Chilling

Our little trip to Ludington was very nice.  We found outdoor eateries for dinner, and ate the food we brought with us in our room for breakfast.  Ludington, which has had very low infection numbers, was fairly militant about the mask requirement.  Virtually every store and elevator had a sign advising that they would call the police if you refused to wear one.  So we felt comfortable there and were able to maintain a more than safe distance from the few people we saw.  The attitude was so different from our local scene, where the infection rates are much higher, but people (including store owners) are claiming that their "individual rights" are being trampled on by the governor's executive orders about masks.  Petitions are circulating to restrict her powers even though there is clear evidence that our state has fared better during this pandemic than states where no mask edicts were attempted.  In Ludington, the streets were mostly empty.  But we felt safe going into the shops that caught our eye; the business motto was "stay safe to stay open," which seemed both friendlier and more sensible to us.  

The weather was not especially warm, but lovely all the same.  We had some sun each day and it never got colder than the mid 60s in the day time, although there was sometimes a stiff breeze by the water.  For our outdoor dining, I was comfortable in a long sleeve shirt, sometimes adding a light fleece jacket.  

Since Ludington is on the west side of the state, we went to the beach each evening, hoping to watch a sunset.  Although the days seemed clear, and the sun began setting as usual, it would disappear before reaching the horizon, just below the position in the picture below.   We read in the news that the smoke from the western wildfires had reached Michigan, and we speculated that the sun was being covered by a smokey haze.  All we knew for sure was that it disappeared from view about an hour before sunset.

                                                

On the morning we left to return home there was a freeze warning, and when we ate lunch outdoors that day, we were both very cold even though the restaurant placed a propane heater next to our table.  For that meal, I wore two sweatshirts and a jacket and still felt uncomfortable, and even Jack, who rarely seems to feel the cold, was chilled.  Today, as I write this in the middle of the day, it is about 45 degrees outside.  We started a fire in our fireplace this morning and I am having trouble wrapping my mind around the onset of colder weather -- if it were not for the pandemic, this might be the year I would try to convince Jack to go south for a bit when the weather gets really cold.  This year it feels like there are fewer options.  I will cook a pot of chili this weekend to have with our fresh baked bread, trying to make the best of the best part of lower temperatures.  It is only September still, so I know we will have warmer weather again this year and I will have more time to adjust to the idea.  

I never felt completely relaxed on this trip and I blame the political news that kept creeping in for that.    I disabled my Facebook and Twitter accounts before we left,  and it has been a struggle not to go back in to check them.   There seems to be no avoiding the headlines, and of course the neighbors have political signs on their lawns and the balance of those is troubling.

Even so, it was good to get away, and good to return home.  We will self-isolate now for a couple of weeks to be sure we didn't pick up any illness on our adventure, but we are pretty confident that this was a safe trip.  

Our local quilt shop/Babylock dealer called this morning to say that my embroidery machine repairs are complete.  They offer curbside service so we will pick that up this afternoon.  And since I cleaned the house before we left and did our laundry the night we returned, I should have plenty of time to sew tomorrow!