Our trip from Cedar Creek CG to
Bailey’s was pretty and uneventful,
although the directions we had for getting to our next campground were very
poor and we went quite a ways out of our way because of that. We stopped at the
first Bowling Green exit that had a visitor’s center - their slogan: You don’t
get a second chance to make a first impression. It was Sunday afternoon, about
1:15, and they weren’t open. Oops – there goes that good first impression. We
wandered around, looking for a grocery store or bakery so we could pick up some
good bread. No Publix or Fresh Markets up here, I’m afraid. All we found were
Kroger’s (which we’ve really liked in the past) and Super WalMart. We tried
Kroger’s first and were really disappointed. They seem to have stopped carrying
the wide variety of brands they used to have and their bread is lousy – soft, no
texture, and tasteless. To make matters worse, they were out of ice! Their
machine was broken and management wasn’t smart enough to send someone to one of
their other stores for some. We put everything we had in our cart back and went
to Wally World – we knew not to expect much from the bread there and they had
everything else we wanted. We hadn’t eaten lunch and the directions showed it
was “just down the road” so we figured we’d grab something for lunch when we
got there and have dinner around 7. I really should have been smart enough to
realize we were in trouble when the directions began at a town that wasn’t even
in the new atlas we bought, nor was it on the map the state had sent us. It
turned out to be a nearly 40 minute drive to Baileys Point, and it didn’t get
better there. We had been put at a site where the water was in the back 40 and
in spite of having about 35’ of water hose, we weren’t even close to the
faucet. The electric hookup was on the wrong (passenger) side of the trailer
(most of them in that area were) and it was about 10’ farther than our cord would
reach. The site was barely wider than our RV (thank goodness Rich is an expert)
and once he backed it in (in one shot, I might add) the tongue of the trailer
was on the ground and it still wasn’t level.
We called the host and he found a beautiful site for us – right on the
water, power and water on the driver’s side and within easy reach, and almost
perfectly level, as were nearly all of the other sites in the A loop.
We had some delightful folks (Ed,
a retired law enforcement officer, and his wife) next to us for the last two
days we were there and Don and Jeanne, from Cedar Creek, came in unexpectedly
and that was a nice surprise.
All-in-all, and in spite of a completely
wasted day in Bowling Green (we had planned on visiting a distillery, which we
couldn’t find and the air museum, which we also couldn’t find) we really
enjoyed the time at Baileys Point (and no, none of the literature about it had
an apostrophe before the “s”).
The morning of the 13th
saw us on our way to the overnight stop in Anderson, IN. We ran into a traffic
jam around 1:30 – an upcoming lane closure 3 miles ahead. It took about 45 minutes
to travel the 3 miles to the closure and about 5 minutes to go the ½ mile
one-lane road. If it hadn’t been for several truckers working together to keep
the type A personality folks from speeding as far as they could before the lane
closed, it would have taken far longer. Too bad the state can put a couple of
troopers along the highway – they’d make a fortune on the folks who make
U-turns and fly up the shoulder of the road. Someday, maybe those folks will
realize all it does is make matters worse.
We pulled into Timberline RV
Resort around 5 that afternoon. It was a Passport America and Good Sam’s
Campground, so we figured we were pretty safe. It was not quite what we had
become accustomed to at the US Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds. The place
looked as though the owners had been going for “rustic” but really overshot the
mark! It looked like an old drive- in movie location – just lots of posts
sticking up out of the ground for sites (electric connections instead of speakers),
and a few trees. We were put next to an old, rundown Airstream that had weeds
growing up around it and there were old chairs piled up on the picnic table
next to it. There was paper littering the ground (it was faded out, and
obviously had been there for some time), and just generally run down. The
restrooms were very clean, though, in spite of the stalls not having any
latches on the doors.
The weather was beautiful – 62 degrees
at 8 PM, but it was so skanky we didn’t sit outside. We slept with the windows
open and it was 50 in the morning! We never unhooked, so shortly after a quick
breakfast, I loaded Dickens up (he was up his ramp into the truck like a shot
as though even he didn’t like the place!) and we were on our way to our next
stop: Coloma, MI.
We stopped at a Sam’s Club for
some groceries, and while finding the address online, noticed a Meijer (Meyer)
store that had a raving review about their produce department, so went over to
check it out. WOW! What a nice store. It’s about the size of a really big super
Wally World, but with the selection and as clean and neat as Publix, and the
produce department put Fresh Market to shame. Rich was thrilled to find nice,
fresh rhubarb for $2.49/lb! Needless to say, he was eating a stalk when we
drove away. We’ll definitely look for more Meijer stores on our travels.
Our new campground, Dune Lake in
Coloma, was another Passport America, and we were scheduled to stay there three
nights, to get us through the weekend, and ended up staying one more night. It
was different from the Corps of Engineers parks – not as well maintained and
the sites were grass, but it was beautiful. It is privately owned and the
owners are working hard to make it better. Rich did have a brief encounter with a mouse in the men's room and while
I was finishing up my shower today, a snake slithered in and those were
both firsts. They had a Father’s Day celebration
for anyone camping there – they provided BBQ chicken (great!), plates, napkins,
and utensils and we all brought a dish to pass. It was fun and a lot of folks
joined in.
One thing I’ve marveled at here
are all the flowers. They are beautiful – naturalized daylilies on the
roadside, Asters, Galardia, Hostas of all varieties, and lots I don’t have
names for. It reminds me of the first time I was in Canada, just north of New
York – there were more flowers there than I had ever seen. Big, beautiful
estates and tiny, old frame houses – it didn’t matter, they all had masses of
flowers.
While we were at Dune Lake, we
went to a festival in South Haven and I saw Lake Michigan for the first time,
found another Meijer store, drove to St. Joseph’s on the coast, saw the Lake
Bluff Park, which has all sorts of fun things to do: an indoor carousel, hiking
trails, interactive fountains, and all sorts of other cool. We drove up the
coast and stopped at the Rocky Gap County Park just outside of St. Joseph’s.
It, unlike many other Michigan parks, was free! We walked along the beautiful
beach, picked up some of the pretty stones washed up on the shore. We could see
for miles up and down the beach and only saw about 10 other people.
The most unusual things we saw were the dunes. We’ll see more as
we travel north in the state. Here comes a little information about the dunes
that I found on Michigan’s Department of Natural Resources web site: “Michigan's glacial history provides an explanation for the
formation of dunes. The Great Lakes dune complex is relatively young, in terms
of geological time. As recently as 16,000 years ago, Michigan was covered with
glacial ice thousands of feet thick. This glacial ice contained a mix of
boulders, cobbles, sand, and clay. During glacial melting, this deposit was
left and is known as glacial drift.
This glacial drift is the source of sand in most of
Michigan's dunes. The sands were either eroded from glacial drift along the
coast by wave activity or eroded from inland deposits and carried by rivers and
streams. Only the hardest, smallest, and least soluble sand grains were moved.
Waves and currents eventually moved these tiny rocks inland, creating beaches
along the Great Lakes shoreline.
Winds, blowing shoreward at speeds of 8 to 25 miles
per hour, begin to move the sand grains. The size of grains which are moving is
directly related to wind velocity larger grains require higher wind speeds.
These bouncing sand grains resemble tiny, skipping ping pong balls as they are
moved by the wind through a process called saltation. Colliding with each
other, barely a foot or two off the ground, they may meet a slight obstruction,
such as a clump of grass, which deflects the wind and allows sand grains to
drop. Thus a slight mound or hummock is created.
The wind continues to push sand
grains up the windward side of the dune crest, causing the dune to grow in the
downwind direction. Many sand grains continue moving and eventually roll down
the steep backslope. A dune is slowly being formed, and its continued growth
depends upon perennial vegetation, wind, and sand. Because dune plants act as
barriers to sand movement and hold migrating sand, they play a critical role in
the formation and stabilization of dunes.” Some of the dunes in the north of
Michigan are 450 feet high! The ones we saw today were about 40 feet, the sand
a beautiful warm tan color and lots of rocks, worn smooth by the waves. Can’t
wait to see and learn more.
We leave tomorrow morning for
Huron-Manistee National Forest where we will stay two nights – it’s near Ludington
on Lake Michigan. We’ll be there for two nights (no water or electric
connections) then we’ll go up to Sleeping Bear Dunes for two days, and then on
to the UP! We’ll be out of touch for at least Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
and perhaps for several days after that. Don’t know where we’ll go after that,
but we’ll let you know when we figure it out.
