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.

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

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...

Ann Arbor

On Saturday, Morty took us to Ann Arbor. Lots of traffic. Could they already be in session? No, not that much. We parked on South State St at a meter and a half, just about at the main entrance of the UM Museum of Art, and indeed the main campus itself. The collections and buildings were impressive, and I mean in a good way. Many permanent collections. Conservators and curators that obviously are at the top of their game.  Sadly, OSU has nothing in this league. Took way too many photos, so will share a few with you.  I still need to photograph museum exhibits in order to properly enjoy them. Without the picture, I forget 99% the same day -- of even what I really like. I also think that the pictures are better than the original in many cases.

Later in the afternoon, we headed further north to the land of Green and White. Pinckney Recreation Area Bruin Lake campgrounds is about three quarters full, but we are in a large quite corner that is still close to the showers so now everyone is happy - except for the fact that tonight it is too cold for showering. Once again, we find ourselves walking to the boat ramp and along the shore, but this is only about a twenty minutes of actual exercise. Well, we did cover two buildings including six floors of the museum for two hours of walking earlier.

Thinking about heading northwest now. Ionia rec area is about halfway to Manistee casino and commercial campground on the shore of Lake Michigan. We will stay at Pinckney until Monday.

By the way, if some of my wacky references are not clear, it's just me having fun. Anyhow, we're always happy to elucidate, as my younger sister says. Just ask.