Labor Day weekend in Muskegon MI

There are many historical sites in Muskegon, we visited two mansions that were built in 1887 - 1888. They are the Hackley and Hume Mansions. Mr Hackley and Mr. Hume were lumber barons, in the era when Muskegon was known as the "lumber queen of the world". The first 4 pictures are from the Hackley mansion, it is a 6,000 sq ft house with 3 floors, 15 stained glass windows, hand stenciled walls and ceilings, detailed carved woodwork, 7 tiled fire places, and only 2 bedrooms. It is done in Queen Anne architecture, by architect David Hopkins of Grand Rapids, who also built the Hume mansion next door. The Hume mansion, (next 3 pictures) is larger at 7,000 sq ft, and has 7 bedrooms, it is less pretentious in detail, but is more family friendly in layout.

We will leave here tomorrow and head for Grand Haven MI, which is further south down lake Michigan.  There seems to be a little problem ahead of us, it goes like this. Once we clear Chicago, and leave lake Michigan, you enter into the Illinois river. Well the army corp of engineers, has closed about 1 mile of the river. The reason is they are trying to stop the asian carp from entering into the great lakes. They feed on grasses and vegetation in the lakes and rivers, which would wipe out the habitat of the fresh water fish in the great lakes. So they are using voltage in this particular stretch which is closed to deter the asian carp from going further north. There is a whole bunch of recreational boaters, many are loopers like us, that are stuck and can’t get thru. The decision by the powers that be, have said as of today, the barrier will remain, and unless you have a steel hulled boat, you cannot get thru. The option is to disconnect all your electronics, pay a tow company $600.00 and they will tow the boat thru this barrier. We will keep you all posted if there is a change in this by some chance.
 I hope everyone had a wonderful labor day weekend.




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