My blogger friend Pamela from Dog Ears Books
A normal blogger wouldn’t be blogging tonight. Not after traveling for over twelve hours. Not when feeling this exhausted. Not when feeling like you need to prop open your eyes with toothpicks to stay awake.
But…I can’t help it. I am a Passionate Blogger. Insatiable, almost. So am drinking a cup of green jasmine tea in my brother’s cottage in Bellaire, overlooking the most glassy beautiful lake in the World and starting to feel revived simply from sitting at the computer and allowing the creative juices to play. (Always remember, dear reader, to feed your passion and creativity! Even when you’re sometimes tired…)
Books everywhere!
Right up front I want to say something. It shouldn’t take a person twelve hours to travel a four and a half hour drive. No. It should take maybe five or six hours if you’re being leisurely. But I LOVE to meander. And meander I did across the beautiful Lower Peninsula of Michigan.
First, visited two cemeteries. But you will have to wait until another post to hear graveside gleanings. Visited coffee shops, restaurants, shopping centers, and heaven knows what else. Whatever engaged the eye and heart and spirit. Then came the strangest meandering of all.
I was over near Kalkaska, headed for Bellaire about 3 p.m. A reasonable hour, right? When suddenly the car steered in a different direction! It headed over toward Traverse City! And then I knew. It was going to visit P.J. Grath at Dog Ears Books up in Northport, maybe one to two hours away. My heart beat fast for at least ten minutes at the craziness of this idea!
I also hoped to meet up with Kim Schneider over there in Suttons Bay. She had interviewed me about last year’s outdoor blog earlier this year. It appeared in seven daily papers in Lower Michigan. You can read https://upwoods.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/blogs-awestruck-in-the-spotlight/ if you’re interested in that story.
I was afraid that neither Pamela nor Kim would be around and my trip to Northport/Suttons Bay would be bust. I was already writing a blog about that possibility. “The Failed Blogging Detour…”
However, upon discovering the bookstore…THERE WAS PAMELA! It looked like her, although you never know. She didn’t quite recognize me at first, either. Even though we’ve been blogging buddies for a while now and had viewed pictures of one another.
More books. Cozy corner, yes?
First, she introduced me to her dog, Sarah. Hi, Sarah! You are a pretty dog, aren’t you? Good dog. So soft. So sweet.
Hello Doggy Sarah! Nice to meet you...
Pamela brewed us some coffee and I looked for books. (I love, love, love bookstores, don’t you?) People wandered in and out. I asked Pamela to recommend a book…but no sooner had the words left these lips…when a customer chimed in with a suggestion. Conrad Richter’s The Trees. The book club in Northport had read it. She waxed poetically about the book’s merits until I had to purchase it. Found another spiritual goody tucked on one of the back shelves.
Then Pamela and I sat down to talk. We didn’t have a lot of time, but we covered some of the basics during our hour together. She seems like a lovely person and I sure wish she (and her bookstore) were closer to the Upper Peninsula.
You are so sweet, Sarah!
Am hoping this blog makes sense. The tiredness keeps washing over me in waves.
It was probably a good thing that Kim wasn’t available. Heck, I probably wouldn’t be at the cottage yet! And this blog surely would have remained unwritten.
The exterior of Dog Ears Books
Heading home for the last seven hour stretch tomorrow. I promise to go straight to Marquette. Well, mostly promise. Have to stop at a gas station and somewhere for coffee. But no sitting down in coffee shops! At least until Marquette. You’ll hold me to it, won’t you?
What the lake looks like tonight in front of the cottage.
Ahh, now for bedtime. Pamela, it was so great to meet you!
Goodnight, dear reader. Someday we may meet, as well. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
P.S. the spell-checker just told me I failed Blogging 101 tonight. Don’t you know how to spell? it said. Try to spell better tomorrow night.
Lake Superior Spirit 
Kathy – I love, Love, LOVE bookstores too. And dogs. What a great meander you had. A meander right in the middle of your adventure. You sure do know how to live!
Laurie, it sure feels like you’re living to the xenith when you allow spontaneity into your life. I love that part of life so much… (glad to hear you like bookstores and doggies too.)
I was wondering why a twelve hour drive. I am like that too when I travel alone. Hubby Mike likes to get to the destination as soon as he can on the maine highways.
What a cozy bookstore…love them too.
Th cottage looks heavenly./good for you to be able o spend time there on the lake and taking us along…stopping on the way to linger.
Kim
Kim, seems like lots of travelers like to get from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible. Have done that too. But not when I get my choice. (Last summer it took three days to get downstate. The kids have not stopped teasing me about that yet.)
Kath–
“A normal blogger wouldn’t be blogging tonight”? That’s what makes you special!
Glad you got to meet PJ, if not Kim. Happy you finally found your way to Intermediate Lake, too. See you tomorrow. Love, B—
PS–We need cucumber and squash plants for the garden, and impatiens for the hanging baskets, if you come across some on the way home, and–can you say this on a respectable blog?–toilet paper!
Hi, Barry! I’m home! Hey, you know that already. And we were NOT out of toilet paper. You just had to look down and see the big package below where it usually is. 🙂
And–IS this a respectable blog??
A normal person… no, probably not. A normal blogger… oh yes! We would! And we do. I’ve blogged in the worst of times and wondered about my normality. I still wonder but I’m mostly okay with it because blogging is still strange to a lot of people I know and that’s okay too because they have always thought I was a wee bit strange. And that makes me normal because they were expecting it. (Best not to try to figure that out until you’re well rested.)
Meeting other bloggers is a wonderful thing. 🙂 I’m hoping to pass your way someday as even in this short time I’ve come to think of you as A Blogger I Want To Meet.
And now, I think I’ll pretend I’m browsing in that lovely bookstore and making friends with Sarah. 🙂
Isn’t it fun, Robin, when we can finally quit worrying about our strangeness or weirdness and start embracing it? That only took me…hmmm….fifty years??? YIKES! I love it when you can see younger people being themselves, however that may look to the world.
I also have a desire to meet ALL of you. And hope that you would look me up any time you’re visiting the Upper Peninsula. And, of course, I do happen to travel a lot. Kids in San Diego and NYC and in laws in Georgia and parents in Florida. Life is good! 🙂
I live to digress! And of course a person would want to digress to Northport. There are excellent treats available in Northport, chief among them Dog Ears Books and Sarah and Pamela J Grath her ownself. Good choice, Kathy.
Gerry, I am glad you are a fellow digresser! It was good to meet YOU in Bellaire next summer and perhaps we shall have to do it again. How ’bout a date for NEXT summer?
At the first picture I thought -that looks like Dog Ears…but I thought Kathy was somewhere in the thumb? Then I read the tags, noted PJ’s name, and worried that something had happened to her. I’m very glad it was just that you got to get to Northport! Isn’t it a place you wish you had more time to wander around in? I was lucky enough to be able to do that not so long ago, glad you had the chance to visit!
Dawn, sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you! So did you meet PJ in Northport, too? The kids and I were there with my mom-in-law maybe 22 years ago. It would have been delightful to hang around some more. Oh yes. Maybe some day!
Now the truth is out, Kathy! You’ve blown our cover! I am not a style dog, and Sarah has a big butt! No, seriously, I’m so, so thrilled that you came to Northport and grateful that you have documented your visit so readers of “Books in Northport” won’t think I made the whole thing up. Wish we’d had longer to talk about writing. If we’d exchanged even two sentences about photography, I might have remembered to grab MY camera and take pictures of YOU. Anyway, I was there, and Sarah was there, and YOU were there. I’m still smiling, too! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Pamela, oh my, was it just 24 hours ago that we were sitting together in your wonderful bookstore? I am back home now and–barely–getting it together. It was so much fun. I don’t know why we didn’t get a picture of us together. Hmmm…OK…now there’s a reason to come back!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your meanderings. You’re so adventurous and spontaneous, Kathy, we just KNOW that there’ll be magical synchronicities afoot whenever and wherever you ramble. 🙂
How awesome that you actually drove ‘the long way round’ to meet a fellow blogger! WITH the most beautiful dog! In a BOOKSHOP! Ahh, could life be any better, hey?
Thanks for sharing, and looking forward to your next instalment… May you be sidetracked AGAIN by something amazing and wondermous.
Hi Reggie! You’ve been known to be side-tracked yourself on wonderful adventures, haven’t you? I am still thinking about your comment from yesterday–or whenever the merry-go-round blog was–about being embarrassed if the lady had yelled at you. I would have been mortified a few years ago. Now I usually go toward the person or challenge instead of moving away. Try to find common ground…
OH, to have the time you had to do what you did. Meandering thoughts go well with meandering travels, Kathy. Might make a good book title someday.
Scott, I am very very very lucky to have two part time jobs which allow time to travel. I thank the Universe for that gift all the time. Thank you, Universe. Thank you, Universe. And you, too, Scott, for your comment!
The Universe and I are most welcomed. 😀
‘She seems like a lovely person and I sure wish she (and her bookstore) were closer to the Upper Peninsula.’
And I wish she (and her bookstore) were closer to Cow Bay…
So wonderful that you got to visit! Lucky lucky you.
Do you feel like you know Pamela a little better by seeing her through the eye of a different camera and the words from a different person? I like meeting people through the eyes of others. It was a great visit.
Sheeesh, I can’t believe you were this close and didn’t call…
Iris, I took out the map and looked for Benzie County. And there you were! And you have no idea how tired I was…and how impossible those few extra miles seemed to be. Please, please, forgive me. Next time? Maybe someday I can meet my folks at the cottage for a few days and then it will be easier to travel to visit you.
It’s all good, I wasn’t home….
Heehee no, that’s not true. It’s all good though
I love that we now have a face and a place to put with Miss PJ…what a lovely, cozy bookstore! My favorite kind! If I ever get to retire, Johnny and I plan on meandering wherever we want…..oohh, I can’t wait!
Glad you’re home, sweetie….just in time for the sunshine!
Oh, it’s a nice day to be back home, Cindy Lou. I hope you had a good weekend. And I hope you and Mr. Johnny can travel many many miles to wherever your meandering feet (I mean tires) want to go!
I enjoy your journey blogs, and I love anything with bookstores, there’s something about capturing a journey when its truly fresh in your mind. Blogging the way you do can be intoxicating and make you want to keep going and going (:
That’s it! I’m intoxicated by blogging! 🙂
Traveling is so wonderful…and there is a special energy that often accompanies the miles and new sights. And getting to see new bookstores. And meeting new friends, too!