We had planned to leave the U.P. on Saturday, but decided instead to leave on Monday. Today we’ll pack what we can for our Saginaw-bound trip. It’s always a chore to winterize the place and make sure that it’s as safe as it can be until our return next summer. John does most of that stuff, so I sure don’t have anything to complain about. My part is easy.

He has done a great job cleaning up and grooming the yard. He also added a “skirt” so the area under the deck is now more “hidden” from view and can be used for storage. Don’t know how he does it all.

We moved furniture around in the living room. The place now looks bigger and gives us a little easier way to view the lake while relaxing inside. We’d like to get new living room furniture, but this stuff is actually quite comfortable.

It’s amazing that things continue to be livable even though we only visit once a year. We fear that someday when we get up here the pump or the hot water heater won’t work (both are old and way past their life expectancy). But for now, everything is purring and we enjoyed our stay.

Next time we come up here I vow we’ll have television, if it’s at all possible. Our old set that’s here has never worked well and requires an HD converter (which I forgot). But we’re thinking about getting a bigger TV for our living room in Florida. If we do, we can move the living room set to the bedroom and bring our Florida bedroom set home for use in the bedroom in Saginaw. (It’s a HD flat screen.) Since it’s a manageable size maybe we could bring it up here plus use it in our trailer. Or maybe we’d just bring our the small trailer TV and converter box up here and leave it. One way or the other, we need to have TV while we’re here. It’s been difficult to follow the progress of hurricane Irene and stay abreast of what’s happening in the world.

Guess I better go start packing.

(BTW it was COLD this morning.. only about 45 degrees.)