2018 Road Trip #3 – Tunnel of Trees

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This was a short overnight road trip in Michigan to see the fall colors and travel down the “tunnel of trees” or highway M119 in northern lower Michigan.  We started off with lunch at the “Legs Inn” (http://www.legsinn.com/) in Cross Village.  Very good meal with about a one hour wait to get in as this is a very popular place, especially during the fall color season.

We left after lunch to travel down M119 south to Bay View just outside of Petosky.  The weather was very windy, cold and mostly cloudy which put a damper on the sight seeing, but it was very pretty anyway.  This included a stop at a small historical church with a short walk to the beach (not for a swim, believe me).

For the evening we had a nice stay at the Terrace Inn (https://www.theterraceinn.com/) with a very nice dinner at the 1911 restaurant at the Inn.  The inn is located in Bay View which is an association formed by the United Methodist Church.  The inn has a quiet time from 11 PM until 8 AM, which is kind of nice for those of us who hit the hay early. The Inn is within walking distance of Little Traverse Bay and would be a great place to stay for a longer visit in the Petosky and Harbor Springs area.

 

Our hallway
Our Room
Little Traverse Bay

Alaska Honeymoon – Day 3

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Day three included an 8 hour bus trip into the Denali Park, with the hopes of seeing some wildlife and Mount Denali.  It was a gloomy day and no sight of Mount Denali.

But we did see some wildlife, including a grizzly bear that wanted to cross the road that our bus was on.

The scenery was majestic and not exactly what I was expecting.  Almost all of the land in this area is tundra, which does not allow trees to grow tall because the ground is always frozen under the top soil.  I think a few more days stay here with some possible hikes would be worthwhile to see more.  But this was our one day here because tomorrow we board a train and truck on down to Whittier to board our cruise ship.  But here are a few other pictures of the landscape.  You may want to visit the national park web site to find much more information and much better pictures.

(https://www.nps.gov/dena/index.htm)

Alaska Honeymoon – Day 2

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Day 2 of our honeymoon started with a morning riverboat cruise down the Chena river that runs through Fairbanks.  Needless to say there were a few people along for this short trip._chena river boat

Along the way we witnessed a landing and take off of the most popular transportation in Alaska, as well as a visit to the sled dog training home of David Monson.  His wife Susan Butcher has won the Iditarod four times but she passed away in 2006.  You can see more information at http://www.trailbreakerkennel.com.

_chena river plane_chena river sled dogs

We even were able to touch the pelt of the fiercest animal around, a wolverine!

_wolverine pelt

In the afternoon we boarded a bus and headed to Denali for a two night stay at Princess Cruises Wilderness Lodge – (https://www.princesslodges.com/princess-alaska-lodges/denali-lodge/).

The views along the way and at the lodge are just majestic.  Alaska is mainly a wilderness.  This was not Bay County, Michigan.

 

View from the bus
Another view from the bus
The mountains were beautiful too
A view from the Lodge
A view a short walk from the lodge

On day 3 we take a trip into the Denali park.  Spoiler alert, we do not get to see Mount Denali (aka Mount McKinley) because of the clouds.

Alaska Honeymoon – Day 1

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It has now been 8 weeks since our wedding and I am finally getting around to posting a few pictures and notes of our honeymoon trip to Alaska.  I hope the few of you that check out this blog forgive me as it has taken a bit of moving in time for us, considering I am 66 and have been unmarried for 11 years and Mary is NN and has been unmarried for about 25 years, with 8 children and 11 grandchildren between us.  And now I have another whole new family tree to work on.  Retirement is just as busy as ever.

The wedding day was August 10, 2018 and our first night was in the Webster house right here in Bay City next to First Presbyterian on Center Avenue:

After a night at a park and fly hotel in Detroit, in the early morning hours of August 12th, we are on our way to Fairbanks, Alaska:

First Married Selfie
View of Alaska
Fairbanks

By Sunday evening we were pretty tired and went looking for a restaurant in Fairbanks. The only restaurant in town we found open was a Thai place, so we flew all the way to Fairbanks, Alaska to enjoy Thai food.  Go figure.  But it was good and in the next post I will have our first day in Alaska as we travel from Fairbanks to Denali.

2018 Road Trip #2 (Kid Tours with Mary)

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Second road trip of the year, and this one was different than any I have taken before.

Because…

Wait for it…

I went with my fiancé!!

1308
Mary and Frank

Meet Mary Martini.  We are planning on getting married on August 10th this year, and celebrating with a cruise to Alaska.  That will be a trip with lots of pics I am sure.

And now I also have a whole bunch of new genealogy work to do.  I will have to live to my 90’s to get it all done, if genealogy research can ever get done.

On this trip we visited Chris, Lia and Emma and had a great time and watched Emma play a great soccer game. Then traveled to PA to see Brian, Amy and Sammy for another great time and to watch Sammy play baseball (and break his hand in the process).  Then traveled to Virginia to spend some quality time with Stephanie and Steven, along with Steven’s parents.  Then back to Columbus for a night and finished the trip off with a visit to see Ron and Pat Guoan and Bill and Judy Black, including a rousing game of 6 player Sequence, and on the morning we headed home we stopped and visited Anna Mae Wires along with Rick and Norma.

We visited a prison in Mansfield Ohio where they filmed Shawshank Redemption.

We visited the Indian Echo Caverns in Pennsylvania.

DSC01188

And up to the Star in Roanoke (after visiting Black Dog Salvage).

IMG_20180512_132548

2018 Road Trip #1

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Short road trip with Mary Martini over to visit her sister and family in Holton, Michigan.  First we visited the Frederick Meijer sculpture gardens and butterfly exhibit in Grand Rapids.  We were greeted by the Michigan marching band (see pic below).  Of course later that evening we also had to endure Michigan getting smoked by Villanova.

Go Blue!
Butterfly
Butterflies
Sculpture1
Sculpture2
Sculpture?
My personal favorite

 

On Tuesday we visited the White River Light House and museum (not open yet unfortunately) before heading back home through a beautiful cold, rainy and snowy day in April.

White River Light House 1
White River Light House 2

George Thomas “Mickey” Davenport

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Uncle Mickey is my only living Aunt or Uncle.  And the one that I know the least about. But I have learned a bit through my research and chat with his daughter Kristine.  So here you go:

Uncle Mickey was born George Thomas Davenport on 10 February 1933 in White Bear Lake, Ramsey County, Minnesota.  He was the youngest of 6 six children and born 4 years after my father Frank.  He had four older sisters Olive, Lois, Barb and Marian.  His dad, our grandpa, died in 1945 when he was 12 years old so he would have probably lived with his mom Muriel, our grandma, in Minnesota.  There are some stories of him being in Bay City for a bit but at some point he moved to California, because:

He married Loretta Mae Stone in Butte County, California on 9 July 1952.  They have a son Robert Allen Davenport born 3 November, 1953 and a daughter Teresa “Terry” Lynn Davenport born 8 May 1957 in Salt Lake City, Utah.   Teresa passed away on 8 August 2003.  Kristine has confirmed this to me as good information, so lo and behold we have two more first cousins that we never knew about (or at least I never knew about).  Here are a couple of pictures I found of Uncle Mickey, one of which is a picture of him with Loretta.  And also a yearbook picture (top row, 4th from the right) with Loretta in it:

Uncle Mickey and Loretta
Tom & Lorry July 52 – Frank II brother and his first wife
Uncle Mickey
Uncle Tom “Mickey” & Sniffy

Chico High School yearbook - Loretta

I am not sure how long he lived in Salt Lake City, and I did not find a divorce record from Loretta, but I know that he married Juanita Lois Urbano about 1963 and she is the mother of Kristine.  Here is a yearbook picture of Juanita:

Juanita Yearbook

I have some somewhat conflicting information regarding his divorce from Juanita, but I have a marriage record between Uncle Mickey and Mary Lou Limon on 6 October 1979 (this is also confirmed by Kristine). I do not believe they are together anymore and I am unclear on any other information.

It would be fun some day to actually meet my first cousin Robert Allen.  And I do know that Teresa did marry a Paul Evans and they appear to have had two children born in the 1980’s.

I guess I need a road trip to California!

Olive Anne Davenport

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My Aunt Olive was the oldest sister of my father.  She was born 9 May 1920 to Frank (36) and Muriel (24) in Russell, Manitoba, Canada.  She would move with her family to North Dakota around 1922 and then to White Bear Lake, Minnesota around 1928, where our Grandpa Frank would minister at an Episcopal church called St. John in the Wilderness.  Our grandfather Frank passed away in 1945.  I have attached a PDF copy of portions of a history of that church with pages pertinent to our grandfather.

St Johns History with Frank only

From that history I discovered that Olive was first married to James Bernard Baine.  James had enlisted in 1941 and served in the U.S. Army Air Force during WWII.  Olive and James married 21 May 1943 in Jacksonville, Florida.  Staff Sgt. James was killed in action on 24 January 1944 (only 8 months after they were married) and was buried at the Cambridge American Cemetery (plot F, row 3, grave 77) in England.  He received the Air Medal and Purple Heart awards.  Olive was working as a defense worker according to the marriage certificate and still listed her residence as White Bear Lake, so I am not sure how the Florida thing figures in.

Olive and Blaine marriage certificate

Olive married Donald John McArdell 17 March 1945 and they had four children; John, Susan, William and Thomas all living and a part of my first cousin clan.  That first cousin clan is larger than I thought but more about Uncle Mickey and that subject on another post.  Olive passed away on 4 August 2002 and Don passed away 29 June 2003.

One last interesting fact about Olive and Don: Olive and Don are sixth cousins two times removed, according to a formula I found and the following information linking them both to a common ancestor:

8 Thomas Davenport 1681-1745
m. Catherine Woodworth 1673-1729		 ≡ Thomas Davenport 1681-1745
m Mary Pitman 1684-1740		 6
7 Oliver Davenport 1714-???? Gideon Davenport 1738-1810 5
6 John Davenport 1735-1809 John Davenport 1766-1822 4
5 Humphrey Davenport 1773-1859 Gideon Davenport 1803-1850 3
4 Oliver Davenport 1799-1870 Joseph Davenport 1831-1907 2
3 Paul Dudley Davenport 1823-1888 William E Davenport 1860-1938 1
2 Irene A Davenport 1845-1899 Frank H Davenport I 1884-1945
1 Minnie Emma Wilkins 1869-1913 Olive A Davenport 1920-2002
Raymond J McArdel 1896-1965
Donald J McArdel 1923-2003

For ref. here is the formula:

“There is a mathematical way to identify the degree of cousinship shared by two
individuals. In the description of each individual’s relationship to the most recent
common ancestor, each “great” or “grand” has a numerical value of 1. The
following examples demonstrate how this is applied.

Example: If person one’s great-great-great-grandfather is person two’s grandfather, then
person one’s “number” is 4 (great + great + great + grand = 4) and person two’s “number”
is 1 (grand = 1). The smaller of the two numbers is the degree of cousinship. The two
people in this example are first cousins. The difference between the two people’s
“numbers” is the degree of removal. In this case, the two people are thrice (4 — 1 = 3)
removed, making them first cousins three times removed. “