Month: August 2018

August 17, 2018 la música Post a Comment

Lift Every Voice and Sing By James Weldon Johnson

Lift Every Voice and Sing By James Weldon Johnson

Lift every voice and sing

Till earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun

Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,

Bitter the chastening rod,

Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;

Yet with a steady beat,

Have not our weary feet

Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,

We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,

Out from the gloomy past,

Till now we stand at last

Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand.

True to our God,

True to our native land.

RIP Aretha

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QK4p22LHtw&feature=share

August 12, 2018 Flowers and Outdoors Post a Comment

Manistee, MI 2018

Manistee, MI 2018

My sister’s neighbor’s friend invited us to join them at Insta Launch campground/marina in Manistee, MI. Most of the campsites are right on the marina which is at the end of the Big Manistee River. The Big Manistee River feeds into Manistee Lake. At the south end of the lake you can access the Little Manistee River.

We have taken Ana kayaking once before and we have been kayaing without her a few times with our new-ish tandem kayak. After talking to one of the owners (they also operate a canoe and kayak rental service), I was convinced that it would be OK to bring Ana kayaking on the Big Manistee River using our Old Town tandem. She had already been canoeing on the Platte River which is nearby.

We drove to my sister’s place in Michigan last Thursday evening to cut a couple of hours off the drive north. We got there at 2 AM due to the time difference and a protest that shut down Lake Shore Drive near work (so I couldn’t leave early). We got up at 6 AM so that we could kayak after setting up camp. We wanted to maximize our time there because it was basically just a long weekend. We quickly set up and met with the rest of the group who had gone up on Wednesday. We decided to do the Platte River first, which is nice and easy.

Riverside Rental in Honor Michigan are really cool about letting people use their launch site even if you aren’t renting from them (we rented canoes from them before, with Ana). Our group was really disorganized. In fact we accidentally drove about 10 miles past the launch site because you have to be careful when typing “riverside rental” into your navigation system. There’s too many.

Anyway, we bought sandwiches and had lunch in the shade on the river. Ana couldn’t wait and licked my wife’s sandwich a few times. Don’t worry, it was wrapped in wax paper and we did share some with her. It was a nice ~3 hour paddle. The Platte River ends at Sleeping Bear Dunes which is really pretty. There were a lot of people floating in tubes on the route too. Ana got people’s attention a along the route. Kind of strange because there were a few other dogs too. We should have taken a swim at the sandbar in the lake we crossed but the wind was a bit strong and we didn’t want to get cold. The French bread pizza foil dinners were yummy that night. I have to figure out how to keep them from burning when the sauce leaks out.

The next day we planned on a 4 hour float on the Big Manistee River. We were trying to find Rainbow Bend access point in the Manistee National Forest. I didn’t have good cell reception so I couldn’t help. No surprise, it was chaos trying to figure out how to get there. With 9 people and 8 kayaks, it’s takes some time getting everything unloaded and ready. It was about 90 °F so people were naturally getting cranky. Once we got going, it was really nice. Ana was a bit fidgetty. We probably have to make a cushion for her. For most of the paddle, my wife mainly didn’t paddle and just kept Ana from fidgeting too much. Because the rest of the group was paddling really slow, we decided two people had to paddle so that we could finish before dark and also feed Ana. With two people paddling and Ana behaving, we ended up about 45 minutes ahead of the rest of the group and maybe 20 minutes ahead of my sister.

As far as new camping gear goes, we got Ana a portable crate from Duluth Trading Co. She likes being in her crate at home. She was very content in her portable crate. It’s light and folds up nicely. The craftsmanship is a bit poor (it’s already starting to develop a hole) but we like it so far. As best I can tell, the mosquitoes didn’t bother her. They got me pretty good on my knees and calves even wearing pants. We got a couple of small LED lanterns from Black Diamond that worked well.

When we were driving home, both my kayak and my sister’s kayak were pushed to one side by a gust of wind. You can see in the last photo that the front rack is shorter on the driver’s side. We drove 10 mph below the limit for about half of the drive because it was too windy. I’m probably going to switch from the J-hook style cradle to a flat four foot mount set up.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vt149yNdW2N5q8S56