Monthly Archives: April 2020

Weekly Positive Newsletter (4/27)

In light of these challenging times, we’ve been sending out a weekly positive newsletter to our email list since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States mid-March. If you’d like to receive these weekly newsletters delivered to your inbox, please provide us with your email address. We hope you are all staying safe and healthy and that this brings you a bit of joy and happiness each week!

Photo of the Week:

Mackinac Island, one of our favorite destinations! For centuries, visitors have found this national landmark to be the ideal vacation spot. No cars. No chain hotels. Just world-famous Mackinac Island Fudge, historic Fort Mackinac, unique shopping, diverse dining and unspoiled nature.

Fun Facts about Mackinac Island:

  • No motor vehicles! Motor vehicles were banned from the island at the end of the 19th century and the restriction continues today. The only modes of transportation are horses, bikes and your own feet!
  • Mackinac Island was the second national park, then the land was given to Michigan in 1895. There are more than 70 miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding.
  • More than 500 horses are brought to the island every spring and taken off the island for winter. Many of the horses are used to pull wagons for guest taxis, maintenance supplies, island tours and business needs.
  • Approximately 7,000 people live on the island during the summer months as tourist season brings many temporary workers to help at the restaurants, shops, hotels, bed and breakfasts and elsewhere. During the winter, only 400-500 islanders remain.
  • There are 14 fudge shops on the island! So much fudge is made that more than 10 tons of butter is brought to the island every year!

Quote of the Week:

“The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do.”

-Kobe Bryant

Story of the Week:

Rocks, Pebbles and Sand

A philosophy professor once stood up before his class with a large empty mayonnaise jar. He filled the jar to the top with large rocks and asked his students if the jar was full. His students all agreed the jar was full. He then added small pebbles to the jar and gave the jar a bit of a shake so the pebbles could disperse themselves among the larger rocks. Then he asked again, “Is the jar full now?” The students agreed that the jar was still full. The professor then poured sand into the jar to fill up all the remaining empty space. The students then agreed again that the jar was full.

In this story, the jar represents our life and the rocks, pebbles, and sand are the things that fill up our life. The rocks represent the most important projects and things we have going on, such as spending time with our family and maintaining proper health. This means that if the pebbles and the sand were lost, the jar would still be full, and our life would still have meaning.

The pebbles represent the things in our life that matter, but that we might live without. The pebbles are certainly things that give our life meaning (such as our job, house, hobbies and friendships) but they are not critical for us to have a meaningful life. These things often come and go and are not permanent or essential to our overall well-being.

Finally, the sand represents the remaining filler things in our life, and material possessions. This could be small things such as watching television, browsing through our favorite social media site, or running errands. These things don’t mean much to our life as a whole.

Moral of the story: The metaphor here is that if we start with putting the sand into the jar, we will not have room for rocks or pebbles. This holds true with the things we let into our life. If we spend all of our time on the small and insignificant things, we might run out of room for the things that are actually important.

Chuckle of the Week:

Quarantine has turned us into dogs. We roam the house all day looking for food. We are told “no” if we get too close to strangers, and we get really excited about car rides.

Moostash Joe Tours Monthly – April

Happy Spring from all of us here at Moostash Joe Tours! We hope you, your families and your loved ones are all staying safe and healthy. We also want to thank you for the awesome response we’ve had with the weekly positive newsletters. There’s no doubt we can all use some positivity, inspirational thoughts and a bit of humor, especially now, and we look forward to continue to send them to your inbox weekly.

The April edition of Moostash Joe Tours Monthly is here! Simply click on the front cover below to flip through the digital version, which also includes links to each tour page on our website.

Please Note: Our April publication was printed before the COVID-19 situation in the United States in mid-March. For an updated list of upcoming tours, please see our website, www.mjtours.com. If you have any questions about a particular tour, please feel free to reach out as we’re continuing as normal as possible here at the home office.

This special publication is all about Nebraska Football! We’re definitely looking forward to the Huskers’ upcoming college football season and I know you probably are as well! You’ll see all of our upcoming Nebraska Football tours, including our Nebraska vs. Illinois Ireland 2021 tour which already has a large group signed up! If you are at all interested, we encourage you to sign up as soon as possible as there is currently very limited availability. Our Nebraska Football tours are year-after-year some of our most popular and we know you’ll have a great time with many like-minded fans and plenty of camaraderie! Go Big Red!

In his letter, Joey tells a story about a special memory he associates with Nebraska Football and challenges you the send in the same. We’d love to hear from you! And finally, our Discover the Difference page highlights Tour Director Vicki Allen, who loves her job and leaves an incredible impact to those she meets on the road.

April’s Moostash Joe Tours Monthly can also be found on our website under the “TOURS” tab, along with all of our previous monthly publications.

From the entire team here at Moostash Joe Tours, we certainly miss seeing you, our wonderful travelers and being out on the road, but we know this difficult situation will pass and we all will be stronger for it. Your health and safety will always be our top priority and we look forward to continue to discover the wonder and majesty of God’s creation very soon.

Testimonials

“We have been on two tours with Moostash Joe Tours and have really enjoyed them.” (Grand Canyon by Rail, 2025) – Doug & Jo, Belleville, KS