Agreed. Having been there before, LOL, I am a big fan of going somewhere less crowded. St. Joe and Ludington are "touristy" but nowhere near the crowds that Door deals with. Mackinac Island and Mackinaw City do jot even get that busy, and I avoid them from Memorial Day to Labor Day. We usually make our excursion in the fall. Autumn colors, walk the city or go to the island, and just no crowds. So much more pleasant.

Faith faints dead away at that price........

Oh we have paras who do not have any college because staffing deficits are real. The difference is that paras with an A.A. have a lot more opportunities for employment avenues within the district that pay better. The uncertified teacher route does not work for A.A.'s though, but they can substitute teach. The B.A./B.S. is required to get a full time teaching position. Teach for America does help degree holders fast track to certification. But yes, paras without degrees of any kind are common. They also are the first ones let go if there is a cut back, and they can't work there way up or get pay raises much in the district without some college. The local district definitely favors college for anyone directly working with students for pay.

Boy I wish we got those kinds of rates! We never see anything like that out of DTW which in and of itself is a 2.5 drive one way so that adds a whole nother consideration to flying. The airport 1 hr 15 min from here is so small that there just aren't a lot of options. I would fly more if I could get some good rates.

LOL, Disney is the last reason we would take the grandkids to Florida. I get it! We do, someday, want to venture to Dry Tortugas. Mark says he needs to stand out there on the beach and yell, "But why is all the rum gone!" 😂😂😂

Okay, then if you want to stay in one place, and only be one long day's drive from home, my suggestion is either St. Joseph, Warren Dunes St. Park is you camp, Ludington, Muskegon, or Sleeping Bear Dunes and Traverse, staying fairly close to Traverse for the food options. I would not go any further north than that. It is 5 hrs and 15 min from Chicago to Sleeping Bear. It is only 1.5 hours from Chicago to St. Joseph or Warren Dunes, and you can stop off at Indiana Dunes National Park. It isn't as spectacular as Sleeping Bear, sad to say, but it is nice. Warren Dunes has hiking trails, a beautiful day use area and beach, pretty amazing waves come into that part, the view is lovely. St. Joe gives you some nice dining options several hotels plus a lot of Vrbo homes, and day trip excursions including Indiana Dunes and Warren Dunes. You could day trip up to Ludington which has a lovely city park on the water, lots of unique shops in an adorable downtown, Harbor cruises, Fox Barn Winery, the elk farm (kind of cool, your kids might like it), harbor lighthouse, lots of things.

That is a lovely park. I have to say, Michigan does a good job of funding our DNR and making our state parks wonderful places to stay. If there is one thing that unites Michiganders, it is protecting our natural resources and making the outdoors a magnificent playground!

We have had that before as well. Mark would have limited vacation time so I would drive the kids, and he would fly. This happened multiple times for family funerals. Now if an event is far away like that, since flights have gotten a lot more expensive as has car rental, and hotels since usually family cannot us up, we just send a generous donation, or in the case of wedding, cash gift. Ya. I know. Our presence is supposed to be more important. But, it just isn't practical anymore. I personally do love to fly. So for us it is just a matter or finances and practicality that keeps us driving.

Financially, just about everywhere we go domestically, it is cheaper for us to drive. But we don't do west coast trips so there is that. In May we went to Manassas, VA for the American Rocketry Challenge, 750 miles each way for us. There were 3 of us volunteering, and flights would have been expensive and then we would have had to rent a car because the competition is at Great Meadows in The Plains. No public transportation to that area. Taxis would have been super expensive to go that far, and we had to be out there multiple times. It is the same when we go to Alabama to be with the grandkids. 750 miles from here, and flights to Huntsville are generally not that cheap from here. I can drive it for 1/4 the cost of 2 plane tickets. We do get 32mpg with our Equinox freeway driving. Since we pack our own food, we do not have eating out as an expense. It will be the same for our summer vacation in N.C. 735 miles with the tandem kayak on the roof of the car. $640 plus tax for us to fly and then rent a car for a week plus then kayak rental. We plan on kayaking a lot so when I added it up, we had $400 in kayak rental, high costs for car rental, and no kayak roof mounts so we would only be able to kayak where there was a rental place and drop in, and none of the more remote stretches of stream that we want to try in Pisgah National Forest. Even with all of the driving, it will not be more than $240 in fuel, and again we picnic so our food costs are the price of groceries. We have an Rtic cooler that works very well. East of the Rockies, I can't see us buying plane tickets to go anywhere. But part of that is the cost of car rental, and then not having everything with us for keeping food with us. We are trying to be much more outdoorsy people, and making a stab at seeing a lot of the 432 National Park Service Units wherever we go. That means a lot of miles on a rental car, and a lot of planning out food. When we went to Agate Fossil Beds, I was ever so grateful we had our food. Awesome place! But literally in the boonies, and nowhere to buy food, fuel, you name it. Just completely isolated. That poor park ranger acted like we were then first humans he had seen in days!

It is truly amazing here. It is hard to describe the beauty. Other places that are amazing destinations include, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island, Porcupine Mountain and Lake of the Clouds, Copper Harbor/Calumet, Tahquamenon Falls and Whitefish Point Shipwreck Museum, Presque Isle Park and Sugar Loaf Mountain look out, Sault Ste. Marie and the boat locks, Greenfield Village and Henry Ford Museum, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Institute of Art, Beaver Island, Mackinac International Dark Sky Park, Belle Isle (absolutely gorgeous), tons of Farm to Table, wineries and cherry orchards in the Traverse Bay Area, Blake Farms in Armadale for the Lavender festival and some of their pretty special Cider, and definitely do not miss Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Friday; Breakfast - Two boiled eggs and a keg of java water Lunch - huge salads Dinner - mushroom risotto, brussel sprouts, roasted carrots with cannelini beans

We have a 70% chance of rain Sunday. I am excited for everyone but my tomatoes. That darned soil is still retaining so much soil. I can't tell if it is the clay content or the hugelkulture because we have the first 15" filled with rotting logs and sticks, then with leaves. I am very worried that the green wilted "I have too much water so I can't stand up straight" Amish Paste are going to just fall over and self harm. Sigh. Dumb things. I can't make them happy for anything. Does anyone think we should take a stick and poke drainage holes all the way down to the logs so the water has somewhere to go? Stick a few pieces of half inch pvc pipe in there poked in to soil level so there are some drainage tubes? I am worried about these things. The cherry tomatoes are happy campers. They have no cares in the world, and seem to be like the Mr. Roger's Neighborhood of tomatoes. But not the Amish Paste. I have been letting that bed dry out for so long, and still.....I am beginning to hate the water meter. Thoughts?

Cleveland has some good options on Lake Erie, and lots of attractions. I am assuming Lake Superior is too far for you though if you are near Chicago, then Duluth might be an option. Please be advised. It is almost more dangerous to swim in the Great Lakes, especially Michigan, Huron, and Superior because we get rip tides which a lot of people do not expect because they think "lake", and the waves can be very high. They have been known to roll in, on a not stormy day, at 5-6 ft high, and upwards of 20 ft even more when a storm blows up which can happen fast. Some folks surf on Superior and Michigan. You need to watch your kids VERY closely. The nice thing about Sleeping Bear Dunes is that the County Park next to the NP campground has wonderful beach and shallow inlets where children can frolic safely. The river dumps into Michigan right there, so floats drop in up river and have a lazy trip down river to that county park. It is sooooooo nice. We did it A LOT when our kids were young. Also the water is quite cold in Lake Michigan, but those inlets and the river are divine.

Sleeps by Bear Dunes, in my book, is one of your best options. Amazing trails and view, kayaking and innertube floats on Platte River, beautiful loop drive, small dune that is open climbing for families, fair amount of wildlife, gorgeous drive to get there. There is a lot of good dining in Traverse City. I recommend a picnic lunch while spending the day in the Dunes, and then going into Traverse for dining. Samsara Southeast Asian Cuisine specializes in foods from Laos and Cambodia, Wren in Sutton Bay also has some unusual and fantastic foods. On the east side, Belle Isle is just amazing, and I am pretty sure your kids would also love it. Lots of fine dining in downtown Detroit.

Where is the facepalm emoji when you need it??????

This was always the problem with Mark. I think the universe smiled on us by having only one female child because apparently he knew nearly every single shrew named any name I liked, and couldn't get beyond it. Laurel was the ONLY other female name he agreed to beyond our daughter's first and middle name. That was it. He couldn't even come up with a middle to go with it. If another girl had come along, I likely would have been forced to bonk him on the head at the hospital, and while he was unconscious, name her and sign the birth certificate paperwork. 😂

And the Left are the crazy ones?????? I just can't with these people. Any day now, I am expecting FoxNews to go full on Flat Earth and advocate making gold from urine, treating skin irritations with dung.

Egads! Epic fail. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Here are a few photos of my garden. Not everything. But, the air quality even with a mask, is still not great for me to be out in, so I made it quick. I also took photos of baby apples, and of my rose. But the problem photos of the blueberry bushes were terrible, and I forgot to take a pic of the black caps and the carrots. At any rate, I am most proud of Herbert and Henrietta, my home grown cucumber and his purchased friend. Twin bell peppers, Clement and Clarissa are getting up there, but their evil step sisters, Drizella and Ursula, seem to refuse to grow or do anything, the little twits! I have a tray of basil leaves in the dehydrator today which is making me feel contented. that stuff smells so good! I need to use the edge mower around all the beds. But we are on a red flag warning not just for air, but wildfires. It is so dry. No one is to use any machines be outdoors that could potentially cause a spark. We were supposed to grill steaks for our 35th anniversary this weekend, but there is a grill and fire ring ban as well. It is absolutely necessary no complaints. We just need to figure out something else. The green bean seeds, replacements or the plants that were killed in the frost, have not sprouted yet. They have been in the ground about a week, and of course we have had this horrible ash air. I am concerned they might not sprout. I am keeping them moist, lightly watering each evening. No rain since May 7, but fingers crossed, some is coming on Sunday.

Here it varies by employer. College is preferred over pretty much anything with our local school districts so there is a base pay difference that is rather startling between high school, high school with experience, some college, and bachelor's degree. So a para-pro with high school and experience still makes less than with college. Some school districts will higher paras to substitute, but not without at least 60 college credits. The other thing about it is there is a fast track from bachelor's degree in just about anything to teacher certification, and a couple of local universities are giving people with associate's degrees or simply 60 credits or more a fast track to a bachelor's by giving credit for some teacher ed classes for experience in the classroom and para pro as well as substitute teaching counts making it faster to get a teaching license. Our lack of faculty on this side of the state is even worse than Ottakee's so they are bending over backwards to get anyone with 60 credits or more of college into the classroom. Once on faculty, the salary and benefits package is definitely better and has more job security. Outside of teaching/school districts, our local employers take an associate's degree over experience with high school diploma only every time because well, some of our schools are so pathetic that the diploma is hardly worth the paper it is printed on, and those with a high school diploma only are not getting any kinds of jobs where experience without education would get you promoted or show that you have a high reading literacy or numerical competency. Even in fast food, the owners won't consider anyone without some college for shift manager. It is the unfortunate effect of dumbing down curriculum and the reputation of the public schools. The assumption is that it takes an associate's degree now to prove one has a basic foundation of core math and reading skills. Again though, this is going to be a really regional issue so it is hard to give advice from afar.

AAQI is falling. So I have high hopes for a better day tomorrow. AQI 92 down from 103 yesterday, but on the other side of the county down to 62. Inside, we are able to keep it way down. So the difference between inside and outside is vast which contributes to how awful so feel every time I go out. Lewis is still refusing to usr a puppy pad. I am worried about how this affects him, though he doesn't show a lot of symptoms. It cannot be good for a 14 year old dog. I hope things are improving for everyone.

Girl - Laurel Boy - Timothy

Hi, been a while. We are FINALLY without crazy for a while, and getting back on track. Yesterday/Wednesday: Java festival, and scrambled eggs Huge salads for lunch Mexican Gumbo for supper served over brown rice with lime juice and cilantro. Heavy on veggies. Two quarts home canned tomatoes, half can of tomato paste, one whole sweet onion with four garlic cloves and two jalapenos, 2 chilli peppers (deseeded), and a whole bell pepper all caramelized and then run through the blender with the tomatoes, cumin, lots of cumin. Two cans of black beans. Super yummy. Today/Thursday: JavaJive Small amount of oatmeal with a little butter. Mark put some maple syrup on his with cream. I and just a little milk but no sweetener. Leftover Gumbo Homemade GF gruyere mac and cheese, roast Brussels sprouts and green beans.

Roll your eyes hard, drink some wine, and pass the bean dip. She is being an old crustacean. My mother in law does this. Refused to go to Alabama in 2021 for the big family Christmas because, "I can't ride in a car that long." Offered to fly her. "I can't fly. My health won't allow it." Except that her doctor told her no problem. Our son's college graduation 2022, only 7 hrs away, and my mother offered to take her, stopping every two hours so she could rest, walk around, etc. Nope. Too far. Can't travel anymore. Favorite granddaughter and the one she acts like can walk on water, calls, "Granny come spend Easter with me!" Demands Mark drive her 9 hrs to the Pocanos, three days in a house with stairs she ISN'T supposed to do, and while there takes a one mile hike but here claims she cannot walk 300 ft to the end of her driveway. Yup. Now she is acting decrepit and unable to travel anywhere to see anyone except favorite granddaughter mentioned flying NYC, being picked up, and going to the Poconos for a month, and suddenly she thinks that would be lovely. Ignore. We have given up, but Mark also told her he will never take her on any trip again, and if she needs to go anywhere more than an hour away - aka the airport - she will need to pay someone to drive her. So tired of playing the games, and having her crap all over our kids. OP, your mom simply does not want to go. If they got married in her front yard, she would refuse to exit the house to watch. Selfish cranks cannot be reasoned with so just try not to communicate with her about much of anything.

Every time I see it, I think Bob Eye. This is just where my brain goes. I really do not know what some people are thinking when they choose these weird spellings for common names.