Local animals

Ashley checking out the local animals. Samuel and Bethany got a
chance to drive the riding lawnmower.

Vacation 2009 – Day 7 - Michigan Day 2 – Food and Views

I needed to add some additional information about the Soo Locks area,  We went to a couple of great restaurants. 

The first restaurant was “Maloney’s Irish Pub”.  I had my first taste of Whitefish.  It was delicious and very reasonable, across the street was a view of boats going through the locks.  The second restaurant where we had dinner was a restaurant that Aunt Pat had worked  at when she was younger.

The restaurant was called the “LockView restaurant”.  Aunt Pat and I had the perch, it was battered and fried.  It was good, everyone had a difficult time finishing their food, because there was plenty.  A grilled Whitefish and Walleye was on the menu, which other people tried and shared.  I liked all of the above.

Before we had dinner we drove by  to see if any of the houses that Bob and Aunt Pat lived in as kids were still there.  We found three of them, but I only have picture of two, see below:

(Spruce Street – Most remembered House)

(Minneapolis Street)

Soo Locks - Michigan Day 2

Well I don't have a bunch to see for today, but We are in Day 2 in Michigan, after visiting with relatives the day before, we continued to the Soo Locks. They were awsome. Everyone had a great time. I got to try lake perch, walleye and whitefish. It was all delicious, These were all local varieties.

Vacation 2009 – Day 6 – Driving to Michigan

Well, this started our mini-trip within our vacation.  We drove to Petoskey, MI, by way of Grand Rapids, MI.  We stopped in Grand Rapids, to pickup Aunt Pat, which was great because we had not seen her for 5 years. 

Afterwards, we ending up in Petoskey, MI, where we had dinner with Deb, Kacey, Kelsey and Korey. The kids went to the beach, which was not far away and went swimming.  The lake was Lake Michigan!  Sam and Korey jumped in and they said it was very cold.

The funny part was on leaving the beach, Sam accidentally got into the wrong car and someone was actually sleeping in the front seat of the car.  Fortunately, he was only in there a few seconds and the person in the car did not notice the extra passenger. This really seemed to break the ice between the kids.  It had been 5+ years since the kids had had a chance to get together.It was a great time to be had by all,  I ended up cooking burgers and they actually turned out good, surprise.  Before leaving to stay at the hotel, we made plans to meet on Friday at Mackinaw Island.

Day 5 Evening

Well after spending time at the local watering hole, before going to bed my in-laws have a nightly visitor.  A raccoon, that we all call “three-legs”.  She has been visiting them for 11 years, some years she brings her babies and lately she has not. 

The first picture, is her showing up at the door waiting for her two peanut butter sandwiches. The second is her eating the first one and she returns for the second one in about 10 minutes.

Day 5 - Rest Day

Well, this day we went to the Water park in Layafette, IN. The "Tropicanoe Cove", the kids had a great time just going around the lazy river and the slides, the bad part is that all of the kids ended up getting sunburned, even after putting on sunscreen. Below are some pictures.

Day 4 Notes

Well, it is Father's Day, it was nice to relax. We really did not do much for the day. I did call my dad, and with him "Happy Father's day" and let him know that we arrived safely. It was nice to talk with my dad. I got cards from my kids, wife and in-laws, my other card is in the mail. After having a good breakfast, which now I can understand my Mac gained weight over last summer. There was plenty of food and it was very good!!

My wife's best friend Dina and Rich showed up with their son Daniel and Hannah. The last time we saw them, Hanna wasn't born and Daniel was shorter than we were. Just to give you perspective, Rich is about 7 ft tall and Daniel is around 6ft tall and is a teenager. I just wish I had those genes, not really but it would be nice. We have some pictures of both families together. It was great catching up and it was sad when they had to leave, they had to get back to Fort Wayne, In, which was about a 3 hour drive from here.

The rest of the day was my son and I playing Sims 3. Ashley found some neighbors that had animals at their farm and walked over to introduce herself and asked to pet the animals, (If you knew Ashley, this is totally in character). They actually let her and Vicki went over too and explored.

Rest of Day 3

Well, by noon, we had let off some good friends that the family had made. They were on their way to the Mayo Clinic, I do with them good luck and hope that they will have a short stay. They good thing is that they girls have a way to keep in touch with each other. Once we hit, MN the view got better. I was hoping to see Fargo, ND becuase of a former co-worker, but we went through there at 2am in the morning, so I missed it. Minnesota was nice and there was some Flooding in WI, which I thought was a little too close to the train, There were fields and playground totally flooded. I was able to get off in Milwalkee, WI, but was not able to see anything becuase as soon as I got off, they were waving people to get back on. We did get a picture, but that was it.

We finally got to Chicago, around 4:30, we were about 1/2 hr late and we needed to get our luggage and take it on the next train. I kinda of felt like we were at the airport, waiting on luggage and trying to determine where our next connection is at. Chicago's station was very different from other stations that we went to. Chicago's station is level with the ground but most of the way enclosed. The effect make the area very loud. All of the other stations that we went to were very outside the train was not enclosed or covered very much. Chicago was interesting becuase it was not just Amtrak, but there Metro station also, it was a bit confusing. While waiting for our luggage, my daughter went to try and get a picture of Johnny Dep, He was supposed to be comming through the terminal, but we did not see him. The wait for the next train was really uncomfortable, The room that we at was 1/4 of the size of the Seattle terminal and there were doors for C,D,E and F terminals and it was jammed packed with people sitting and standing everywhere. Think of waiting for a SouthWest flight before they started doing the A,B and C lines then take the current way and have the lines move together at the same time.

The next train was an experience, we actually got to see how long the train actually was. The other stations, the train was next to the platform at a 90 degree angle, well in Chicago, it was at a 180 degree angle, so we actually walk to the train by going from back to front. Because we were the third stop, we had to walk to the front of the train. It was such a long walk that we lost a couple of people in the process and we keep going by conductors and they just said "keep going to the front". We must have been one of the last one's on, eventho we were not at the end of the line for getting through the ticket area, after just sitting down, the train was moving.

We arrived in Lafayette, IN, around 10:30-11:00 PM, the station was chaos. There were people everywhere. It was an annual feastival going on, "Taste of Tippicanoo?". There was a live stage and people all over the place. We had to take our luggage and carry it up stairs and over the train tracks and back down. It was great to see my in-laws and sleep in a comfortable bed, but first it was great to have a shower.

Start of Day 3

Day 2 was actioned packed but I will take some time to write down other stuff. The short
synopsis is that my kids had a great time on the train and really had a
great time interacting with fellow travlers. When I went to sleep, for Day 2 we were just past Minot,ND and woke up at St. Cloud, MN.

Sent from my iPhone
David Waddleton

Havre,MT

In the background is a guide from Trails to Rails. She is talking about local stuff as the train travels. This was one of the best parts of the trip, learning the history of areas while traveling. Since I like history stuff, this was right up my alley. My kids and Vicki really enjoyed this. This was only in the lounge car, That is where most of the pictures were taken. The lounge car had really huge windows and you had nearly a 360 degree view of everything.

Day 2 morning

We are in Whitefish,MT. We have seen some elk and scenic views. Here
is some pics from my seat.

Sent from my iPhone
David Waddleton

Trip - Day 1 Notes

Well everyone is asleep even in the whole car, well mostly. It has
been a busy day for the Waddleton's. It started with sending the kids
to school and making sure that Sam is dressed right for his
graduation. The my wife and I running errands like me sending Father's
day cards and getting an external flash for our camera,which turned
out to be a great buy!! My wife and I had sushi before graduation.
Sam graduated and the graduation was actually done my 2:30 which is a
miracle because it went till 3:10 the previous year, I know because I
was there. School actually gets out at 3:00.
The car service picked us up at 2:45. He was backing up the driveway
@ 2:45 exactly!! This time we were packed and all ready!!! We
actually got to the train station early and got to watch some trains.
We started our journey at 4:40pm to Indiana.

The train has been great so far. @ dinner I has Bison meatloaf which
was good. The best part was the mashed potatoes! Sam and I sat at a
different table because the tables are small and sat with an older
lady who has ridden on trains from other countries and really liked
it. Well it is time to get some sleep.
just a FYI the train just happens to be stopped somewhere.

Sent from my iPhone
David Waddleton

Day before Vacation

Well, things are getting busier, we leave for vacation tomorrow. I still have got to pack my bags and supervise my kids to make sure that they don't forget anything important. Just so much fun. I it finally a relief to finally get unburried from work just in time to leave.

Preparing for a trip

Well our family is going to go on a big trip. We are going to go on Amtrak to Indiana. The time is getting short and everything as work is also getting busy. It would figure that everthing would be crazy before leaving. I will try to update as we travel.

Tip: GPG encryption on Windows - “Extra Carriage Return”

Using the gpg.exe which can be downloaded from http://www.gpg.org.  Well there is an issue with this executable on the Windows platform.  It adds an extra “CR” (Carriage Return) to each new line. 

The Process:

1. Generate a File for encryption
2. Encrypt File
3. Another user Decrypts file, then the file is broken.

So if you are using .NET. you need to control which end line characters get created.  For example.

StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter();
sw.WriteLine(“”);

Results in a “CRLF” (Carriage Return & Line Feed), which results in an extra “CR” when the file gets decrypted on each line. so it will look like “CRCRLF”.

 

The Fix:

StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter();
sw.NewLine = “\n”;
sw.WriteLine(“”);

This results in each line just having a “LF” when generated, so when the GPG decryption is done, each line results in having the correct “CRLF” at each line.