Vintage Grand Prix At Mid Ohio

I’m a car nut I admit it, a bit of a petrol head to be honest.  I love road racing, proper racing none of that stupid Nascar stuff.  I’m not into F1 either, cause you have to watch that on the telly and I’m not much of a telly person, I prefer to be in the thick of things, to actually be there at an event, to watch the racing live from the track, to see the cars in the paddock and to chat to the drivers and their crews, to really smell the race fumes as it were.

We go to the Vintage Grand Prix at Mid-O quite frequently, last year we entered our 1972 Ginetta G15 in to the British Car Showdown car show and brought home one of 10 blue ribbons handed out that day.  This year, we spent the week before the event watching the weather.  We’ve had a lot of high humidity recently which has given way to some quite spectacular and vicious thunderstorms in the afternoons.  The reason for the indecision was based on the visibility of our tiny, tiny car to other road users.  It’s hair raising stuff on a motorway at the best of times, but put  torrential rain, hail and road spray into the mix and we’d be completely invisible to the other much bigger and heavier, road vehicles.  The second reason for watching the weather so closely is our inability to source 13″ tyres in this country.  The tyres on the car are now very worn, almost slicks.  They’re still ok in the dry, not bad in a bit of rain if you’re careful but potentially lethal in the kind of sudden downpour associated with strong thunderstorms.

Last Thursday afternoon I drove home from work in one of those storms and had to avoid fallen trees and debris on the road and rivers of water.  I could hardly see a thing with my wipers on full speed.  Once home I had to sit on the drive while the thunder crashed directly over head and double and triple fork lightning and hail came down thick and fast.  Once in the house we found a picture on the floor, shaken off the wall by the force of the thunder.  That storm sat over us for one and a half hours, brought down trees and power lines, left almost 100,000 people without power, knocked out a surge protector on my house and left us with no phone or internet until Monday morning when the utility company turned up.  It also drenched us with 3″ of rain in that one and a half hours.  And it made up our minds that the Ginetta wasn’t going to Mid Ohio with us, one storm like that on the way down there and it could have been curtains for us.

As it turned out, Mother Nature played a big part in the weekend.  This photo was taken on the way down, shortly before the weather deteriorated even more and we pulled off the road, parked up under an overpass and waited for it to move on.  There was no one left on the road until this storm was done, everyone had pulled over.  Imagine the M6 in England with no traffic and every single vehicle parked on the hard shoulder.

This was taken with the wipers on full speed too.  You can just about see the shoulder and the lane we’re in, but you can’t see the outside lane, the central reservation or the lanes on the West bound side of the road, and you certainly can’t see all the traffic in front of us, which IS there, people hadn’t pulled over at this point.

Anyway, we made it to the track safely, got registered, paid for the camping and put the tent up… all in the rain, and then wandered into the paddock to do a bit of car spotting as the rain was passing and the sun was coming back out.

[Lola – hate to think how much this beautiful race car is worth]

[Two Austin Healey Frog Eye Sprites, known in America as Bugeyes.  Still one of my favourites classics of all time]

[Lotus Super Seven]

[A very rare 1972 Ferrari 312 brought along for display purposes.  Ex Brian Redmond car, currently for sale for $800,000 if you’re interested!!]

[A stunningly beautiful Porsche.  The number 39 in the background with the rear engine cover up is a Porsche 917, used in the film Le Mans and driven by Steve McQueen]

We managed to see a couple of the practice sessions before the storms returned and racing was abandoned for the day, so we retired gracefully to a nearby bar for a drink and some food, and also tried to dry out as we got soaked to the skin in the second round of storms as we weren’t quick enough to hoof it back to either the car or the tent before the heavens opened!  It did clear up late evening though and we were treated to a pretty sunset and a peaceful night.

[Sunset over the campground, with rather a lot of standing water]

Saturday was lovely and clear and they managed to run almost the entire program until the heavy rain returned around 3:30pm.  We started hearing reports about roads and a couple of bridges washed out locally, flood warnings were now in pace for much of the region and later when we drove through Lexington on our way to dinner we saw the creek had broken and the road was flooded.  The police were redirecting the traffic and the water was pouring into the parking lot of a nearby office building and the cars that had been parked in there were up to their wheel arches in flood water and it was still rising.

But we saw some great racing that day…

[A motley collection of mostly British cars.  I can see a Fiat 148 and at the back is an old “Special” a one off car built in the 30’s for hill climbing, now restored and on the track.]

[Mostly Alfa’s, Datsuns and Porches with a Spitfire and an MG, and the white car just going over the brow of the hill is a Spec Racer Ford]

[Me sitting on the front straight watching the cars being released from grid, behind me, for the next race]

Sunday started damp and drizzly but the racing went ahead.  The track was very slippery and made for some interesting races.  It dried up quickly and we moved back to the grandstand in the esses, one of our favourite places to view from and watched out friends Andrea and Dave Robertson compete in the 1 1/2 hour Enduro in one of their Ford GT’s.  They started their racing career with us at Waterford Hills and we’ve known them for about 12 years now.  A few years ago they moved up to ALMS (American LeMans Series) and eventually formed Robertson Racing with a full crew, huge rig, team manager (“H” from England) and two Ford GT race cars.  Three years ago they entered the real Le Mans 24 hour race in France and beat out all the factory sponsored race teams to finish third in their class.  They became the first husband and wife team to EVER stand on the podium at Le Mans and Andrea was the first women since 1926 to stand on the podium.  Quite a feat for the two “unknowns” and their little race team from Michigan, and a huge source of pride for everyone who knew them from Waterford Hills.  They’re always happy to see us at any track and still come to Waterford Hills when they can to say hello, we spent part of the wet Friday in their garage and trailer dodging the rain.

Here they are in their yellow and silver Ford GT competing in the Enduro, sandwiched between two Lola’s.  They started dead last as their Saturday races were victim to the weather and they had no on track time to set their position on the grid, so that put them at the back of the pack in 21st place.  But they finished a very respectable 8th.

We watched more great racing and then had to leave around 3pm to get home.  The rain was reappearing anyway and as we left the complex it was starting to get heavy again.  We almost had a repeat of the journey on the way down, and that very first photo taken from the car in the rain could easily have been Sunday and not Friday.  We got home much later than planned because of it but it was still a great weekend and very worthwhile to make the effort to attend.  Hopefully next year the Ginetta can go again too.

Anyone Know What Happened To July?

…. cause it went by in a total blur, especially the last couple of weeks!  Can’t believe I haven’t blogged in over a week!  Hope you’re all doing well, I owe so many people emails it’s untrue, I’m also behind on “phoning home” too, so I need to rectify that as soon as possible.

It all went pear shaped at work as not one, but two colleagues broke their ankles, and there was an awful lot of slack to be picked up by the rest of us!  The guys were hanging out together, doing guy things….. like messing about with a tree top zip wire without checking that the safety stop was in place!  The tree that Kazie smashed in to did a really good job of stopping him but Kevin mistook Kazie’s yell of “don’t come down” as an all clear and smashed in to the same tree!!  The result was a broken ankle each!  They both had surgery last Friday, Kazie has a relatively clear break and needed a pin put in to help the bone heal again but Kevin managed to break his heel which is an altogether much more painful and longer healing process, so he’ll be out for a while, Kazie should be back in a couple of days.  Talk about nominees for a Darwin Award!

I’ve also been making sure I spend a little time most days after work in the basement working on my fitness again, something I badly needed to do if you recall my self pitying posts before I went to England in May!!  I’m feeling better already, happier, healthier and I’m sleeping well too, I’ve also lost three pounds which is always welcome in the summer when the shorts and little tops are out and a bit more flesh is on display!

The final thing that came to a head during the last week was a frenzy of looking at “new to me” cars in three different dealerships.  Not sure if I’ve mentioned before but I’ve been seriously considering upgrading my 1997 Ford Escort with something much newer and safer with better features, warranty and reliability.  Andrew’s been bugging me to do this for the best part of a year or two, but I really liked my old car.  She certainly wasn’t the prettiest anymore but she was remarkably clean for her age with an excellent interior and very few body marks, there was also just 129,000 on the clock, which was slightly less than 10,000 miles a year, so very low mileage too.  Plus, having none of the “modern drive by wire, let me do it for you” kind of features, she was an absolute blast to drive, as input always equaled output, and if the back end stepped out around a corner it was solely and entirely due to the driver, who would have a grin a mile wide on her face!  I struggled to consider parting with her but after her last service Andrew warned me that she might not make it through the upcoming winter due to some corrosion that was taking hold under the drivers side foot well.

I’ve been looking around on and off all year, not too seriously, but I’d narrowed the prospective field down to just one type of car and then kept an eye out on the online trader sites.  We’d also been putting a bit of money aside as I didn’t want to get in to a payment plan, I wanted to buy out right, so I had myself a self imposed spending limit.  My car of choice was going to be a 2008 or 2009 model year Ford Focus, I really like the hatchback but they were proving difficult to come by with low mileage so I started to consider the 4 door sedan too, my choices were few and far between considering I was also looking for a manual not an automatic, they’re quite rare in Michigan, out of about 80 or so cars for sale in my area (50 mile radius of my address), typically about 6 were manuals.  Take in to consideration mileage, year and price and out of those six there may have been one worth considering.  So, out of the blue last week, not one, not two but three manuals with low mileage and at a price I could deal with turned up at three different dealers!  Sods law eh?  Talk about behaving like the the proverbial buses!

So to cut a long story short, the first dealership had only just listed their car and wouldn’t deal much on price and didn’t want my Escort as a trade in!  The second one gave me a fantastic price and a great deal on the trade in too but the car they had for sale had too many minor body blemishes and stone chips, plus it would need four new tyres very soon all of which worried us for a car with just 20,000 miles on it, it really looked like it had been driven hard and perhaps not looked after too well.  The dealer recognized this and cut the price drastically, but I wanted to look at the third one before making a decision.  This car was located just four miles from where I work so I went to see it on my own last Friday lunch time.  The Sales guy could see that I was serious, no nonsense, knew exactly what I wanted and how much I wanted to pay, so he talked to his Manager and the price was dropped by $1600 in about five minutes.  I knew this was my car, it’s been looked after and hasn’t a single mark on her anywhere.  The dealership took it on a trade in for a new Chrysler and they’d waxed, polished and prepped her very well, plus you could just tell that the car had been looked after, even the engine bay was completely spotless.

I took Andrew to the dealership on Saturday morning and we both had a test drive.  The dealer also put the car on a ramp for us so Andrew could inspect the underside, it was as perfect as perfect could be and so after a little more negotiating and a little haggle over the trade in price of my Escort I drove my new car home.  I do have to say I felt incredibly sad at walking away from my old girl, felt like abandonment!  We had a lot of fun together and apart from one small incident (the alternator about a month ago) she never gave me any problems at all.

So this is what was sitting on my driveway on Sunday morning, I took these pictures really quickly just before we headed out to the lake with our kayaks, to send to my brother.  She’s a very sweet drive, and looks, feels and drives just like a brand new car.  I spent a bit of time sitting inside her on Sunday afternoon going through the manual before I had to drive her to work this morning for the first time…..

And my favourite feature???  Being able to plug my Ipod in, press a button on the steering wheel, say “USB” for the device type and then say “Play All” – “Play Album xxx” – “Play KT Tunstall” etc.  I like it that my car talks to me!  Makes driving to work so much more interesting!  Now I just have to make her remember my name!

A Little Late…

… but I thought I’d show you some photos from our 4 day camping trip over Independence Day Weekend!  Sounds funny saying it like that but the Monday was the 4th of July and I also had Friday off so we made a weekend out of it!  God I can’t believe it was three weeks ago!  The summer is absolutely flying by!  I heard something the other day say it was only 163 days until Christmas!

But, back to the piccies.  We camped in Ionia State Recreation Area about 2 hours drive West of where I live.  It’s run by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and we always try to stay in these type of parks as there’s usually lots to do, they’re clean, well maintained and quiet at night too.  So here’s a few photos and not too many words!

We set up our pitch and got the important lounger chairs out!

We wandered down to the lake the first night to catch the beautiful sunset.

Which we spent ages trying to capture…

The next day after doing the mountain bike trail we checked out the beach

and then went and checked out The Grand River for our big kayaking trip the next day

We kayaked The Grand…..

We got totally fed up of kayaking The Grand!  After 5 1/5 hours of paddling against the current in 32C temps… can you tell????

But it was easily put right with a rest and a cuppa!

And another sunset.

We hiked the 4 mile trail around the lake and spotted this seriously cute little garden growing on a log  that had fallen over a stream…

And then I turned around and realised that the bank behind me was full of beautiful wild Turks Cap Lillies!

Whilst Andrew got up close and personal with some freshly emerged, and freshly nibbled, fungi!

And then we spent the final afternoon chillin’ out on the beach and swimming in the lake.

**********************************************************************************

I have another racing weekend ahead of me, so there won’t be any new cards posted, but I did do a bit of stamping last night so hopefully I won’t be out of action for very long!  We also have a car show at work today and Andrew is bringing our 38 yr old Ginetta G15 in to work at lunchtime, and our friends are bringing their Triumph TR6 too, hopefully the rain will hold off.  More thunderstorms this weekend again!  With a bit of luck though we won’t have to deal with tornadoes!  Catch you all on the upside!

Dodging Tornadoes And Other Stuff

No, that’s not a metaphor, but more on that later.

I had hoped that life might just slow down a little and that I’d be able to get back in the craft room and back to blogging more frequently, but as you’re probably already aware, that’s just not happening!!  Don’t think I’ve stepped foot in the craft room for a week, and no more cards have been made or challenges entered either.  So, what has been going on?

Taking up quite a bit of time right now is the racing that I volunteer to help out with, I seem to have become Chief of Grid again, after our other Chief quit at short notice, due entirely to the crap going on in her own life right now and having way too much on her plate to deal with.  On the one hand, she was very unhappy at letting people down, but on the other she was relieved to have got at least one thing off her plate.  I, on the other hand, have had to jump back in, taking full charge of the safety of 100 race car drivers, organising them to get out on the track at the correct time, training new Grid staff as we have been short this year, and being completely answerable to both the drivers and the track stewards for anything that happens on grid or any decisions me or my team make.  I’ve done it before and generally have no problem with it, but I’m getting a bit tired of a lot of people relying on a few so they can go and race and have fun, but not being willing to step up and lend a hand themselves.  *Rant over!*

We’ve also been experiencing a storm laden start to summer, can’t recall if I’ve mentioned this before but we’ve had some pretty severe storms and a number of tornadoes since the beginning of June.  We had a tree come down in our back garden and our neighbour had a large tree come down in his that partly blocked the main road behind him.  There were also trees down further down the street, some of which had snapped the utility poles and brought down the power lines.  We had no power for over 18 hours and a flooded basement with that one.  There have also been numerous smaller outages too.  We were at a friends for a barbecue dinner a couple of weeks ago and it suddenly got really muggy, the wind dropped completely and then the tornado sirens in the area were activated…. dark purple and orange might be a cool colour combination for card making, but it really spells trouble when the sky is that colour! It was gone midnight before anyone was able to leave the party, but it didn’t matter, we were still having fun!

The weather was once again a factor this past weekend at the race track and we actually had to abandon racing for only the second time in our 52 year history.  We got through Saturday just fine, it was just hot (86F) and a bit humid, but there were scattered, severe storms forecast again for Sunday.  We ran everything as quickly as we could, trying to stay ahead of the weather fronts that were whipping all around us, until one of our young drivers got a little off track and put about a third of his Camaro race car through the sound wall, popped one of the boards right out!  That was right before lunch, but we had to extend lunch in order to get the wall fixed and by that time it had started to rain.  We managed to run just one more race when it started thundering and lightening, that’s an automatic shutdown for us as we have corner workers out on track in exposed positions hooked up to headphones and stuff and we have to bring them back in to the paddock for safety.  It was just after this that Independence Township activated all of their tornado sirens.  That sent everyone scrambling to get down their canopies and secure all their stuff as we’d be sitting ducks in high winds.  The Competition Board had a quick meeting, checked the radar, listened to the police radio reports and decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and we should pack it up.  People needed time to get their paddock and/or camping spot cleared and packed away before whatever was coming our way hit us.  As it turned out, the storm veered North and missed up completely, but id did rip right through a campground, tossing big American RV’s and caravans into a lake like they were Tonka toys, and sadly claiming one life.  We made the right decision.  There were also two more confirmed tornadoes a little South of my house that plowed through a rural area and caused no significant damage.

So, what else?  I’ve been having a bit of car trouble recently, mainly in the mornings on start up, my little old car has been idling very badly and twice has stalled completely as I’ve gone to pull away.  Andrew gave her a thorough service on Monday night and found a perished bit of hose on the vacuum system that would definitely have accounted for the trouble.  Tuesday morning she was as sweet as a bell and I drove to work happy and confident in my car again, only to find myself broken down on the side of the road about five miles from home after my alternator packed up!!  Sodding Murphy’s Law or what???  I called AAA (US equivalent of AA) to arrange for a tow truck, and then called Andrew to come out and sit with my car so I could take his car and carry on to work.  By the time the tow truck arrived he’d figured out it was likely the alternator and the tow driver said exactly the same when he heard how everything shut down so suddenly.  I now have a reconditioned alternator that Andrew fitted and a smooth running car once again!

We have had some fun though too.  Last Friday night we went to the park with some friends and their two children for the annual Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s free concert at a local park.  It’s always brilliant, and it’s amazing that a world class symphony orchestra puts on free shows at five local parks over the summer, we always make time to go to at least one.  And we’re off camping too, literally in an hour or two.  I’m just finishing my lunch at work and I’ll leave at 1pm today to head home and we should be on the road by about 2pm.  Monday is American Independence Day (4th of July) and where I work is also shut tomorrow (Friday) so we’ve decided to take a mini camping break.  We’ll be taking the kayaks and the bikes too, and for once we have a lovely forecast, hot on Sunday at 91F, but NO STORMS!!!  Probably shouldn’t have said that though should I????

Tomorrow (July 2nd) is also our 16 year anniversary of arriving in America!  I’ve now officially spent more of my adult life in America than I have in England.  I think I’m turning into a “half and harf”!

Bloomin’ Marvellous!

Alright…. so you wanna see the first of the flowery projects then?  By rights I should save this post until tomorrow at around 5:31pm as that’s the moment of the Vernal, or Spring, Equinox, where the sun is vertically above us as the earth rotates on it’s axis, it makes the length of the day and the length of the night pretty much equal… but I think there are a couple of people out there who would slap me silly if I did that!

So remember this from Wednesday?

Let me give you a quick run down first…. the white, yellow and blue daisy like flowers on the right are actually wired bunches, along with some greenery, that are going to go in to the little clay pots.  There’ll be some blue and yellow ribbon glued around the lip and maybe a small bow too.  This is the bit that I’ve still to do.  What all these flowers are resting on, that you just get a glimpse here, is an 18″ from top to bottom, oval wreath base that’s now hanging on my front door.  The forsythia sprays were shaped and wired to the base and then everything else was hot glued into place.  The everything else consists of lilac/blue mini wisteria, in the centre of the picture, dark blue/purple cornflowers, which are right over the back near the pencils!, and yellow daisies.  The orange dianthus I got for a rather bold contrast but decided not to use them in the end, but as I’ve still got more things to make, I’m sure they won’t got to waste.

This is how it turned out, hanging on my door which is dark green and not blue as it looks here!

I like the rather ragged look of the base wreath, with it’s little bits of grapevine twigs sticking out.  Andrew kept trying to cut them off when I wasn’t looking!  He likes everything neat and tidy and I like the rustic look more!  After wiring the forsythia to the base I then made the ribbon bows and tails so I could decide on their placement as that would effect how the rest of the flowers were placed.  The yellow bow is a three looped bow and the blue one is a little rosette bow, the type that we all put on gift packages.  Once I knew where the bow would go I put it to one side, hot glued the little sprays of light purple wisteria in place and then filled in with the cornflowers and the daisies.  The bows were then wired together and then wired to the base.  Andrew helped me to make a wire hanger at the top as it needed to be held up and worked on at the same time.

What I probably should have done was to take a photo of the whole door so you could see it in context,  I realised afterwards that these photos don’t give any indication of scale at all, and I can then point out my plans for the little clay pots!  I’ll see if I can snap one at the weekend and edit this post.

And talking of the weekend, I’ve got myself a great one lined up!  Andrew is leaving before I get home from work today for a holistic retreat where he is going to learn the ancient art of meditation.  He’s tried doing this on his own before but always ends up being distracted by something.  He’ll be gone until some time on Sunday afternoon, so in a way I’ll have a retreat of my own!  Only mine will be a stamping retreat!!!  I already have it planned to the last detail, starting with a slight detour on my way home to Hobby Lobby for some of those cheap Nesties, followed by a mooch round Archivers later this evening after I’ve had my dinner.  Then back home for a spot of crafting before bed.  Saturday will start by being outside the doors of Michaels at 9am sharp, hit JoAnn’s next and be home in time for coffee and a whole day of uninterrupted crafting!  Sunday I will happily spend the entire day in my pj’s and in my craft room too!  Sounds like bliss doesn’t it?  I have a couple of challenges lined up too, so with a bit of luck I’ll have a lot to show you next week.  Have a great weekend peeps!

Hidden Lake Gardens, Tipton, Michigan

The other weekend, during our little Fall Colour Drive with friends I’d mentioned that we stopped for a couple of hours at Hidden Lake Gardens, I also said I’d do a separate post about it, so here it is, albeit a few days later than anticipated!  Interspersed between the historical text about the garden are some of the thirty or so photos I took in the gardens that day!

Hidden Lake Gardens was donated to Michigan State University in 1945 by Harry A. Fee.  Mr. Fee was an Adrian, Michigan businessman whose family owned an electric company.  He had always dreamed of owning a lake, and, upon his retirement in 1926, he purchased Hidden Lake along with 200 acres of land surrounding it.  He repaired and refurbished the old farmhouse, built a greenhouse, and began farming.  He soon realized that the land was not suitable to conventional farming or raising livestock and so he began to grow nursery stock.  Not wanting to compete with local nurseries during the depression he planted the stock on his own land in an effort to create a “series of pictures”.   Mr. Fee described Hidden Lake Gardens as a “dream as you go development”.  He built a road in from Hwy. 50 and landscaped it with a shrub and perennial border. The lake was cleaned out and the small pond and rock garden were constructed.

[All views, above and below,  from part of the scenic drive.]

“…I determined to build a road which would make the several beautiful views to be had from various places on the property accessible…” This road was built around the lake and later extended to the top of what Mr. Fee called Juniper Hill.   Much later, after the property came under the ownership of MSU, small parking areas were added at these vistas to allow the public to pause and enjoy the views.

[Hidden Lake]

“When the idea that I was making a series of beautiful scenic pictures available to the Public and just when I decided to dedicate the Gardens to public service I do not remember…all subsequent work has been and should be continued with the prime object of its being for the Benefit of the Public…”  Mr. Fee donated Hidden Lake Gardens to Michigan State University (then Michigan State College) in 1945 and his wish that the Gardens be for the benefit and education of the public has continued through the years.  He was actively involved in decision making at the Gardens until his death in 1955.  With his generous endowment under the direction of MSU’s Horticulture Department and later the Division of Campus Park and Planning, the Gardens have continued to develop with land acquisitions, construction of buildings, and the establishment of educational programs.  The original 200 acres have grown to 755 acres!  This includes a 120 acre arboretum that was begun in 1962 and consists of plant groups such as crabapples, lilacs, maples, evergreens, and shrubs.

Another benefactor of the Gardens, the Herrick family of Tecumseh, donated funds for the buildings here.  The Visitor Center building was built in 1965 and the conservatory was added in 1968.  The service building, replacing the old barns was constructed in 1973 and a picnic area was added in 1971.

[A rather dull shot of the conservatory buildings]

Year-round educational programs for all ages are offered in the Visitor Center which also houses a library, exhibits, auditorium, meeting rooms and a gift shop.  The separate Conservatory building includes tropical plants, arid plants, and a wonderful variety of flowering houseplants. A picnic area with shelter is available.

[A beautiful Japanese Maple at the entrance to the conservatory…. completely spoilt by me standing in front of it!  This was the weekend of the dreaded toothache, penicillin and pain killers, the root canal took place the next day.  I didn’t realise just how, in the space of two short days, it had pulled me down so much, I look positively ill!, but the Maple was too stunning not to show you!]

[Inside the conservatory]

Plant collections at the Gardens continue to grow.  In 1981, Justin C. Harper gave the Gardens a huge gift of over 300 dwarf and rare conifers  which now comprise the Harper Collection. These plants were transported from Mr. Harper’s home in E. Moline, Illinois to Hidden Lake Gardens by the Davey Tree Company of Ohio. The design for the Collection was done by Sam Lovall of Campus Park and Planning, MSU.  The Michigan Hosta Society has donated plants and their labor in developing a Hosta garden where Mr. Fee’s original rock garden was sited.  Both of these collections are now supported by separate endowments through The American Conifer Society – Central Region and the Michigan Hosta Society.

Another new addition is a perennial garden planted in 1991 with donated plants and volunteer help. A raised bed garden near the conservatory and a wheelchair accessible trail within the existing trail system were built with funds from the Kellogg Foundation.

Hidden Lake Gardens is owned and operated by Michigan State University under the division of Land Management, but supported through private endowments and gifts, along with a small amount of money from MSU.  Amazingly the Gardens are open 362 days of the year with an admission fee of only $3 per person.  Guided tours, requested at least two weeks in advance, are available at no additional charge.  In addition to more than 6 miles of one-way paved drives, there are 5 miles of hiking trails to allow the visitor a closer look at the beauty that the Gardens provide.

Part of the trail system that Sheena and I walked…. the boys were busy with this!  Graham ended up with a puncture just as we pulled into the parking lot at the trail head, so he and Andrew got the tyre changed for the spare whilst Sheena and I had a nice stroll!

It’s truly a beautiful place to spend a few hours and I had no idea that it’s open all but three days of the year.  Andrew and I have decided we’ll go back when the snow is on the ground and hike the trails, the photos in the visitor centre of the gardens in winter make me want to hurry the snow along so I can go back!

A Drive In The Country

It’s been a really bad Fall in Michigan this year, the weather has been absolutely dreich… cold, dark, gray, wet, windy and miserable.  There’s been the odd glimmer of hope here and there but they’ve been really few and far between, and they’ve also typically occurred during the work week too, so I was stuck indoors with no way to enjoy the fleeting sunshine.

Last week end though was 50/50… poured down all day Saturday and then was beautiful on Sunday.  We’d arranged with friends to take our LBC’s (Little British Cars) on a leisurely Sunday drive to go “leaf peeping”, and finally, we saw lots of wonderful leaves worthy of being peeped at!  And it didn’t rain.

So after meeting up for an excellent breakfast, we set off along the roads less traveled and I was ready with the camera.  Michigan rivals New England for Fall colour and that’s something that a lot of people don’t realize; we don’t have the marked elevation changes you find in the NE of the USA so it’s hard to say which place is best.  I love New England because you can often get above the trees and look down on them for miles and miles across the valley, and I love to hike in the White Mountains…. but when I’ve got all this on my doorstep (as long as the weather cooperates!), then who needs to travel to New England??

We stopped at Hidden Lake Gardens for a couple of hours, to stretch our legs and wander around part of the 755 acres of stunning plantings, but I’ll do another post on that as I have a lot of photos from our visit, plus the history is quite interesting too.

We finished our day in Tecumseh with afternoon tea at The British Pantry… fresh scones, cream and preserves and around 30 loose leaf, freshly brewed teas to choose from, served in individual tea pots with bone china place settings.  Very proper, we even managed to park the cars directly outside.  After that we meandered back to our starting point and then headed in opposite directions, arriving home about 5:30pm.  We’d left the house at 9am.

Pop back again another day, hopefully I’ll have the post about Hidden Lake Gardens up.

Weekend Plans

Just popping in for a quick post before the weekend takes hold as it’s a very busy one indeed!  First of all, it’s the last race weekend of the season and I really can’t believe how fast that came around this year, it really does just seem like yesterday that we were all at drivers school in the Spring getting ready to start again.

The other reason why we’ll be busy is all due to the impending arrival of a transatlantic jet from London.  Nothing astounding about that I suppose, two of these land every day at Detroit Metro Airport, one from Heathrow the other from Gatwick.  The difference this time round is that my brother and my mum will be arriving on the flight from Heathrow around lunchtime local time on Saturday for a two week visit, so I’m looking forward to that tremendously.  Not sure how much posting I’ll be able to do while they’re here but I’ll try.  Really hoping the weather stays nice for their trip, Fall in Michigan is the most stunning time of year so I really hope they get to experience a little of it.

I’ll try and check in later is possible and update you on the comings and goings!  Have a great weekend.

Battle Of The Brits Pt 2 – The Bikes

Part II of The Battle of The Brits posts, the first one is here.  This one is the bike post, and not just any bikes, the wonderful classic, mostly  British bikes of which there appears to be a hell of a lot in this area.  One of our American friends (who also has a British car) has close to 30 British bikes in various stages of running and rebuilding, he brought two bikes to the show and won a prize for each, and his lovely wife drove the TVR (the car) to the show and they won a prize for that too!!

I took most of these photos to show to my bike mad brother, but as he only owns three he’s got quite a way to go before he catches up with our friend Brian!  Growing up with three older brothers in the house I found myself quite influenced by the things that they liked as a child, and one of the things all three of them were interested in were the bikes.  My one brother was completely mad about Nortons and would draw the Norton logo on every scrap of paper he could find, shopping lists, wrapping paper, the newspaper, receipts, writing pads!  It was everywhere, now, I can’t attend a bike show and see a Norton without thinking of him, especially as he’s no longer with us.

But on to the bikes, all beautifully prepared and turned out, their owners take a real pride and love nothing more than you admiring their pride and joy, even scary looking blokes in leathers and tattoos with bandannas on their heads are like putty in your hands because you’ve shown an interest!

[Wonderful old Ariel]

[A 1955 BSA]

[Indian… as in “The World’s Fastest!  US made, but we can forgive them for that!]

[A Vincent]

[A couple of shots looking around the field…. and this was after some of them had already left!]

Battle of The Brits Pt 1 – The Cars

Last weekend, Sunday to be exact, we attended a car show.  Not just any car show, this particular event has turned in to one of the largest car shows in the mid west of America.  What sets it apart for us is, with the exception of a tiny row of interesting “foreign” models, it’s an all British event.  It’s also staged by the lcoal car club we’re members of so as well as the lovely cars, there are also lots of lovely people that we know too.  Oh, and if the cars are not your thing, then you could also have a look at the stunningly beautiful British bikes also on display, as a few years ago our club had a mega brainwave and now team up with the local British bike clubs in the area to stage this event.  And it’s a big event.  This year, due mostly to the fantastic sunny day we had, we broke the previous records of vehicles in attendance… there were 467 cars all lined up and well over 200 bikes!

I’ve taken lots of photos at events like these over the years, so I decided not to go mad this time, but to concentrate on quality rather than quantity… not sure about the quality bit either, but these are the ones that I liked the most.

I love Morgans…. something so wonderful and very British about them!

Probably one of Andrew’s all time favourite cars, the Jaguar E-Type.

A lovely little Mini.  My family had three of these over the years, I even learned to drive in one.

This was a very rare little car, a little known gem built in Biggleswade in Bedfordshire.  It’s called a Berkley and was built between 1957 and 1962.  It’s front wheel drive, so earlier than the mini, and it has a tiny little 3 cylinder, 2 stroke Excelsior motor bike engine in it!  Can’t remember how much horse power it put out but it weighed in at just over 600 lbs!!

Ah, a lovely old MG from 1939.  Reminds me of All Creatures Great and Small!!

A superb version of a later TR-6….. owned by a supplier of mine at work!  He’s an English ex-pat too and brought his car over with him from the UK.  It’s usually a trophy winner too.  Very nice.

Hood ornamentation from a Morris Minor Traveler…

And finally…. a Jaguar owner with a sense of humour!