Snow and Ice in Roscommon Michigan

 

We decided to take a break from the snow and ice in Roscommon.

My bride and I have just returned from a two-week Florida/Caribbean vacation. We spent the first week on a cruise ship and the second week near Ft Lauderdale, and then a few more days at the opposite side of the state at Naples. It was a treat and the warm weather was a welcome relief from the foot-deep snow that we had when we left Roscommon in early February.

The occasion of the cruise was 1) to celebrate Marjorie’s birthday and 2) to enjoy square dancing while cruising. Yes, we did the old Alamand Left and Grand Right and Left on a cruise ship. There were about 100 of us square dancers who sashayed across the ocean and around the islands to the music provided by three very talented national callers. We danced every day on the ship, sometimes on deck in the cool of the evenings, or below decks during the daytime with its warmer temperatures. It was fun. Only one dance was a bit challenging when the ship was rolling about in the wind and the deck wasn’t where I expected it to be.

The ship that we cruised on was unlike any of our previous voyaging experiences. This ship, Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, held the title of world’s largest ship until Royal Caribbean eclipsed their own size record by building two other ships a few feet larger. The size of the behemoth provided a few challenges: With its 6,700 passengers and 2,000 plus crew members, finding things and getting around the 16 decks, numerous dining rooms and an untold number of bars, was a major undertaking. One lady who waited with me at one of the numerous elevators told me she wouldn’t ever sail on this ship again. “I’ve been trying to find my room for the past three days,” she said.

I understood since I had just found my way to the elevator after a stint in the floating bar. That’s right, a floating tavern; a unique boat-shaped bar that I climbed aboard at its moorings on the sixth deck. No sooner had I ordered my beer and the bartender/captain cast us off and the boat/bar began to rise off the floor. Before I had drunk half my beer, I was staring over the gunwale some two floors higher, wondering if someone had slipped a Mickey in my drink. We made it safely back to the sixth deck and I hustled to our room, sobered by the sensation of apparent weightlessness but with no other injuries except to my wallet.

I did run into some good luck during the cruise. One afternoon, as my betrothed and I were finding our way to our room, we stumbled into the casino. Marjorie remembered that we had been given a $5 coupon for free play for each of us. We decided to test our luck with the $10. The casino was empty at that moment and the casino manager welcomed us as he must have wondered about the two hicks who were completely unfamiliar with all the machines. He helped us with our free $5 coupons and directed us to a machine to deposit our money and showed us which buttons to push. We did - push the buttons, that is. It was a two- cent machine. Two cent wagering-- it boggles the mind. Anyway, I pushed the button a dozen times or more, watching as the indicator showed my $5 dollars being slowly eaten by the machine with each push of the button. The pictures whirled, the bells dinged and another two cents went down the drain. I pushed on, one wager after another. Then, something different happened! To this day, I don’t know what it was, but the pictures in the machine suddenly began spinning, whistles blew, lights flashed, and the indicator showing my money flashed, and then began adding pennies to my stock of cash, two cents at a time, each time punctuated with a ding recalling the days when cash registers tallied your purchases. Then the dings changed pitch and the two cents became 20 cents at each ding. Finally, the dinger stopped dinging. My cash value was now at $5.26. And then the machine went quiet. It was as if the machine and I had been in deadly combat and then the machine gave up, and -- I won.

I turned to Marjorie. “I’m going to cash out,” I said.

Between us, we had parlayed our free $10 to a new combined total of $8.14. I stuffed the money in my shirt and we hurried out before the casino manager could object. When we finally found our room, we couldn’t stop laughing at our good fortune.

The cruise ended too soon and we found ourselves at Marjorie’s sister’s condominium where we celebrated both her and Marjorie’s birthdays. The $ 8.14 didn’t go very far, but at least we found our room every night.

We used our rented SUV that was loaded down with our bags full of dance clothes to travel from her sister's place at Ft. Lauderdale along Alligator Alley to Naples. I thought we had gone to another country. It seemed as though we had left the realm of ordinary America and somehow reached a new universe where everyone was rich. In downtown Naples, we saw only expensive cars; a Bentley convertible, several Ferrari’s, a few Corvettes and other European sports cars - most driven by old white guys with unusually dark tans. I was a bit reluctant to shop in Naples since I didn’t think that I fit in real well, with my white face, cowboy shirt and bolo tie. We stopped at a coffee shop for a doughnut and $5 coffee, then visited a downtown shop named Fresh Produce. They didn’t have any. Instead, the store featured women’s clothing. I sat on the curb outdoors and watched the Bentleys pass by while Marjorie shopped.

After visiting our friends and mooching off them as long as we dared, we left Naples and its 80 plus degrees for the airport and the trip back to Detroit. We arrived home to a surprise: Roscommon’s weather was delightful, with our first sunshine of the entire winter and the snow and ice mostly gone. Except for my driveway and the road in front of our house, of course. I murmured aloud about how we couldn’t have everything, and how it felt real good to be home where the coffee is much lower cost and you don't have to worry about Bentley's being in your way.