Day Tripper with Josie Koler

brunch of burgers and ice cream at Charlie’s

The Catholic schools let our early (before the Memorial Day Holiday) which means summer’s on at our place. The family’s nine-year old turned her latest yoga tour and dinner of chicken broccoli fettucine alfredo into a slumber party with her matching brunette puppy following with a patio brunch at one of her favorite haunts.

The two are so cute no one around can stand the sight of the pair on a mission to explore, adventure and take in all life has to offer from the Coastal Ohio Trail, Lake Erie Islands and down to the Gulf Coast of Florida, across Alligator Alley and down into the Florida Keys. (Bosco, (the chocolate lab) has yet to vacation there. He does not enjoy heat and humidity and we have struggled trying to purchase a plane ticket for the four-legged family member).

Outfit in her Chuck Taylor Limited Edition high tops and new Barbie Lemon Graphic Sweatshirt – Pink (on clearance now for a mere twelve dollars at Target) my sidekick rolled up and after viewing the menu had me place an order for — you guessed correctly — a ten piece chicken chunks and curly fries with ketchup; and, a scoop of strawberry ice cream to pick up once the meal is eaten.

My mom and dad raised me to not eat until about 2 pm when famished so I settled on a burger for brunch/breakfast wrapped in lettuce.

We are at the height of Spring 2024 on Ohio’s north coast and nothing screams “season” quite the same as patio tables and sharing curly fries with the family’s chocolate bar.

The strawberry ice cream counteracts the chocolate hair and fur nicely. Order online here.

Charlie’s Homemade Ice Cream and Hamburgers has been a tradition for forty years up on the corner of McCord and Sylvania Avenue in Sylvania, Ohio. A quick bite here will remind diners of simpler times.

A fashion note: Skylar’s Lululemon Everywhere Belt Bag is the ultimate summer accessory item to stash cash, a credit card, keys, garage door opener, lip balm and iPhones. She’s rocking one in Glaze Pink. I tried on for a photo op hoping the trend takes twenty years off of my appearance. I do believe the color has a Jem and the Holograms effect.

We spent twenty seven dollars on food, including a lemonade and lemonade to go. Zero dollars went to gas since we were walking. My walking shoes, the Women’s Nike Air Max Bella TR 3 in Mauve Roche, were given to me by the fine folks at Dillard’s. A brand the luxury goods behemoth isn’t dealing online at the moment. They can be found on Ebay “NEW in Box”. We walked across the street to play on the swings and checked out the pool scene at the local YMCA. Memberships can be purchased here.

Josie performed the Day Tripper series “Day Tripper with Josie Koler” partnered with Big Brothers Big Sister of Siouxland while the morning anchor at KMEG back in the early 2000s. She was led by the legend, the late Tedd O’Connell, a news anchor prior to the onset of cable television. The Day Tripper is a terrific summertime series loaded with exactly that. Adventurers to take for the day. This particular piece contains an element for fashion.

Day Tripper with Josie Koler

brunch of burgers and ice cream at Charlie’s

The Catholic schools let our early (before the Memorial Day Holiday) which means summer’s on at our place. The family’s nine-year old turned her latest yoga tour and dinner of chicken broccoli fettucine alfredo into a slumber party with her matching brunette puppy following with a patio brunch at one of her favorite haunts.

The two are so cute no one around can stand the sight of the pair on a mission to explore, adventure and take in all life has to offer from the Coastal Ohio Trail, Lake Erie Islands and down to the Gulf Coast of Florida, across Alligator Alley and down into the Florida Keys. (Bosco, (the chocolate lab) has yet to vacation there. He does not enjoy heat and humidity and we have struggled trying to purchase a plane ticket for the four-legged family member).

Outfit in her Chuck Taylor Limited Edition high tops and new Barbie Lemon Graphic Sweatshirt – Pink (on clearance now for a mere twelve dollars at Target) my sidekick rolled up and after viewing the menu had me place an order for — you guessed correctly — a ten piece chicken chunks and curly fries with ketchup; and, a scoop of strawberry ice cream to pick up once the meal is eaten.

My mom and dad raised me to not eat until about 2 pm when famished so I settled on a burger for brunch/breakfast wrapped in lettuce.

We are at the height of Spring 2024 on Ohio’s north coast and nothing screams “season” quite the same as patio tables and sharing curly fries with the family’s chocolate bar.

The strawberry ice cream counteracts the chocolate hair and fur nicely. Order online here.

Charlie’s Homemade Ice Cream and Hamburgers has been a tradition for forty years up on the corner of McCord and Sylvania Avenue in Sylvania, Ohio. A quick bite here will remind diners of simpler times.

A fashion note: Skylar’s Lululemon Everywhere Belt Bag is the ultimate summer accessory item to stash cash, a credit card, keys, garage door opener, lip balm and iPhones. She’s rocking one in Glaze Pink. I tried on for a photo op hoping the trend takes twenty years off of my appearance. I do believe the color has a Jem and the Holograms effect.

We spent twenty seven dollars on food, including a lemonade and lemonade to go. Zero dollars went to gas since we were walking. My walking shoes, the Women’s Nike Air Max Bella TR 3 in Mauve Roche, were given to me by the fine folks at Dillard’s. A brand the luxury goods behemoth isn’t dealing online at the moment. They can be found on Ebay “NEW in Box”. We walked across the street to play on the swings and checked out the pool scene at the local YMCA. Memberships can be purchased here.

Josie performed the Day Tripper series “Day Tripper with Josie Koler” partnered with Big Brothers Big Sister of Siouxland while the morning anchor at KMEG back in the early 2000s. She was led by the legend, the late Tedd O’Connell, a news anchor prior to the onset of cable television. The Day Tripper is a terrific summertime series loaded with exactly that. Adventurers to take for the day. This particular piece contains an element for fashion.

Peter Mayer (from Jimmy Buffet’s Coral Reefer Band) and his son Brendan to play at Hazards on Middle Bass Island

Mike “Mad Dog” Adams performs day before as part of memorable weekend

May 22, 2024

St. Hazard’s Resort Middle Bass Island, Lake Erie

Two standout artists from the global, island music scene are set to drop anchor in the middle of Lake Erie for what is guaranteed to be a sold out audience.

Peter Mayer, a member of Jimmy Buffet’s Coral Reefer Band, with son Brendan Mayer, will take the stage at St. Hazards on Sunday, June 23, 2024 at 3 pm. A meet and greet will take place immediately after the show and conclude by 6 pm.

Advanced reservations required for the Peter Mayer show with tickets from ten to thirty dollars. A cover charge and reservations are not required for Saturday’s “Mad Dog” event. Call 419-285-6121 for reservations.

This following, a sweet show with well-known regional comedian and daydreamer, Mike “Mad Dog” Adams. More on that returning act as you read. But first, Peter is a guitarist, vocalist and songwriter. He has performed for crowds of thousands over the course of three decades with the legend and late, Jimmy Buffet. Brendan, also a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter toured with Buffet in 2014 and performs regularly as a soloist and with his trio.

Here is what attendees, day trippers, islanders, guests, locals, workers, boaters and campers need to know for this show.

There are choices to catch these sweet sounds and treat oneself to this jam session: pay general admission, VIP price or for a table. Tables can accommodate between four to eight people around our fire pits. Here is what they look like. We do need you to call and reserve your pick. 419-285-6121 is the number.

Perfect for an intimate gathering.

Tent camping is available as well as other accommodations. We rent chalets, we have one villa available, as well as the cabins for a comfortable stay equipped with a/c, refrigerators and microwaves. Showers and toilets can be accessed via the on site bathhouse. Vehicles full of gear can be brought across the lake via the Miller Boatline.

Call 419-285-2421 to make a reservation in advance for a vehicle and or a boat. As always, plan ample amount of time to buy tickets, park the vehicle and board the ferry. Ferries to MBI always depart from the docks at the very tip of Catawba Island (the edge of Ohio’s mainland) on time.

Shuttle bus rides are available once one reaches MBI for three dollars per person, per way. This service is always available once vacationers and locals reach our island.

The Sonny-S Boatline will run trips from MBI and The Boardwalk on SBI (South Bass Island) all summer and for this event and weekend as well. Check the schedule and further information about fares here.

As mentioned above, famed entertainer of the Lake Erie Islands, Ohio’s Northcoast, Ohio’s Vacationland and Cleveland, Mike “Mad Dog” Adams will wow the crowd at St. Hazards the Saturday prior, June 22, 2024 starting at around 1:30 pm island time. We are looking forward to this pirate, poet and philosopher sharing his talent with us on stage, next to our tiki bar and, adjacent to our wrap-around porch with more outdoor seating.

“Mad Dog” on stage at St. Hazards, MBI Lake Erie in 2023.

What a weekend! Call to learn more, ask questions and let us assist you and your group as you navigate the hottest spot on the North American continent when the calendar reads “summer”. Yes! We have finally reached season on the Lake Erie Islands and can’t wait to have all guests join us for the adventure, connections, pool time, cocktails, mocktails, Sonny-S rides, food and fun as we move into our twenty-sixth season. Bookings can always be done online. Access the rentals and campsites here.

Josie is an award-winning broadcast journalist with tours at WHIZ, KMEG, KGAN, WTOL, WNWO, WOIO. She’s earned a couple of Tellys, awards from the IBNA, covered the presidential elections and wrote her own paper in Key West while working as a (SCUBA) Dive Reporter. On that island she worked with Hyatt Centric Key West Resort & Spa, Southernmost Beach Resort, The Reach Key West Curio, and the Casa Marina Resort amongst others. She’s covered the Key West Songwriter’s Festival. If you see her working as an enterprise journalist poolside in swimwear you can always say hi; or drop her a note at [email protected].

Peter Mayer and Brendan Mayer to Perform at Hazards on Middle Bass Island, Ohio

Peter Mayer and His Son Brendan to Play

A can’t miss songwriter’s concert is about to take place in the middle of Lake Erie on Middle Bass Island, Ohio. Peter Mayer, a member of Jimmy Buffet’s Coral Reefer Band for three decades strong; and his son Brendan Mayer, will take the stage at St. Hazards on Sunday, June 23, 2024 at 3 pm. Mayer has performed for crowds of thousands with the legend Buffet. Brendan, also a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter toured with Buffet in 2014 and performs regularly as a soloist and with his trio.

A meet and greet will take immediately after the show and conclude by 6 pm.

TICKETS

Tickets and reservations do need to be made for what is sure to be a sell-out show. General admission prices start at ten dollars and V.I.P. tickets can be purchased for thirty dollars. Call St. Hazards’ main line 419-285-6121 to purchase.


TRAVEL

To voyage to Middle Bass Island we need to remind everyone private boats, planes, the Miller Boatline, and Sonny-S Boatline are ways to access the island paradise.

The Sonny-S Boatline will run trips from MBI and The Boardwalk on SBI (South Bass Island).

The St. Hazards Shuttle Bus is available for everyone on the island once one reaches MBI. The cost is three dollars per person, per way.

ACCOMMODATIONS

Bookings can always be done online at sthazards.com. Tent camping is being offered at an all-time low price of just twenty dollars per tent for a two-night stay. This way St. Hazards can accommodate anyone wanting to join in the festivities. Remember all gear must be brought across the lake.

This is a splendid way to usher in and celebrate Summer 2024 on the Lake Erie Islands. The blenders will all be on, we’re growing mint to muddle fresh Mojitos, have two bars stocked with Caribbean rums and there will be plenty of other libations being served along with a Caribbean-style menu.

Call 419-285-6121 to speak with one the members of our staff, for reservations, tickets and travel tips.

Josie is an award-winning television journalist and at one point the youngest, solo female anchor and producer of the evening news in the nation. She left to report from the ocean as a SCUBA Dive Reporter while writing her own weekly newspaper in Key West. There she covered the Key West Songwriter’s Festival, Parrotheads in Paradise, and started a blog which turned into a TV Show. Another business was born at the start of Little Palm Island‘s Sandbar Sessions. A grand piano was dropped on the sand to accommodate the sounds of Stevie Nicks and JK PR came to be.

Friday Night Snack Shoes

hats, flip-flops and socks on display amidst the wine selection

Stadiapa Steps Out in Nikeys

My Dad wanted to head out to dinner to “The Steakhouse” on Woodville Road. The eatery sets across the street from an oil refinery and adjacent to an old, no longer existent Kroger store he used to service.

He forgot his shoes.

We ordered and on the way out I surveyed the dining room after washing my hands.

“That’s ok Dad,” I said. (I wore my Nikeys out, too). “One table of guys was seated with their ballcaps on. At the table next to them was a woman wearing her flip-flops with socks.”

I had the salmon with lemon butter sauce.

Anti-Industry Elements on MBI

Hurray! Time to celebrate all that time at the grind. St. Hazards on Middle Bass Island, Lake Erie provides the laid back land for anyone looking to escape the punch of the time clock with a Pina Colada. Make that a Pina Colada with a Captain Morgan Spiced Rum Float. Besides lounge chairs, a full menu, campground and fire pits, the property, nestled a fifty minute ferry ride out into Lake Erie, sells, serves, or rents all of the other fundamentals to make forgetting about slaving away simple.

The anti-slog list is straightforward. A straw hat from the gift shop.

A MBI bracelet from the gift shop, and a coconut to showcase the selection of Caribbean Rum cocktails.

Golf carts and beach cruiser bicycles are also for rent. The Panama Jack hat and ballcap add to the island ambiance of anti-industry.

Banana dress and Sperrys my own. The sweat and servitude can stay on the mainland where they belong. See everyone poolside to mark Labor Day Weekend 2020.

My First Costa del Mars

They were a gift from Divers Direct. I wore them everywhere. I do mean everywhere.

Beyond Polzarization

From Lion Fish hunting in the Key West Harbour to early morning runs on KCB.

They took me to historic moments on top of the water and were on my face when the fresh catch was reeled in.

Besides the ocean the eyewear worked for airboat alligator tours, and holding, in the Everglades. The designers claiming, “Whether your adventure is on the water, on the mountain, or anywhere in between, with Costa you’ll see it like you never have before.

Even alligators.

The pair I wore from 2010 – 2017 are the ISABELA. I picked black frames with raspberry trim. You can design your own. I love that they can be pushed back through the hair and don’t catch.

They definitely “served me well for many adventure-filled years.” Dillard’s has just given me a new pair. I chose the GANNETT frame. They made their debut this weekend on the Lake Erie Islands. I can’t wait to show them off.

Bon Islander by boat, by ferry or cute little pudde jumper

My island client met me at 8 am at his waterfront condos and told me if I wanted to leave the island I needed to find “Bill” and go by jet ski — or take the plane.

I was onboard the “Bon Islander” by 9:30 am.

A vacation to the Lake Erie Islands, especially Middle Bass Island, is called, marketed and deemed as an “Adventure Vacation”.

419-285-6121 to book a reservation. This 21-acre Caribbean-style resort does not resemble Sandals.

Call 419-734-5400 to come by plane.

 

Fruit Fashion even avocados

This past Labor Day 2018 Weekend everyone was rocking the vintage fashion of fruit. Saturday night at dinner, set at Osaka – a Hibachi Grill and Sushi Bar, a young man in our party was partaking in the merriment wearing a button down collared shirt plastered in avocados.

The woman in a pew in front of me in Mass wore a shirt loaded with lemons.

To take on Key West of the North, South Bass Island, for late night Labor Day dinner, dress was festive and a garment covered in ripe bananas proclaimed to the world, “I’m off today.”

Laboring on an island and laboring in a factory is like comparing avocados to bananas. Nonetheless, everyone’s contribution makes the country great from educators to car salesmen to those cleaning the island vacation rentals.  Celebrate and keep chasing, or living the dream.

Get a Grip Sperry Shoe Summer 2018 Edition

Photos by Bo, Miller Boatline

The brand Sperry embodies a summer spent on, near and around the water. Even more importantly, Sperry is all about being and looking fuss-free while all the while fashionable onboard the boat.

The construction even makes muah — yes me ladies and gentlemen, look practical.

When the store manager at Dillards gave me access, well to the entire store and a fifty dollar spending limit, my soul sniffed out a Lake Erie lifestyle essential I knew I’d be living in all summer long, a pair of Sperry Haven Chambray Lace Ups.

Deliciously designed with string rawhide laces and a non-marking rubber outsole with (trademark) Razor-cut Wave-Siping to disperse water for the ultimate wet/dry traction, I did not have to search far for why Sperry shoes make the statement “I can navigate an island chain and I’m going to accomplish this via boat.”

Resort owner and developer of the most Lake Erie Island vacation rentals Ed Gudenas put his best foot — and shoe —  forward and was wearing a pair along with his logo gear while hosting the ladies from Lake Erie Shores and Islands.

The ladies themselves, took in the Caribbean-style 21-acre resort and lakefront property outfit comfortably in this decadent deck shoe. 

The day we boarded the Miller Boatline with Lake Erie’s Lab Pup, stowaway Don Massey had his peds crammed into a pair of Columbia’s…cuz he was only mixing up his footwear. The day before he had on his favorite pair of blue Sperrys and had this to say.

“They fit so nice and they’re comfortable and they got enough arch where my feet don’t get tired after ten hours on this boat with these guys,” Massey made it clear the shoe appeals to all age groups, the guys and the gals,  and with that — went in for some affection from our four-legged travel companion.

You’ve seen the pup showin’ off Sperrys before in 2016.

In 2017 we unleashed the low-down on the ferry ridin’ footwear at the edge of Ohio’s Mainland where all vacationers board the Miller Boatline.

#rockmyboat fashion now comes in the oh-so trendy shade of Rose.

This is a collaboration between thre real estate and lifestyle television show and accompanying blog Josie in Paradise, JK PR Sales and Design, the Miller Boatline, Dillards, Estee Lauder, and St Hazards Waterfront Resort and Brewery.

Want the correct makeup for the islands … simply save the contouring for the city — Rock Everyone’s Boat with the Global Cult Favorite Estee Lauder’s Goddess Collection.

Josie has access to the two hundred style count Sperry Shoe collection at Dillards, the Estee Lauder vault of lux skincare and cosmetics, the two bars of exotic rum on MBI and the island vaction rentals. Call 419-862-7143 on the North Coast to buy and for more information. The South Florida number is 305-395-8890.