1 July 2025. Found some penguins!

We drove 2.5 hrs down to visit Roger Moffat, near Grand Rapids, MI, who is the foremost ancestral recorder and archivist of our side of the Moffat family (and has received a civic award to prove it!). We also enjoyed meeting Lisa, several hours of family reminiscing, and a tour of his workshop as well as my first ride in a vintage car. It should be acknowledged that Roger is a Franklin fanatic. In fact, his activity level around items associated with the H.H. Franklin Manufacturing Co of Syracuse, NY, is, quite frankly, frenetic. Lisa, meanwhile, loves little birds (including penguins) and they love her. I myself found several new penguins at Roger and Lisa's house.

In the gathering dusk, we drove back up to Ludington, on the Lake Michigan eastern shore, where Graeme and Lorraine and I had a goodbye dinner in an American diner before they went off to their motel prior to sailing the following day across the lake on the last passenger steamer on the Great Lakes, and I drove in the darkness back to Traverse City to start the next phase of my vacation.

I'll hang in TC for the 4th of July celebrations and the Cherry Festival (Traverse City markets itself as the 'Cherry Capital' of the country), before heading back to Grand Rapids to join Roger at the 'Celebration of Brass' vintage car event at the nearby Gilmore Car Museum. Following that, I intend to drive to Chicago and take a train (or a couple of them) to Charleston, SC, to do some railroad archaeologicalising. It's Lorraine's fault... she bought me a book on the first railroad to operate in the western hemisphere (i.e. not in Europe).

After that... no idea (well, maybe a few ideas).もっと詳しく