I just got home and have a lot of catching up to do on the Forums.

I'll start with my adventure and continue it tomorrow.

I arrived at Chicago Midway about noon local on Thursday, got my Hertz and headed for Michigan City.

I grabbed my Wacko badge and walked in the door when the two LOLs said "John" "You must be John Chidester. Paul Brady just called us and told us to give you the 'Royal Tour'." Which they proceeded to do. They wouldn't accept my entrance fee, so I bought a bunch of Post Cards of Michigan City for the future PCEs -- including one by Digger and one by WackoPaul. I even got to climb the new stairs and view the very unique 'disco-CDROM lens' (Photo below)



As I was getting ready to leave, I looked at another visitor who was just heading out the door and recognized Chesapeake Bryan. We walked out to the Pier Light then followed one another to St. Joseph.

As we were leaving there, we ran into Lorie and John Roe!

We continued our excursion north visiting South Haven before heading over to the Country Inn & Suites in Holland to meet up with Ken Reese with whom I shared a room.

Friday Ken, Bryan, John and Lorie and I made a somewhat shortened version of the tour I had planned out -- starting out at 8 AM instead of 6 AM and starting at Point Betsie. I'll relate these adventures along with photos on Wednesday.

Friday night we met up with about 25 more WACKOs at Mary & Jeff's home for a Pizza Party. What great fun! What great friends! Thanks Mary & Jeff for opening up your home to our WACKO WACKO group! I took some photos and will post these also on Wednesday here.

Because I had planned to meet my folks in Port Huron, I left before the Regional was completely over and so missed out on the drawing activities, but was there for the various other club drawings including the Digger pen and ink of Little Sable showing the tower and keeper's house and Kat's beautiful quilt!

Much has already been said about the generousity of the Younger family and Harbour Lights collectors, but I'll add my 'Amen!' to that.

Paul was choked up explaining Digger's health situation and I volunteered to give a synopsis. Bill, Nancy, Kim and most of the audience were unaware that Digger may not be able to paint again and Bill wanted to see that what might be Digger's final drawing was going to be a proud moment to our friend and a great benefit to Michigan City. He insisted the Hoosier Club circulate in the audience and make sure everyone who wanted to buy tickets had them. Then someone asked him if he had bought any yet.

Bill first had to make sure it was 'OK' for him to buy $270 worth of drawing tickets for Digger's painting and made it clear he was going to keep it for himself if he won.

Kim asked him if she could clean out his office if he won it. "No," he said. "Why do you want it," Kim asked. "Because I don't have one of his and I WANT one!!" was Bill's reply.

Then after being 'tied-up' with his tickets, he won! Cheers went up after all the laughter and he turned around and auctioned it off (Nancy even got into the bidding.) I think the total raised by this pen and ink for Michigan City will be almost $1,900 when the tally is complete.

Makes my VERY proud to be associated with all you people!

I also got to participate along with Dave Hannum and Gary Martin in the presentation of the beautiful large-size panorama print of Grand Haven to FrankB. That of course allowed us to do a bit of a push for the Collector Forums!

My 3 biggest disappointments: 1. Missing the WACKO Dinner Saturday evening (who's got photos?) 2. Not seeing Holland Harbor LH and 3. Not seeing Grand Haven.

Guess I'll have to schedule another trip next year, maybe around the time of the Coast Guard Festival!