"Alberta Clipper, another one
tonight."
"Really?"
"So they say; we got 19 inches
last night. They called off
school, so I was planning to come a little early, around 10AM."
I was talking to Cindy on the
phone, our housekeeper, who, like most people around Northport, has multiple
jobs to keep things going; school bus driver, selling vegetables at a stand by
her house on M-22 in the summer (honor system), cleaning houses. She was going to clean our house one last
time before we left.
We were headed into Traverse City
to spend the night so that weather wouldn't stop us from making our 6AM flight
to Chicago, and on to Honolulu for our 23-hour layover before finally making it
to Guam. Leave early Thursday
morning and arrive Saturday evening.
But even though we had finished packing (five suitcases, four carry-ons,
for nine months), we still needed to get into our office in Northport and
finish several other logistical tasks before heading to dinner with our
daughter and her fiancé, and finally, our hotel for the night near the
airport. Our office was a
necessity because our house was too remote for Internet or for even cell phone
service, even though we were only 3 or 4 miles outside of Northport.
"The county hasn't plowed yet;
they usually have by 9:30AM or so.
I've already called Jim Thomas - he plowed out Sugar Bush and Snyder
roads already so his wife could get to work. Ten should work."
Jim is our neighbor, a farmer,
whose new Massey Ferguson tractor can get through anything. He blows our driveway when we need it,
which, this winter has been often, considering the 12 feet or so of snow we've
already gotten and it's only mid-January.
By 11AM, the county hadn't plowed
and Jim hadn't shown up. Cindy
called:
"I got to Jim's farm, but I
saw I couldn't make it and turned around."
"No worries; you don't need to
clean today; whenever you get a chance.
I've left instructions. The
house will be cold - I'm leaving the heat on, but the thermostat will be turned
down to 58F or so. And there won't
be hot water."
"Okay."
Leaving for nine months, going to a
tropical island about 1500 miles from the nearest major land mass is a
complicated proposition, especially considering neither my wife, Silvia, nor I
had ever been there.
Guam is smaller in area than our Northern
Michigan Leelanau County, about 20 miles long by 8 or 10 miles wide versus our
triangle shaped peninsula, a "little finger" that juts into Lake
Michigan, 20 miles wide at the base and about 35 miles from top to bottom. And, while both Leelanau County and
Guam are primarily tourist destinations, the similarity ends there.
Our beautiful county is filled with
rolling hills of woods and farms, cherry orchards and vineyards. The general Traverse Bay area is the
largest tart cherry growing region in the world and in recent years has
sprouted over 20 new vineyards.
The sandy, gravely soil and sloping elevations is perfectly suited to
grapes, as the surrounding waters of Lake Michigan temper winter temperatures
and the persistent snows provide protective winter blankets. And the winter climate sometimes allows
production of elusive ice wines, one of the few regions of the world where this
is possible.
Our little town of Northport has
around 500 full time residents, but that number triples or quadruples in the
summer. We sit at the tip of the
peninsula and boast a beautiful sheltered harbor, acres of protected lands,
quiet sandy beaches, and a beautiful state park with soaring dunes and an
historic lighthouse.
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