Yeow!!

I realized I didn't know as much about the political landscape of our adopted state as I did about the state of our birth, Michigan. It was time to do some research. I discovered that South Dakota, unlike Michigan, has only one representative in Washington. But, what a representative! I think I can say, without argument, we've got the hottest Representative in the country. Dear readers, I give you Stephanie Herseth, (D-SD)....

She's looking for interns for the Fall term. I'm updating my resumé.

Take That, Irish!

I've been advised to lighten up. So here's my hero:

Asked whether Michigan should continue its series with Notre Dame, Schembechler said: "We don't need Notre Dame. They need us more than we need them.

That's Bo. Read more classic Bo here.

This Ain't Kansas.

While we're no longer "official" Michigan residents, we still have a lot of ties to the state, and we spend a lot of time here in the Summer. Frankly, we're pretty sick and disgusted by what we've seen in the political arena here in the last couple of months leading up to yesterday's primaries.

For starters there's the race for governor, featuring a polo-playing, multi-millionaire heir to the AmWay fortune, who tries to come off as a regular Joe Sixpack on his TV ads. Problem is, he's pretty good at it. Hopefully, the truth will come out: His "recovery plan" for the state will involve mandatory AmWay parties!

In the Republican congressional primary, a more sickening thing happened. Some radical rightwing religious conservative, a benefactor of a whole ton of out-of-state money, beat the incumbent, a moderate who had the backing of the party mainstream. The ads for the extremist candidate contained some of the most outrageous bullshit we've ever heard, proving that stupid people will believe anything. Just like in Kansas.

The state Democrats must be licking their chops.. because this ain't Kansas.

Sturgis

Just because we're full-timers in the motor home doesn't mean we're homeless! But it does mean we get to pick where we're from. For those who always wondered about the South Dakota plates on the motor home and the toad, the answer is simple: South Dakota has no state income tax; has the 2nd lowest vehicle insurance rates in the nation; has no vehicle inspection program; and a lot of other advantages over all the other states we had to choose from; and it has Sturgis.... home of the biggest motorcycle gathering on the planet.

Those of you who did your homework... (congratulations, Jesse M. Holmes, whose superior Googling skills allowed him to be the first with the correct answer to yesterday's trivia question! He was also the only one who entered, and I know there's a lot more of you out there!), will know that the current rally in Sturgis attracts over half a million bikers and non-bikers to this little South Dakota town every year. You also know that this mammoth rally started waaaaay back in 1938, as a little event with dirt track racing. The club that started it all was the Jackpine Gypsies Motorcycle Club. This AP article tells you all about it, and how the founding fathers feel about what the event has become. You can also find out more at the Jackpine Gypsies website.

And if you like what it's become, and you're lucky enough to have Sirius satellite radio , you can listen to Mojo Nixon on Channel 63, Outlaw Country, broadcast live all week long, from 4-8PM EDT. He's drunk and he's foul, and he's oh, so entertaining! Check it out.

JackPine Gypsies

All right... in the spirit of keeping things exciting around here, we're going to play trivia! (and also get an idea of how many people actually read this thing).

Give yourself 24 hours.. Who are the Jack Pine Gypsies? Or more specifically, who are the Jack Pine Gypsies Motorcycle Club?

Answers only accepted in the "comments" section. Good Luck!

Pulp Fiction

I don't know about you, but most of my reading is of the lighter variety. I like "great literature", but for the most part you can find both of us with our noses buried in the works of James Lee Burke, Elizabeth George, Lee Child, (if there's a greater hero ever thought up from a writer's mind than Jack Reacher, I'd like to know who he-or she- is!), Steve Hamilton, and well, you get the picture. Sure, I did just finish Don Delillo's Underworld this Summer, which will be the extent of my heavy reading for the year. (Great book by the way.)

But.. I'm getting away from the point: I've just been made aware (third hand, at least) of a website called "Bookgasm" that reviews the books that we really like to read- mysteries, crime fiction, science fiction, fantasy, graphic novels, hard-boiled detective (think Mike Hammer), comics (and comix), anthologies and, yes, pulp fiction. I know it's a good site, because they hate John Grisham and James Patterson! I'll be adding the link to the list below. Thanks to Steve Bodio's blog for the tip!

(And if you need any further inducement, their reviews oftentimes include what they call "XXXcerpts". Use your imagination.)

No Moo Shoo For You

In a typical bit of hypocracy, the brilliant minds at PETA have called for a boycott of all things Chinese. It seems that the Chinese had a rabies epidemic on their hands and euthanized about 50,000 dogs. I think this may be more about competitive dog-killing, though, as this puts the Chinese substantially ahead of PETA in the total score. PETA's gonna have to kill at a greater rate than normal if they expect to get back in the game! Read about it here.

Inquiring Minds..

Ok.. Have gotten several email inquiries. People wanted to know if, since we were "in Rome", as it were... did we...?

Here's the (tastefully cropped) answer...


We could use the camera in the privacy of our own residence. So I did.

The camera rule makes sense, of course, when you think about it. As I've said, there's as diverse a number of members and guests at the resort as there are out on the streets.. and that would include folks who would rather not have the fact that they are there be known... I can think of a few: Legislators, clergy, teachers, etc.

As for us, we have no problem with it, obviously. As I said in the original post, I've wanted to go to Turtle Lake for a long time, but was put off by the price. Now I think the price is worth it. We may even become members.. maybe even lease or purchase a Park Model for summer living.

Now you know. See you there :)

We will now return to our normal life..

LGRA race meet this weekend in Lewisville, IN
Art Fair next weekend in Monroe, MI (A normal art fair, downtown!)
ASFA lure coursing the following two weekends- first in Racine, WI (MWCC), then in the Niagara Falls area, (LCLC).
Labor Day Weekend, we'll be in Ontario Canada for the GCA "Triathlon",
then back to Hobart, IN for Wind Chaser's ASFA trial, (and PIG ROAST!).
The Dog's Camp follows, either the next week, or the week after.

Naked Lunch

..and breakfast ..and dinner ..and, ..and Mini Golf! And, of course, the 1st Annual TLR Art Fair, which is why we were here. Bad news first: The art fair was pretty bad- for us, anyway, and most of the rest of the artists and craftpeople as well, it seemed. Attendance on Saturday was good, as the resort was pretty full for the weekend. Mostly naked people from the resort, but also a few "civilians" from the surrounding area as well.

But it's not all bad news, of course... first, it didn't cost us anything to put our talents on display.. (we're talking our photos and jewelry and minipurses, here!), and the camping rate was an incredibly low, $10 a night for water and electric. Compare that to their regular rates, for non-members of around $55 a night, and we were going to jump at the chance to hang out, (no pun intended), at a place I've wanted to visit for a long time.

So, you're asking yourselves, what is it like at a "Naturist Resort", a nudist camp, if you will? If you've never been, (and I'm assuming most of you haven't), it's nothing like you would assume... assuming you even thought about it.
Well... people are... naked. All kinds of people. We saw,
normal people,

fat people,

skinny people,

really really fat people, (we saw Jaba the Hutt on a golf cart!),

really really skinny people, (concentration camp-skinny),

we saw white people, black people, asian people,

kids, (but not many),

old people,

really really old people,

We saw couples and singles,

straight people, and probably gay people, and, I suspect, a few "swingers", and
one guy with a.. um.. ring.

Pierced & tattooed people, and unmarked people.

We saw that gravity really works! Meaning we saw very little that was "perky" (but what there was, was perky indeed!)

We saw that size doesn't really matter. Whew!

And we saw that more men than women shave.. (and we're not talking faces or underarms here.)
That was a surprise to me.

We saw people in the lake, and sunning on the beach. And playing disk golf. And volleyball, shuffleboard, petanq.

And people in the indoor pool and spa, and the outdoor "conversation pool".

And people covered head to toe in mud from the mud pit. (That was fun!)

And golf carts.. lord, were there golf carts. The number one social activity seemed to be "cruising" in your golf cart... 1, 2, 3, 4 or more nekkid folk to a cart, and 6 carts (or more!) in a parade from one end of the resort to the other.. (but never out the gate).

And we saw naked women who weren't technically naked. A thing called a "wrap"; sheer, colorful, wispy, ...did I mention sheer?

We saw people in tents, people in pop-up campers, people in travel trailers and fifth-wheel trailers, and people in motor homes like ours, and bigger, aqnd newer. And people in permanent "Park Models" with decks, and landscaping, and two cart garages.

We saw naked people doing things that would give us pause- two come to mind: The guy building a deck. ("Careful with that circular saw, Harry!"), and a brave soul whacking weeds in his front yard with a gas string trimmer. 'Least he was wearing sensible shoes.

We saw that the staff wears clothes! (Oh, except for the General Manager/Owner.. who looks comfortable enough that he may have never worn clothes in his life.)

In other words, we saw a world very much like the one out here, where people wear clothes.


But you know what we didn't see? (besides tan lines)
Anybody we knew. And that's just as well, I guess.

I bet you'd like to see some pictures, wouldn't you? There's a problem:

Wrap Music

We're always on the lookout for tasty, less than fattening, fast food, and today, while looking for a source for cheap poop bags (our dog friends will understand), we stumbled on Roly Poly in Jackson, MI. This is a 10 year old Atlanta franchise business that specializes in wraps. And not just the old turkey, lettuce, american cheese slices.. no sirree. Today, we had the Number 38, Hickory Cristo: Smoked turkey, melted brie & swiss, spinach, mushrooms and tomato- in, your choice, a regular tortilla, a low carb tortilla, or a whole wheat tortilla. Add to that some fresh asparagus soup, and it's a hell of a good lunch.

Next, we want to try the #30, Basil Cashew Chicken. Check it out on the menu. If there's one of these where you live, give it a shot. Very tasty stuff.

Mas Mushrooms

Some more of the resident fungi here at our campground in Grass Lake, MI.

While researching these "fruits", I happened upon this excellent, humorous, and informative website about mushroom hunting.

Laugh, and learn.

These look like Pierogies. Top view of the colony in the previous post.

These aren't the prettiest blossoms in the bouquet, but they might be tasty. Who knows?

Not too sure about this one..

But I'm pretty sure about this one. I've seen these in the supermarket. I think. Anybody knows, let me know. If this is the last post you ever see here, you'll know I got impatient and went the "trial and error" route.



















Nah.

Calling All Mycologists!

Or.. more flora from the Holiday RV Park.

I decided it was time to let the events in the rest of the world take care of themselves, and I should get back to covering what's been going on locally. Thus, the following images. I want you to know I sacrificed my body to the deerfly and mosquito hordes to get these..

This place is a mycophile's (if there is such a word) dream. There are more varieties of mushrooms and other fungi scattered around the park, I don't have room to put them all here. They grow in colonies, and are very photogenic, like the above group.

Or individually, like this one.

They can also be ugly.. like a fungal version of moose puke!

No weaklings, they push themselves up out of the earth..

...to become impressive, blood-red goliaths like this. I'm not sure this is an edible variety. I wouldn't want to try it.

I do have some shots of mushrooms I'm 98% sure are edible.. I've seen them in the supermarket. I think. There's that 2% that worries me. Anyway, I'll have to upload another gallery, because it seems there's a numerical limit to the number of images I can put in one post. So, I'll leave you with the perfect parting shot:

I mean, what's a bunch of toadstools without, well.... you get the idea.

My One and Only Tour de France Post

I love a sports columnist with a sense of humor. Especially one who quotes Homer Simpson. This comes from the VeloNews Tour blog.

Floyd Landis will win the 2006 Tour de France. Hopefully the French can maintain their sense of humor. Americans will have won the last eight Tours, and 10 or 11 of the last 20! (I can't remember what year LeMond's first Tour win was).

Wanna be a Big-Time Pro Cyclist? Drink Beer!

You Ain't Never Seen Anything Like This.

You might think you've seen inspired, artistic, or even athletic bike riding. But you ain't never seen nuthin' like this. You watch the X-Games and see these overgrown adolescents on their BMX bikes, and they do the big air, end-over-end, jumps and spins, but just watch what this young lady does... on a normal bicycle! She rides it every which way except upside down. (That would be impossible... right?)

I found this on a blog called "Bike Hugger", (I know, it's a bit warmer and fuzzier than I like), while looking for more nuanced information on the Tour de France than I can get from friends' blogs. It's a decent blog, despite the name, and I may link it, eventually. I'll have to give it a little time to ripen.

Prepare to be amazed.

It's OK... He Activated the Cloaking Device!

This story appeals to me on so many levels. I'm a photographer, I like cars (and trucks), and I've been partial to Ford products ever since a second grade trip to Henry Ford Museum/Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.

I'm not going to even give you a hint.. you gotta go there and RTWT. It's too funny. (Or scary, if you're the photographer.)

New & Improved!

Seems like this is the day to learn new things to do with the blog.. I've now added a short blogroll... (come on, impress me, people! I want to make it longer). You'll find it below the archives, near the bottom of the sidebar. (On the right side). It doesn't include things like Kausfiles, Huffington Post, etc., as everybody knows how to find those sites.. these are some of my favorites. Have at it.

The "Express" Feed

I wasn't even aware of this, but this blog is available as a news "feed". You can subscribe to read it whenever it's updated on your Yahoo, or Google, or MSN, or whatever homepage, or even, apparently, on your cell phone or PDA. How cool. I just added it to my Yahoo home page so I can keep up on what I write. (That's a joke, son). Just enter the following URL into your subscription search box: http://shotonsite.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Click here to see if your favorite newsreader is "atom-enabled".

Note: This is not RSS but is similar. I may switch to RSS at a later date, and will let you know.

Who are the Bloggers? Who Knows? Pew Knows.

So, Pew Research does more than just tell us how low your president's popularity numbers have sunk... (and I'll bet they sink lower after yesterday's veto- but that's another story for another day).

Their Pew Internet & American Life Project recently completed a phone poll of a few thousand internet users, and a separate, smaller poll of bloggers to tell us who we are. And it seems most of us are,

" focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers and that only a small proportion focus their coverage on politics, media, government, or technology. Blogs, the survey finds, are as individual as the people who keep them. However, most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression – documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family."

That pretty well sums up my intent. Well, that and keeping the old tip jar full. I see that's doing as well as the old Google ads! I'm relieved.

You can read the entire Pew report in PDF format here. You can also click back to the Internet & American Life home page and take the poll. Quite interesting.

So... why do you blog?

Holiday RV Park Flora

Having showed you some of the fauna of the campground, (the toad), here are some of the flora. These were taken in May, I think, when you could still walk the trails without dressing for full combat with the most carnivorous of the fauna: deerflies & mosquitos.

This is the trillium. A true harbinger of Spring in Michigan.














Apple blossoms.

More Balloon Fest Highlights

Cool stuff- like the Mitchell B-25






The Jackson Antique Tractor Club..










..and a cool quartet of precision flying WWII trainers. All in all, a fun afternoon.