Virtual Methodist

Keeping my word in not posting regularly... I missed a whole day! During that day I was participating in an annual Campton tradition: going somewhere and giving people a lot of money to shake me about and flip me head over heels in the name of entertainment. Two years ago it was Disneyland Paris. Last year it was Port Aventura, on the Costa Dorada in Spain... This year it was Michigan's Adventure... And a jolly nice adventure was had by all. Every theme park has its own characteristics: Disney in Florida is cloyingly saccharine, whilst Disneyland Paris is delivered with a certain Gallic shrug and "Boff!" Port Aventura is as well themed as any American park... And a good deal more so than Michigan's Adventure, which has a tenuous tie in with Charlie Brown, Snoopy and all the Peanuts gang, although you would never notice that inside (apart from in the gift shop). But that didn't stop it from being a thoroughly good day out. The water rides got me as wet as I have ev...

OK... I lied... But the last 24 hours has been so weird that I couldn't resist putting them down on virtual paper. After clearing up 5 weeks of our debris from the parsonage, we packed our bags and headed north, in the midst of a thunderstorm, to Geoff and Pam Hayes house on Towline Lake. Now they had left detailed instructions on how to get there, but totally reliant as we now are on Maggie, our GPS, we followed her instructions... However, this house is so far of the beaten track that Maggie was directing us up non-existant roads, and telling us that we were careering across fields when we were travelling along what passed for roads in the area. The further that we got from the main road, the more I expected to hear duelling banjoes. Seriously... this was "Deliverance" country! We got to the house eventually (though poor Maggie nearly had a nervous breakdown in the process), but then we had to venture out again in search of food... That took us to nearby Lakeview, which...

Today we have travelled 170 miles (a mere jaunt in the eyes of the locals) to the Isabella Reservation outside of Mount Pleasant, MI, to see the Annual Pow-Wow of the Saginaw Chippewa Nation. My knowledge of Native American culture was largely based on John Wayne movies, and have previously only come close to real native Americans when the Canadian Native American Orangmen used to turn up for the Twelfth Parade in Belfast occasionally. I always found it odd that we essentially exported both Orangism and genocide to the Native Americans when our Scots Irish forebearers became the standard bearers of westward expansion! But there they would be in full regalia... Buckskin suit, feather head-dress and collarette. Today however, couldn't have been further from the Twelfth if you had tried... with the exception of the unending beating of drums, with dance after dance in the searing heat and elaborate costume, putting to shame even the most exhibitionist drum major in a flute band at hom...