Put-in-Bay, OH

On Monday, Morty crawled the short distance to Catawba Island for the ferry to Put-in-Bay. I was last there in about 1948 at the age of 4 on a day-trip with my grandmother. Some vivid memories of that trip: an all-day affair from Cleveland and back again; time for just an elevator ride up the tower and walk back to the ship; she packed butterscotch brownies; I was asleep by the time we were back in port.



There are two competing ferries, a longer faster one which would have cost $120; and a shorter slower one which runs more frequently and costs $26 for 2 round trips. This is what competition is all about, I think.

This trip up the tower was our first opportunity to get the Senior Pass from the National Park Service for lifetime free admissions -- pretty good deal.

We had been seeing ads for the best lobster bisque in the state. So we went to the Boardwalk Cafe and tried it out. It was indeed wonderful -- must be the fresh local lobster right out of Lake Erie. We rented a golf cart for the day and covered just about the entire island. Stopped for a dish of Buckeye Delight icecream before the trip back.

When we returned to Morty, his map had one thing to say: the distance to the next campsite is not much different from the distance home. Also, staying in Ohio Parks was getting painful to be reminded that if we had our Golden Buckeye card, the daily fees would be cut 50% from Sundays to Thursday -- something to remember for the next go-list. So that was it for this trip. We are now home for a spell, trying to catch up with the backlog of mail etc.l

East Harbor St Pk, OH

Morty is spending a second night at East Harbor as all the working folks depart for Monday jobs. The beach area had a little activity this afternoon as the locals gathered to clean the beach and party a bit.



There are some rocks in the park which showed extensive parallel grooves as the glaciers moved over them millions of years ago. Although we have some of both Cleveland and Toledo TV, we had no afternoon football. We spent quite a bit of the afternoon hiking around the lagoons and shooting pictures of the geese, ducks, swans and egrets. Better for our photo fans.

Thinking about a stop at Findlay St Pk tomorrow.

The Henry Ford

Morty took us to the Henry Ford Museum on Saturday. This was the second time there in 49 years for Jim. The only things remembered from the first trip were the big trains, and the camping vehicles -- oh, and the breaking away moment of that first trip without family. How's that for fading memories. Maybe this time the pictures will help the memories more.



One of the more evocative displays was the street car -- "Rappy" -- like the one I rode with my mom from Shaker to Downtown Cleveland. Usually they ran a more modern version, but during rush hour the older models were used. One time separation anxiety set in when I exited on the way home and Mom was blocked by standing passengers. She rang the bell on the cord frantically to get the driver to stop again.

After a brief visit with our friend, we drove a little over an hour to Lakeside, OH and East Harbor State Park. We did little after that, except for a little wine and cheese followed by a bite of dinner.

Hope I don't get flagged for excessive uploading with this batch of pictures.

On to Dearborn

Friday dawned cloudy and cooler, so Morty drove a bit further to be in position to spend Saturday joining up with an old friend at the Henry Ford. We made it to the Dearborn area around 3PM as the skies cleared and temperature rose.  We even switched on the cab air conditioner for the last few miles.

We picked the closest campground which turned out to be the Wayne County Fairgrouns. The first drawback was that they were hosting a couple of dog shows and had only 20 amp sites available -- no problem, it wasn't hot enough to require the coach air conditioning. The deal that wasn't mentioned was that they are improving the road around the campground, grading and rolling the dirt/stone mixture. Most likely only a small inconvenience, except that they started this process at 7PM, and are still at it as of this writing -- 9:45 PM -- HUH?

We meet our friend at 10 at the Henry Ford. Should be fun.

East Tawas City

Stayed for another day -- it's just too pretty and comfortable. Had the 99 cent breakfast at Mulligans: two eggs and bacon strips with toast -- wow! Went biking through town and found the forest on the north side. Then found the road out to the point where the Coast Guard and lighthouse are situated. This put the bike miles on this trip well over 100. Got some pretty good pictures with my little camera.

The pavement painters came through in the late afternoon for the campgrounds roads. We got a straight ahead arrow in front of us and a left turn arrow behind us right into our side. Might be time to leave, before someone follows the second arrow literally.



Had dinner at Ginii's again: pork chops and fish and chips -- excellent and very reasonable again. Walking back to the campground, we noticed the gulls all over the beach suddenly get agitated and take off. Then we look up and see a huge blur through the gap in the trees. Then a moment later it comes back and, wow, bald eagle. Got a picture, not a great one but finally something to remember it by.

What's in a name?

Our Mortimer Turtle was named in a dream.

From Straits St Pk, MI UP

Yet, there seems to be a precedent from the Land to the North and Paul Bunyon:

The Original Mortimer Turtle

East Tawas City Park

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 emerged as cloudy, windy and cooler, so as we finished up our 99 miles down Route 23 to Alpena, we decided it was the perfect day to extend another 60 miles to East Tawas. This was right along the shore of Lake Huron, and was a very pleasant drive. The unusual name's history is explained on the city's web page.

Yesterday's neighbor, mentioned this place as "required" stop on Morty's sashay South. Why East Tawas City Park? It's also pretty unusual: very few open sites, even though hardly anyone is around this time of year -- meaning many people pay full freight to keep their choice spots; full hook-ups including free cable TV; right in the heart of the city -- next to restaurants, Wal-Mart, and fast food of all types; right on the Lake Huron beach; great bath houses; lovely shaded sites; low cost; no reservations -- you can keep your site as long as you pay for it. It's as if they were using the city's capital resources, without having to earn a market rate of return -- oh wait, that is the deal here. Great for the happy campers, not so much for the good citizens of East Tawas. Maybe the business that is brought to town is the clincher -- it would be interesting to see the actual numbers. The Wikipedia entry  has no mention of the campground.



Dinner was at Ginii's Family Restaurant, practically next-door. We were tempted by the fresh local fish, but ended up with oriental -- Moo Goo Gai Pan, and Thai Pad shrimp. Both were very good, and extremely reasonably priced. I guess we need a little more courage to go with the local specialties, due to recent experiences. Mulligan's on the main downtown street looks to be the place for a 99 cent breakfast -- also on the list of the former neighbor.

Now were ahead of the daily mileage curve. We're targeting Grosse Isle south of Detroit for a Saturday meet-up with an old friend

Straits St Pk, MI

Retracing much of his route to the northwest, Morty reverberated to the southeast reaching repose in Straits State Park overlooking the Mackinaw bridge.

We passed a couple on bikes about 30 miles out from our destination. I remember them because one had a Meijer traffic yellow vest on. I was surprised when they took the campsite across from ours.



We parked next to a friendly couple from Ann Arbor, who told me about the secret bike route into the town of St. Ignace -- one that avoided the most severe hills. That was great, but it still had me in the granny gears that I hadn't used in years. From the town, the view of Macinaw Island and the Grand Hotel was superb. When I got back, he was ready with packed of brochures on all about getting to and exploring the island.

He recommended a campground in Tawas City, which we will make tomorrows alternated destination since it is 160 miles down Route 23. If that proves too far, we will stop at Alpena which is right at the 99 mile benchmark.

Munising City Campground

Busy travel day! We left McLain Park early still hungry for some McDonald’s breakfast. This put us on the same route we used getting there. With breakfast in hand, I tried to find a Wi-Fi signal to upload the last couple of updates. I found the one I used last time, Pasty, but it wasn’t strong enough to work. No wonder, being named after the local specialty, most find once is enough. We went across the road to Wal-Mart and had the same situation. There was a motel behind the shopping center, so we went there. Found a signal named “moyle11”. I know what a Moyle is but couldn’t figure how it was associated with a motel. The signal was awesome, did the updates and even the stock and options. So then we left for our next destination, Pictured Rocks. Turned the first corner, and saw a weather-beaten sign for “Moyle’s Sand and Gravel”. Thank you Mr. Moyle for the great connectivity.



Pictured Rocks is a National Lakeshore. I knew nothing about it except that it was on the map and some highway singage, oh, and it was the right distance from McLain and in the direction of home. As we were getting close, we noticed a National Parks Service Information Center, so I wheeled in there to get the campsite info – not a typical, but still pretty good move. The roads to the national parks campsites are all at least 12 miles of gravel, and good chunks of those are closed for construction. This was on the eastern edge of Munising. As we came into town form the West, I noticed this commercial campground, so I asked about it and the notoriety of the pictured rocks themselves. Well, the campground would be the best alternative for someone like us who were finished driving for the day. The Pictured Rocks can only be seen from the water, and the boat cruises were just ready to leave, but the fare was $33 and would take the rest of the afternoon. We headed for the campground, and passed up the boat ride.

The City of Munising Tourist Park Campground is a very interesting place. It appears to be municipally owned. It was unattended at our arrival at 4PM, so pick a spot and leave your money in an envelope! The views of Lake Superior are outstanding. The Internet is free and open. The utilities are fine. The rates are as good or better than the state parks. The brochure/guide is slick and professional. The showers and lavatories are clean, hot where needed, and supplied with soap, just a little shabby in the building department. It’s just that the roads and most sites are very dusty and gravelly. Oops, too pessimistic maybe?

This evening’s sunset was spectacular. Every time I thought it was played-out, Lynne pointed me in an new direction, and my camera kept grabbing marvelous pictures. So we kept on taking pictures, and I now have 135 pictures of Munising sunset of 9/14/09! In the old days, that would have been four rolls of Kodacolor and processing -- costing over $80 in the 70’s.

McLain Day Two

Took some star pictures last night, and got another meteor. I wonder what the odds of that are?

From McLain St Pk, MI UP

Been marveling at the construction of the chair/table conbos along the beach here. They are in some of the pictures. Perhaps the objective was to make them heavy enough to withstand the storms. Whatever the reason, their massiveness and craftsmanship must be admired. There’s a full 2 x 4 frame around the seats, extending out the back; another frame around the base with a stringer across the base and six legs for each seat. If only they were a little more comfortable, they would be the ultimate seating solution.

Well, it just goes to show that if you praise a thing too highly it will turn on you. The weather today started foggy, and just as it looked like it might dry off, it came rolling right back in. Then our view of the lake and horizon, was cut in half by a 40 foot rig pulling into the site next to ours. I guess after some people pay for one of those monstrosities, they are too low on coin to afford a suitably glamorous camp. Well, at least it is good bike riding.

Just learned that my class reunion is to be moved up to the 23rd. So this is making it look like we need to skip Wisconsin, and take the shorter route back through the Land to the North. Another factor is that the yearly permit is $35 in Wisconsin, and the one for this here state is already paid for. So will probably be headed for Pictured Rocks Nationals Lakeshore tomorrow.

Later in the afternoon the ferry to Isle Royal did appear in the fog as it sailed out to the island – got a picture, but not a great one.

McLain State Park, MI UP

Morty scrambled out of the screwiness of September trick-or-treating early on Saturday with about 60 miles to go including breakfast. Breakfast looked easy when we saw a couple of McDonald’s billboards about halfway out. We saw a burger king, but no further clue about where the golden arches were. As breakfast closing time was drawing nigh, I turned to Madam Nuvi, and she had a suggestion that required only a slight deviation in our course. She got us there, but too late for the breakfast menu. We couldn’t help but think that her route was too long, but that was just our tummies talking trash.



We traveled through the mining towns of Houghton and Hancock, deep in their valley, with mining shaft buildings high on the hills just outside of town. All the best views were captured in beautiful stained glass right in the McDonald’s dining room – quite an experience, even though we were eating an early lunch.

McLain State Park is delightful. We have a spot right on Lake Superior with a 180-degree view of the lake on the horizon. Warm days in the 80s and nights in the 50s. It is so nice we are extending another night. Lynne likes that there are two full soap dispensers in the lavatory; just that she finds the showers a little cool.

Chatted a little with a family staying in one of the cabins. I had my big camera out, and was just sitting on the cliff over the shore. He had a bigger Nikon – D700 with extra battery handgrip and flash mounted on a tripod – some very serious hardware. I couldn’t get him to show me any of his photos, and he wasn’t too interested in what I had been doing -- photo envy averted. He did say that earlier, before our arrival, they saw the supply ship returning from Isle Royale National Park. I hope the ship makes the return on Monday for us to see, but from what I read on the web, the normal trips aren’t that frequent.

I am wondering about the spot where the sun will set. It may just miss the water from where we are camped -- if so, then I’ll have to bike around the point for the good angle of sun into water. The solid stretch of great weather has really been something to behold. We have had a magnificent high-pressure zone stay with us for the last two-plus solid weeks. You couldn’t have ordered it up any better than it has turned out.

We watched a little fishing boat make its way from the east horizon to the west. Just as it came abeam our location, we could make out a massive swarm of seagulls, around it. In itself, not too unusual, but then the gulls began to move out ahead of the boat. Seemed very strange, since, presumably, there would be no extra fish activity in advance of the boat. Maybe some more experienced fishermen can help me understand what this is all about.

Van Riper State Park, MI UP

On Friday, September 11, 2009 Morty meandered from the South side to the North Side of the Upper Peninsula, about 115 miles. I had expected the roads in this very sparsely populated and remote area of the state with a pretty severe winter climate to be below par. But I am really surprised to report that they are indeed in prime condition – smooth ribbons of asphalt with no potholes or frost damage. In Ohio, even the interstates are not in as good condition. Morty just loves being able to cruise along at 60 MPH with no hassles at all, and he shows it by increasing his gas economy to 9.8 miles per gallon, a pace he has held since departing Cheboygan. I’m thinking he deserves a switch to synthetic oil to encourage this improving performance.



Getting into Van Riper campgrounds had a few difficulties. Seems that someone made a reservation for tomorrow instead of today. Fortunately they still had a couple of open spots when we arrived around 3PM. The ladies at the check-in were no better than I was at reading the tiny on-screen print of this notorious system, which continues to charge a 36 % premium for making a one-night reservation. The grumbling on this point continues.

This park is famous for being in Moose Country. This was the locale of an airlift of entire moose families from Ontario in 1985. They are thriving just a little northwest of the park. I set out on bike to spot some, but ran out of decent biking trail before the moose ran out of habitat.

The reason for the full park this weekend is the celebration of Halloween. Wait, you say, that holiday is still seven weeks off – but we fail to realize that in terms of parties, decorations and developing traditions, this is now our most important holiday of the year. Here at Van Riper, the celebration – including trick-or-treating -- runs for three solid week-ends at the end of September. That’s ideal then for everyone to pull up stakes and take the celebrations home for the month of October – what could be better?

Sunsets were again quite photogenic so several are in the picasa album for you. The lake here is Michigamme. If you, like I, thought that was a football game with the Buckeyes at the end of November, you now have a new piece of knowledge.

Indian Lake, MI Stayover

The highlight of today, Thursday, September 10 was the fly-over of bald eagle. We were standing against the fence at the top of the lake shore, admiring the solitude, when our second bald eagle swoops overhead -- and me without a camera.



Well, here are some after dinner pictures of the campground -- Indian Lake Travel Resort. A spot that we highly recommend. The birds are seagulls.

In some bizarre radio wave propagation phenomenon, we had a TV signal from the station in Traverse City yesterday afternoon, but nothing later in the evening or at all today. All the better to work on the blog.

Indian Lake, MI

We are spending a day relaxng and enjoying the perfect weather, or doing laundry, depending on your point of view.

It's pretty interesting to see the stream of campers coming in to give this lady a big end of season boost -- all due to the construction in the state park across the lake.

We also enjoyed the Wi-Fi to get the old emails into the blog. Also turned out to be a fairly active day of trading stocks and options with just eight days to go until the expiration of the September contracts. Was glad to have the fast data connection for that, it would have made me crazy trying to do it all over the cell phone.

Tomorrow, we head for Van Riper state park, about 90 miles to the northwest. When I looked on-line, it said all but two sites were already reserved, so I paid the crummy reservation fee again, and repeated it for the next night at McClain on Lake Superior.

At least, we will be all fresh and clean now.

Indian Lake, MI

We want to head North from Cheboygan, right over the Mackinaw Straits Bridge, but our navigator lady says to head South.  After many fretful minutes, I finally discover that she is avoiding tolls. Since we were hitting so many of them on the prior trip to Oshkosh -- going through Chicago -- I had “optimized” her instructions. So now, instead of arriving at 2PM, she was assuming we wanted to take the long way around Lake Michigan and arrive at 2AM – not exactly how my program was reading. Once that little instruction was rescinded she and I were on the same page.

We stopped for lunch in Mackinaw City. Lynne had wanted to try a pastie – a local specialty she had been encountering in her reading -- and so went with the beef variety. It was okay, but I really don’t see how every restaurant, from there to here in Thompson – 90 miles --on the UP, justifies proclaiming that they have PASTIES in four-foot high letters! Maybe the one we tried was sub-par. It was in town, and the sign for “pasties” was only one foot high. Some judgments, I’m just not qualified to make.

After a fairly long drive to Indian Lake – the one in The Land to the North, not in Ohio – we arrived at the State Park only to find them closed early for the season to do some construction. So we drove around the lake to the first commercial campground. We found a nice one, with about the same costs, but more amenities – not including huge state park grounds. So, I am doing some laundry while writing this. And the real Wi-Fi will make it much easier to upload and edit the new blog that I’m working on to incorporate most of these emails.

Next objective: heading further north to Lake Superior.

Cheboygan State Park, Tuesday, September 6, 2009

We stopped at Scarborough’s Whitefish and Chips, as we pulled out of Petoskey. Now we know how they can afford to close for the holiday – frankly my dear, they are quite greasy, undersized and overpriced. You can see a lot just by watching, as the great Yogi says.

All of the sudden, Lynne’s floating knee cartilage is acting up, and slowing her down in a major way. Here’s hoping that this is just a temporary thing. She seems a little better this evening.

A milestone from a couple of days ago, was the epic crossing of the 45^th parallel as Morty negotiated his way North. This of course is noteworthy, because it is exactly halfway between the equator and the North Pole. Consistent with the ceremonies associated with crossing the equator, Lynne donned a crown, trident spear and flowing white beard and forced me to drink the swill and do the limbo walk – at least those were my fears.

We stopped at Wilderness State Park as our original destination, but couldn’t find the campgrounds; in fact we did find a sign proclaiming “NO CAMPING.” Later, Lynne gave me a pen and told me to cross out the bullet in the state brochure that indicated “Modern Campground.” Plan B then was to go on an additional 30 miles to Cheboygan.

In the good omen department, we stopped in the center of town to gas up, and spotted a bald eagle doing low loops right over the town. We looked for a supermarket type place to replenish the frozen dinner department, without avail. On the state park and its bullet for Modern Campground – finally success. This is a lovely little spot on a Lake Huron bay. Only a half dozen campers in the whole place. We can see the bay from our bedroom window. Got a picture of a great blue heron and some frog earlier in the afternoon. The camp billboard devotes an entire side to the local bear population. Not sure whether to take that as a threat or not.

Petoskey Sunset

We wanted to avoid the Labor Day scramble home, so stayed a second day in Petoskey. Slept late, had a bite to eat, then biked to the ranger station to extend our stay. Lynne went to try out the showers, and managed to eake out some warm water. After yesterday’s cold, her plumbing luck still leaves a lot to be desired. My showers on both days were so hot, I had to turn down the temperature.

We saw a Scarborough fish and chips shop advertised in the campground map that claimed to be open seven days, so we biked on over. Would it be a story if the handwritten sign in the window didn’t notify all its would-be customers that they are closed on Labor Day? So we hit the deli next door and made do, including cookies for dinner’s desert. We rode back to Morty, and I headed back out on the bike to the airport to see the great “get out of Dodge” exodus. 

My instincts were right on. All but one of the big planes, and most of the lighter ones, were getting ready for the arrival of their VIP passengers. I rode back and forth on the path along the runway and had a great time second-guessing all the preparations. This is one of those rare airports that have not yet put up massive security around the perimeter. In fact some folks were riding their bikes on the taxi ways, and in and around the $20 million planes. Something tells me that these days will soon be over.

I rode up to a pilot who was killing time sitting on a picnic table. He told me that the plane I thought was a Gulfstream was in fact a Bombadier Challenger 300. So I guess there were no super mega stars here after all. It sure was one sweet flyer though. Every time I thought there was a lull in the action, another crew showed up and began more activity. So it was that I would spend nearly two and a half hours just riding up and down the path fantasizing what it would be like to be going up today. Then a chap shows up and pulls his gyro-copter out of a trailer and fires up the little snowmobile engine and he takes off, right behind the jet of the pilot I was talking to earlier. This gyro-copter was so small, it held only the pilot, and provided only a nose and windshield and rudder. – no doors, body, or wings. I was expecting this to give new meaning to the term “wake turbulence” but he got her up in a shorter distance than the jet required. So by the book, that was sufficient to avoid the problem. Still, if it were me, I would have given it a few more minutes.

Lynne has a plan for tomorrow to allow us a stop at Scarborough’s for fish and chips. We will leave later and travel less. Accordingly, I picked Wilderness State Park at the very tip of the LP – only 30 miles.

Petoskey Stones

Maybe we are the last to know, but Petoskey is famous for its stones! This is one of a very few places, where you can walk the beach and find stones made up of coral animals that lived millions of years ago. Every winter, the storms and ice push up a new load of the beauties onto the beaches of Little Traverse Bay right at the  shoreline of Petoskey.

The stones are hard to find, because the markings are very subtle, but when they are wet, they are a little bit more pronounced. The most sought after are honey-comb patterns of hexagonal organisms. But you can also find random fossils from the same period of various shapes and sizes.

Lynne and I spent several hours Monday morning looking for said stones, without a bit of luck. A couple of ladies from Toledo took pity on me and each gave me one of her lesser finds. So I need to photograph them and put the results up for you to see.

Petoskey State Park, MI

On Sunday, September 6, 2009, Morty pedaled further north to Petoskey. This took us through Charlevoix. Someplace else I might have heard about, but nonetheless was unprepared to experience. Every inch of highway 31 through Charlevoix was lined with a dense planting of petunias – pink, red, white and purple -- unbelievably beautiful and fragrant. The only negative was that the town was vamping to the tourist trade in a major way, and that significantly reduced its appeal for us. That, and the fact that traffic forced into one lane through the heart of the town’s tourist traps, crawled at less than walking speed.

Petoskey town was by comparison, wonderfully understated and elegant. Every highway seemed to have a bike path, both in and out of the town. Bikes using said paths, were a major abundance. Lakefront cottages, reminded me of the type of locales described in Greeley’s novels -- lots of atmosphere and ambiance just begging to be soaked up.

The campgrounds are right on Lake Michigan, just a short walk from the dunes and very clear water and mixed sand and pebble beaches. The locale is five miles north of Petoskey town, and five miles south of Harbor Springs. I biked north along the beach road in search of the local airport whose traffic I had noticed. The cottages in this area were even more impressive than the town’s. The airport, though, blew me away. The bike path took me right along the runway and up to the apron and FBO. Parked there, were several transient jets, including the usual mixtures of Pipers, Cessnas, King Airs, and even a Cessna Citation, and a big Gulfstream.

There’s no TV signal at all here at the campgrounds, and the cell service is marginal enough, that I can’t upload my narrative or pictures. At least we had a lot of entertainment watching a 35 foot trailer being parked in a site built for a much smaller unit, right across from us. First from one direction, then from the other. Inch-by-inch in amongst the trees, and dunes. Clearances measured in fractions of an inch were routine for this guy. He finally did it, but it was something to behold.

Sunset over the lake was again a marvelous experience. Maybe you’ll like the pictures.

Orchard Beach State Park, Michigan

Relentless in his determination to make it to the UP, Morty went further north on Thursday, September 3, 2009 to Orchard Beach. We could have stayed longer in Muskegon, but now have an impromptu mini-class reunion date in Painesville OH on the 24th, so excessive dallying is now not on the program.

Lynne made breakfast, and generally got us ready to clean up and hit the road. This process exposed some peaches with bad spots that were just purchased yesterday.

And that was all it took to put out a general quarters alert to all the fruit flies in two and half counties. We promptly disposed of all suspect fruit at the sanitation station on the way out of the park, but that still left about three dozen or so fruit flies who now thought of the bathroom as their weekend get-away. We tried opening the bedroom window as we drove to encourage them to look elsewhere.

As the anxiety over the propane indicators grew, we finally passed a dealer who was open and pulled in. A couple of ladies in the office, said that there was no one there to work the equipment - all the men were out training - but another dealer was just a couple of miles up the road. So we found the second dealer, with even more office personnel holding down the fort. Here there was also an operator, but he was occupied in selling a furnace to an extended family that all seemed to be present and mightily involved in the buying decision. So it was nearly a half hour wait for that sale to be completed. I busied my self with a damp dishrag mass extermination of fruit flies that had set up housekeeping in our little bathroom. The little buggers were inordinately drawn to the plastic mirrors, and that made the process pretty easy. In any event, the flies were mostly dispatched by the time the propane pumper was ready to pump. Our six-gallon tank, that was indicating both 3/8 and 2/3 full on the exterior and interior meters respectively, took 3.9 gallons. That leaves 2.1 gallons left in the tank. This means that the accuracy award goes to the exterior indicator since 2.1/.375=5.6 while 2.1/.66=3.2!

Before the propane anxiety could recede adequately, reservation anxiety was taking center stage. The new campground had space available for only one night. So we picked a spot, and settled in, then promptly got online to find a site for the beginning of the holiday weekend. Must avoid the disgrace of camping in the Wal-Mart for the holiday. Our first choice, Traverse City, was full, so we tried Interlochen.  Success, we had to book two nights, and pay a slightly exorbitant reservation fee of $8, but that job also got done. So now it's fairly certain that we will be at that park on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Cell phone service here comes and goes, so there is some question about when we can post this update. At least we are not stranded here, not that there's any thing wrong with that. Today's beach walk was awesome; it was down about four stories of extremely steep stairs from our campsite.  The sand was brown and rough, with extremely many pebbles to keep your feet on their feet. The pictures are fairly accurate. The water was mostly very clear, certainly not what you expect of a lake in which the water comes, and doesn't leave for over 100 years.

Turns out the fruit fly campaign was less successful that initially thought. Lynne, though came up with the ingenious solution of using the handi-vac to suck them up to release on the outside. Now we are making real progress...

Interlochen State Park, MI

Leaving Orchard Beach, we wanted to stay in the Traverse City State Park, but it was booked solid for the holiday weekend. Instead we got a spot at Interlochen about 15 miles to the southwest. So Morty instigated a trip to Interlochen -- a very interesting park that adjoins the Arts Center. I suppose I’ve heard of this as the origin of some classical music festivals, but never paid it any more attention than that. Biking through the arts center is really an experience, especially when it is about ready to partially close for the season. The buildings must number in the hundreds, with large lake front amphitheaters, visual and theatrical arts centers and so much more. You can look it up yourself here: www.interlochen.org .

The drive up was an easy trip through gently rolling hills on country roads, with very little traffic for any day, much less a holiday weekend. Interlochen is between Duck Lake and Green Lake, along with a tiny town, and dense woods. The campgrounds were huge. The beach had signs warning that “swimmers itch” might be present, so one should towel off thoroughly! If that’s the remedy I say “no harm, no foul.” This campground even had a store, but when we walked through it just before its 9PM closing, things were pretty shabby. Our campsite was even a little larger than usual for the state parks of the land to the north.

Since we were staying two nights, we called some old friends from Ohio, and popped in for a visit after lunch. On the way we stopped at the Tuscan Bistro for a bite. I had the spaghetti fruiti di mare and Lynne had a flank steak panini. Both were outstanding. Our friends were in a Traverse City retirement apartment and making a great go of it. I guess we hadn’t realized that this new locale placed them right at the crossroads of their family’s comings and goings, and so they enjoy a constant stream of nieces, nephews, and grandkids.

On the way back to the campground, we stocked up at the local Meijer. One weird thing we’re noticing is that unlike Ohio, every item is price stickered. That must really do bad things to their operating costs in the age of the bar-code scanner. In Ohio, if the customer needs to check the price, he has to find a remote bar-code reader. These little items are non-existent here, as far as we can tell.

Still in the grips of the final summer holiday weekend for camping, we gritted our teeth and made another $8 on line reservation for the state park at Petosky for Sunday. Just as well, too, because there were only three spaces available.

Interlochen State Park, MI

Leaving Orchard Beach, we wanted to stay in the Traverse City State Park, but it was booked solid for the holiday weekend. Instead we got a spot at Interlochen about 15 miles to the southwest. So Morty instigated a trip to Interlochen -- a very interesting park that adjoins the Arts Center. I suppose I've heard of this as the origin of some classical music festivals, but never paid it any more attention than that. Biking through the arts center is really an experience, especially when it is about ready to partially close for the season. The buildings must number in the hundreds, with large lake front amphitheaters, visual and theatrical arts centers and so much more. You can look it up yourself here: www.interlochen.org .

The drive up was an easy trip through gently rolling hills on country roads, with very little traffic for any day, much less a holiday weekend. Interlochen is between Duck Lake and Green Lake, along with a tiny town, and dense woods. The campgrounds were huge. The beach had signs warning that "swimmers itch" might be present, so one should towel off thoroughly! If that's the remedy I say "no harm, no foul." This campground even had a store, but when we walked through it just before its 9PM closing, things were pretty shabby. Our campsite was even a little larger than usual for the state parks of the land to the north.

Since we were staying two nights, we called some old friends from Ohio, and popped in for a visit after lunch. On the way we stopped at the Tuscan Bistro for a bite. I had the spaghetti fruiti di mare and Lynne had a flank steak panini. Both were outstanding. Our friends were in a Traverse City retirement apartment and making a great go of it. I guess we hadn't realized that this new locale placed them right at the crossroads of their family's comings and goings, and so they enjoy a constant stream of nieces, nephews, and grandkids.

On the way back to the campground, we stocked up at the local Meijer. One weird thing we're noticing is that unlike Ohio, every item is price stickered. That must really do bad things to their operating costs in the age of the bar-code scanner. In Ohio, if the customer needs to check the price, he has to find a remote bar-code reader. These little items are non-existent here, as far as we can tell.

Still in the grips of the final summer holiday weekend for camping, we gritted our teeth and made another $8 on line reservation for the state park at Petosky for Sunday. Just as well, too, because there were only three spaces available.

Muskegon State Park

On Wednesday, September 2, 2009 Morty motored on to Muskegon where he found another state park campground right on the inlet to the Bay from Lake Michigan. Another intensely beautiful venue! We walked down to the beach on the Bay from our campsite, and found that it connected to the inlet and more than a mile of walkway on the break- water.

We saw lots of ducks and swans and people fishing from the docks and boats. The biggest surprise was a big fish that was in the jaws of an eel or snake jumping out of the water in an apparent attempt to free itself from a death lock. Four jumps was about it before the ferry from Milwaukee plowed through the inlet disrupting everything in its path.

Wine and cheese was out in the 5 o'clock sun in the recliners. Then a couple of calls to check up on the family. Luckily we decided to dine inside Morty. By the time we had finished we had a mini-swarm if fruit flies on the screen door. No small testament to the culinary skills of the chef. After dinner the moonrise was also spectacular, during which a lake-going barge weighed anchor and got pushed by its tug across the bay and out the inlet.

Tomorrow we may push on to Orchard Beach, or not.

The pictures tell most of the story.

Ionia Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Monday night was clear for sky photography with a nearly full bright moon that overpowered a lot of the other things to see. I did get a couple of decent pictures, one with a little meteor streaming through the shot.

Today we hiked the woods, and just experienced the perfection of  this place. We rode our bikes downhill the couple of blocks to pay for the second night, and Lynne returned, while I rode on halfway around the lake to the beach. The hike around the southeast quadrant of the lake was unusual because we saw almost no birds or animals except for a family of mute swans on the lake. This was nearly two hours, out and back. Of course the fact that we set out at high noon, when most forest critters are on siesta could have been a factor. We went as far as the destroyed bridge over Sessions Creek. Although we could have forded the creek on stepping-stones and bridge fragments, there would have been over two more miles to go vs. the one mile of return. The most interesting pics were of the fungi.

Then just the old routine, of recliners in partial shade until the wine and cheese tasting, followed by showers, and a light dinner. We walked the campground at sunset, and noted that nearly half of yesterday's population had departed for other venues.

The new pics are in the same Ionia folder as before.

The nest two destinations look like Muskegon, and Orchard Beach:

http://tinyurl.com/mva5z5