camped near Manistique for a couple of days. We toured Fayette State Park which includes a ‘ghost town’ of an iron smelting company town in the mid-1800’s. Bill has decided that someday he will fulfill his brother Mac’s dream of sailing his boat into Snail Shell Harbor, the town’s harbor. See www.exploringthenorth.com/fayette/town.html for the history of Fayette.

Snail Shell Harbor

We continued east to Saint Ignace where we camped at another casino, the Kewadin Shores Casino. We bid farewell to Geoff and Nancy after a couple of really good casino meals and white knuckled the motor home across the Mackinac Bridge in higher winds than Bill would have liked.

We really had a special time with Geoff and Nancy. Some people are just easy to travel with and lots of fun. Some are even better than that which defines these friends. It was hard to part ways but we did so with the knowledge that we would see them again somewhere down the road. We’ll even miss Chaco and Franklin.

Geoff, Nancy, Copper, and Chaco

We proceeded to Leland, Michigan and another favorite peninsula - the Leelanau. We visited with Pat and Mark and Bill’s brother Bob who came up from Kalamazoo. Bill and Bob even played some tennis…almost. Bill also got a chance to visit with Notre Dame roommate Pete Gast and his wife, Pat who were vacationing in Leland for the 35th consecutive year. We camped at another casino, Leelanau Sands, north of Suttons Bay. In Suttons Bay, we met up with Bruce and Carey Rayce and Pat and Mark for Breakfast at Martha’s Café….Martha being one of our ‘Walk Through Provence’ tour organizers.

It was the end of July and time to head for Camp Opperman between Cedar Springs and Rockford, MI and get serious about the reunion. We had driven 2100 miles to get there rather than the 700 that the crow flies. That was only 1400 extra miles at 7 miles per gallon…let’s see 200 extra gallons at nearly $5 per gallon…it’s only money.

We had dinner at Gaylen and Dianne Demarest’s house in East Grand Rapids to plan some reunion stuff but we mostly enjoyed the company. The reunion was a double barreled affair - Friday night was a cook out at Ivan’s. Chuck and Mary Crosby came early so that Chuck could do his charcoal magic on the Brats. We had about 25 other classmates out of 80 and two or three teachers. Mrs. Clark, our first grade teacher was the highlight. She looked better than some of the classmates. Jim Douglas, our eighth grade math teacher was there. It turns out that his son lives in the Outer Banks of North Carolina where Bill’s son lives. He is the inventor of the OBX oval that one sees on the back of lots of cars. He was clever enough to trademark it…smart kid. The next night was the more formal dinner. Ivan showed a slide show from the 15th reunion as the program….no one seemed to remember that they had seen it before.

Cedar Springs Class of 1963

Bill, Ivan and Allen Newman, another classmate, played golf. Actually, Ivan and Allen played golf and Bill did something else with golf club and balls. At least Bill did not have a head on collision with the girl in the beer cart. That’s something.

Bill and his brother, Bob, carried out their genealogy assignments from Bill’s daughter Ann. We took pictures of graves, houses, businesses, etc of Bill’s mother’s family, the MacGregors or McGregors. Bill and Gisela also spent a day at the Grand Rapids Library researching obituaries. Best of all we found a great photo of the business started by Bill’s Great-Grandfather James McGregor in the late 1800’s and run by his sons John, Neil and Bill’s Grandfather, James until 1938...the McGregor Dye Works. They were dyers and cleaners, as in dry cleaning. Why they shut it down is a mystery. Unfortunately, earlier generations are no longer around to fill in the blanks.

In mid-August, we buttoned up the motor home and headed for Virginia to visit Gisela’s mom, thank Scott and Missy for watching the house, entertain Ann and Dwayne, visit Paul and Yvette…and William, stop by and see Don and Kathee Larmee, etc.

Ann and Dwayne came up for the weekend and we had a great time. Ann and Gisela cooked up a super dinner of rolled flank steak with a lot of good stuff inside. The two of them should be on the food channel. On Sunday Bill once again tried to master spare ribs and had his best effort so far….but he is a long way from the Neely’s of Memphis. But it is fun to try.

A surprise was hearing that nephew Andy and family (Sabrina, Conner, Elise, and Jack) were heading our way for a soccer tournament in Richmond Labor Day weekend. They stayed with us on Thursday, we toured DC with them on Friday and watched Conner play soccer on Saturday in Richmond before heading down to the Outer Banks for Labor Day. This presented an opportunity for Paul, Yvette and William to come up to Richmond. With Ann living in Richmond, we had a critical mass of Pollocks….eleven in one place. Paul says that would actually be illegal in twenty-eight states. We had a fabulous time Saturday and Sunday morning before heading south. Bill helped Paul get his project boat into the garage for winter and we all enjoyed spending time with William, who on the cusp of three, is a lot of fun. On our way north we stopped to see Don and Kathee, checked in with Gisela’s mom and headed back to Michigan for some ND games and Red Flannel Day in Cedar Springs.

Eleven Pollocks

The first ND game was against the powerful San Diego State Aztecs, who had dropped their opener that other west coast powerhouse, Cal Poly. The Irish eaked out a hard fought 21-13 come from behind win. OK, it was ugly …but it was a win. The real highlight was getting together with Bill’s classmate, Joe Smith, AKA The Tree, and his sons, Joe, Jr. and Todd. It was a real treat to see them.

Bill and Joe

In early September, the 10th to be exact, we left Camp Opperman, for the Lake Michigan coast, Muskegon, then Ludington where we found a resort park selling lots and offering five…yes five nights free for listening to their sales pitch. We enjoyed the park and Ludington but it rained for four of the five days. Bill enjoyed watching ND beat Michigan…he thinks Michigan knows how ND felt last year. We also met Don and Kathie Ducharmel in the park. They are members of the Beaver Ambassador Club as are we…Beaver being the brand of motor home we both own. So we had a few acquaintances in common plus Don is a University of Michigan alumnus so Bill could ask him how he liked the game. (Bill really enjoys asking Michigan fans that when ND beats them.)

From Ludington we went south to the Holland Elks Club. From there we explored the lower Lake Michigan coast…Holland, Ottawa Beach, Saugatuck, Douglas, and Grand Haven….nice towns all…especially Grand Haven. We then headed to Kalamazoo to visit with Bill’s brother, Bob. They played some tennis…again sort of…watched ND get thumped by Michigan State, and went to ND for the Purdue game. On the way home Bill bagged his first deer with the front of the Jeep. No one hurt except the deer. We visited Gisela’s high school pal, Rosie Brock in Saint Joseph, another neat Lake Michigan town and toured South Haven. We will be returning to the Lake Michigan coast again…Bill would really like to do that in a boat but the recent global financial meltdown makes this dream seem more distant. Jeez! Rosie paid a visit to Gisela in Kalamazoo while Bill and Bob were off “deer hunting.”

We returned to Camp Opperman for the long-awaited Red Flannel Festival including the presentation of the Red Flannel Kids photo to the Cedar Springs Historical Museum and Society in remembrance of Pollock‘s Store and it‘s role the Red Flannel Saga. This full page color photo appeared in Life Magazine on December 19, 1949 and featured Bill’s dad as an old time photographer taking a picture of fifty or so school kids all dressed in red. Bill’s Dad was attired in red long johns. Bill negotiated a twenty year license with Time-Life Getty Images to permit display of the photo. Bill’s daughter, Ann, did some terrific editing to make the rough image look as good, if not better, than the one in Life. The presentation was fun and included Bill’s cousin, Mike Allchin, (who owned and operated Pollock’s after Bill’s parents) and his wife Bonnie, Don Koster, who managed the men’s department in the 50’s and 60’s and others who worked there over the years, including Bruce Rayce and Jim Opperman. We then watched the Red Flannel Parade …lots of tractors. Other than the folks who came to the museum, Bill only saw one other person who he knew….42 years is a long time.

Life Magazine Red Flannel Kids

Mike, Bob, and Bill

Pollocks Store People

The next day found us having a Greek celebration at Camp Opperman….why Greek? Two reasons…it was an excuse to get together with John and Jan Simmons, Bruce and Carey Rayce and Jim and Louise Opperman, all of whom were on the Greek Isles trip last fall. The other reason is that Ivan and Janis had a freezer full of lamb that needed to be cooked…and cook we did….leg of lamb, mousaka, lamb kabobs, etc. What a feast and it was great to see everyone again.

On Monday, October 6 we made a speed run back to Virginia in time for visits from John and Ellen Albin, Chuck and Mary Crosby, Greg Pollock, Bill’s cousin from Canada, as well as a family get together at Paul, Yvette and William’s (now three years old) house in North Carolina and a visit to Ann and Dwayne in Richmond. More on all that when we report on the Roving Pollocks Fall adventures.