Louan and Gerry’s Excellent Adventure

Sunday was a day devoted to playfulness.  It went even better than I had any right to expect.  Louan Lechler called about this and that, and the next thing you know we were haring about the countryside exploring. 

If you are going to spend an entire afternoon playing, it is just as well to begin with a good lunch.  As it happens, Pine Hill Nursery offers a good lunch at the Garden Cafe, which re-opened for the summer earlier this month.  As I was after a hanging planter for the hummingbirds and Louan was after a gardening trowel, this was a perfect place to go and there we went.  

The photo does not show us to best advantage.  I made it small so that I, too, might appear petite.  Ah well.  I thought you’d like to see some people around here, so there it is.  The fuschias appear to be more alluring.  They aren’t really, but they were having a better hair day than I was.

After lunch we went for a Sunday drive.  It is important to go for Sunday drives with people who have similar views on what is important in life.  I knew I had been fortunate in this regard when I said, Oh, that’s an interesting old barn, and Louan applied the brakes right smartly.  (I have had Sunday afternoon drive companions who said Mm-Hm and drove on.)  We turned up the side road to see the stone house that went with the barn, and then followed another road that looked like it ought to be followed. 

Finally we decided against that road over there, as it looked as if it ought not to be followed, and headed into Bellaire for refreshment. Excellent refreshment is available at Short’s.  There must be 20 craft brews on tap at any given moment, and the soups and sandwiches and bar snacks are very fine indeed.   

OK, now, for this next part you need to be reminded that Louan is the very person who sold the happy Cat Bag to the friend who gave it to me.  Imagine, then, the effect when a stranger sat down at the bar and plopped an identical Cat Bag next to mine.  She did a double take and we exclaimed and introduced ourselves and exchanged travel tales and mutual admiration for our good taste.  

Eventually, of course, it was time to head back to Eastport, stopping first at the Marathon Station to fill up.  It sort of reminds me of the Eastport Market except that it’s smaller and it sells cow pies.  Homemade cow pies.  If we hadn’t already had a good lunch and excellent refreshment I might have been tempted, but even I have my limits. 

 The road home winds along the shores of Torch Lake.  As the last golden light moved across the land, we approached the entrance to Lakeview Cemetery and I remembered something I wanted to investigate.  Oh!  I said.  Turn here!  And a wonderful thing happened.  We turned there!  This is practically unprecedented in my experience—not surprising, as a good proportion of my friends do not think of a trip to the cemetery as just the ticket for a Sunday drive.  But there we were, and we found the Grandmothers Garden and that’s another post entirely.

Sunday was such a fine day altogether that I am resolved to give myself a full day off every week. There is something to be said for a day of rest, and people who have said it a whole lot better than I.