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CELEBRATION OF CREATION AT ANDREWS

When I finished the KENTUCKY BIRTHDAY VISIT, I rode up to Cincinnati with Vic and Jana and at 4:00 p.m. started my travel odyssey toward Berrien Springs. The schedule was bad enough - three flights, two layovers of about two hours apiece, and arrival in South Bend at 11:35 p.m., then a ride of 20 minutes into the next time zone and to bed a little after :00 a.m.

However, the reality was MUCH worse….and except to say that I will fly through O’Hare (or via United Airlines) only at the point of a gun in the future, I’ll leave the story alone. It’s enough that I got to the Village Motel around 4:00 and to bed after that!
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I slept five hours, and fortunately was early for the meetings because of my desire to coordinate with Vic and Jana on the car. So, Thursday was completely free, and the first real appointment was Friday afternoon. This motel is considerably better than most we stayed in when touring South America….but that isn’t saying a great deal. If you look closely, it’s a little grim…..but it does have the distinct advantage of being directly across the street from the University entrance, and about 100 yards from the University-owned and operated Market.

And really, it’s not so terrible to look at - a little seedy, and the worse for wear maybe….
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But, it has what a lot of more expensive hotels do not…..free Wi-Fi for every guest!!
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At first glance, the rooms seem reasonable…
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Two beds - one for sleeping, with both blankets, and one for sorting my stuff. On the left
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my workspace and breakfast bar. A TV, which for me is just a boat anchor, and to the far right my microwave and refrigerator, both of which I’m using regularly. You can also see my “closet”, and here is where the nature of the motel becomes obvious….
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There is a serious lack of maintenance here…I don’t know how long the current family have owned it, but they need to get busy…this is of a piece with a lot of other stuff, like the decorative strip around the upper wall coming loose here and there, the corners needing careful cleaning, the shower head not putting out spray, but more of a gush, etc. etc. I’m satisfied, but stuff needs doing. I was tempted to ask for the tools and fix this so that I don’t have to worry about it falling off the wall. Ah well.

Here’s the washing area
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You don’t want to drop anything in the sink, as there is nothing but a hole for the drain and you’d lose small stuff pretty easily. The air conditioner is also the heater, as the normal thermostat on the wall of the room is inoperable. The smoke detectors have no batteries, so I suspect the power to them is off, or they’d be beeping at me. Notice the interesting arrangement for powering the air conditioner…it plugs into the (non-GFI) outlet by the sink. Oy Vey!

Enough slanging my motel…..I’m really very grateful for it, and no bedbugs (so far), to boot. I walked down the street to the University’s Market
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It’s about as dated as the motel, although they’re maintaining the premises better. I wish that I’d checked out the Family Dollar before buying my fingernail clippers - could have saved almost half, for precisely the same thing. The Apple Valley Market looked pretty good even close up
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and they had a wonderful produce display
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I got fruit for breakfast, then went and bought cereal, utensils, crackers and cream cheese, half a gallon of Silk almond milk, and paper towels to use for napkins. Ended up at the deli to get lunch at the salad bar
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and took everything up to the checkout
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where I paid, and then sat and ate lunch at the little tables they maintain up front. I was reading the local real estate guides, and found that for the price of our house in Tennessee, we could afford a modest place in town, and ALSO a cottage out on one of the many local lakes….. Property is (can be) quite cheap, here. Six whole pages of houses (over 100 of them) for less than $100,000.00, just in Michigan, including the “low-price leader” of a “fire damaged, 3 bedroom home…on Niles northside” for $6500.00. There’s a photo of a perfectly reasonable looking house (MLS=2946765) showing no exterior fire damage. It’s not a manufactured home, and it has an upstairs! Beat that! Ha. If you’re willing to live in Indiana, there are 11 more pages of 20 houses each for less than $100,000.00, including a couple of favorites - one a one-owner quality-built 3BR home with hardwood floors on an acre plus a five-car garage! Well, that one is $104,900.00 (MLS=244319). Many of these are quite nice-looking houses…it’s amazing.

More later - I’ll share a bit about the meetings and find some links. Tonight’s talks were uneven, I thought. One or two made me cringe - people are really careless with their language in an area where precision is absolutely critical.

I practiced “declaiming” my piece again, and if I move right along, I can get almost all of it done in about 10 seconds more than 10 minutes. I’ll probably leave out the last few lines….will give it another go, tomorrow, before I do it for real in the evening. You can catch all the talks, plus an interview with each speaker, on the Hope Channel later this year.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/22 at 04:50 PM

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