Only In My Family

So, I got a phone call from my mom the other day.

Mom: Wanna hear about my big adventure?

Me: Does it involve your girlfriend stealing a cop car? If not, it's probably not gonna top Martin's big adventure.

Mom: No...but it does involve me getting trapped inside a restaurant bathroom.

Me: Do tell.

Mom: Well, it was one of little single-stall bathrooms and the door lock busted while I was in there. I couldn't get out. The lock wouldn't budge!

Me: Oh no!

Mom: Yeah, the lock on the door broke. I tapped on the door for a while, calling "Hello." I didn't want to call for help in case someone thought I was having a medical emergency. They had to send a manager in through the ceiling tiles into the bathroom and then they dropped tools down to us. One of them was a butter knife.

Me: I knew that was a viable tool no matter what Matt says!

Mom: Right?!

Me: So then what happened?

Mom: Well, the manager worked on the door from our side and then some other guys worked on it from the other side. When they finally got it open, there was some cheering and one of the guys said, "It's like rescuing the Peruvian miners!"

The things you discover about your family...

I don't remember how it came up, but we were all sitting around the campfire on vacation and someone mentioned Prohibition and how the itty bitty hotel in the rural town my dad grew up in had its own Speakeasy - only here in Michigan, they didn't call them speakeasies - they were called blind pigs. The fact that the hotel had a blind pig didn't surprise me, but I was a little startled to discover that my Great-Grandpa Elmer was a whiskey runner. Apparently, the family cattle truck had a false bottom used to hide booze. The best natured cows got lots of rides as a cover for illegal deliveries.

So I was asking my mom this morning if she knew about that. My parents divorced when I was pretty young, so I wasn't sure if she'd known that or not. For the record, she didn't, but she did have some more interesting family history for me. Evidently, my maternal Great Grandparents made their own booze and sold it. Great-Grandma Johanna made bathtub beer and Great-Grandpa Englebert had a still down behind the chicken coop and their oldest two sons used to drive the stuff to a nearby town where the men gathered for "meetings" between their two Sunday services. From all accounts, the evening services were more interesting than the morning one.

Good to know I come from enterprising stock. ;)

Here are a few more vacation pictures if anyone wants to have a peek.

Indian Lake at sunset.

The Seul Choix Pointe Lighthouse in Gulliver, MI. It's the last working lighthouse on the northern shore of Lake Michigan.
The creepy, creepy stairs in the lighthouse. I realized that at about 70ish feet up, I'm kinda scared of heights. Actually, the going up was fine. The going down was freaking terrifying - especially crawling through the hatchways in the upper two levels. Yeah, I have no idea what I was thinking either.

Beach at Au Train.
Lake Superior at Au Train.
Just a random lake along highway 123 in the UP.
Lake Superior shoreline. I love this picture. :)
Lookit all the pretty stones on the beach! I was in rock picker heaven. Anyone sensing a theme here?
Lake Superior at Whitefish Point. One of my very favorite spots.