Home Again

Today was mostly a travel day.  Today dawned clear and cool, a couple degrees cooler than yesterday, feeling more like September than July.  We finished up the bacon for breakfast, took our last walk around the campground and a mile or so down the bike trail, and headed south.

Vanderbilt, Michigan, is a wide spot in the road about 15 miles south of the campground on Old M-27.  It holds the record for the coldest recorded temperature in the state of Michigan when it reached −51 °F in 1934.  We drove through it, just to say we’ve been there.  And it really wasn’t much.

We took I-75 south into Grayling, a town named after a fish.  The Arctic Grayling was abundant in the Au Sable River and in much of Northern Michigan until large-scale lumber operations wiped them out.  Attempts since then to re-introduce the Arctic Grayling in the area have largely failed as other species of sport fish have been introduced which compete for food.

But we didn’t come for the fish.  Deb saw a thrift store she wanted to visit.  However, when we got there, it was closed, with a sign on the door saying that the closure was due to a mandatory staff meeting.  Maybe next time.

We took M-72 west towards Kalkaska and then US-131 south.  At the roundabout near Fife Lake, we decided to eat lunch in Fife Lake because we drive by it all the time but have never been there. So we found a community park overlooking the 600-acre lake and had leftovers for lunch.

We stopped in Cadillac for fuel and a couple more thrift stores.  Sometimes you score something at a thrift store, sometimes not.  This was one of those “not” times.  Goodwill is always hit or miss, this one was a miss.  Prices here were high for a thrift store and the judgment of those who curate the donations sometimes leaves us scratching our heads.  Prominently displayed in this store was a pair of jeans for eight bucks that really needed to go in the dumpster.  I mean really needed to go in the dumpster.  While rips and holes are fashion these days, this one would just be totally inappropriate.

We stopped downtown at the farmer’s market which turned out to be more art fair than farmer’s market.  One venue was something I’ve never seen before.  A woman was standing on the sidewalk with a large drum oriented horizontally, held off the sidewalk a couple feet by several legs.  There were perhaps 5 people laying on the sidewalk on blankets and pillows with their heads under the drum.  This woman was drumming softly in an unrecognizable rhythm.  Occasionally she would  strike some other percussion instrument, such as a set of chimes.  Was this some sort of sound therapy?  Some sort of mystical thing?  Audio message?

The rain curtailed any additional stops so we drove straight home from there.

Total miles traveled: 728  

More Fun on the Sturgeon River

 Today dawned clear and chilly, 48 degrees chilly.  It’s hard to believe that it’s the middle of July.  We layered up in jeans and sweatshirts as we were having breakfast, as it was down to 57 degrees in the RV.

The day warmed up rapidly and by the time we were ready to hit the river, we had removed all the layers except for a light long-sleeved t-shirt and swim trunks.

We spotted a bicycle at Burt Lake State Park and drove back to the campground, where we put in. This was the same spot where we took out yesterday, so today is a continuation of that trip.

The first mile or so of this section of the river is very swift with Class 1 and Class 2 rapids almost continuously.  I didn’t take any pictures as I was too busy keeping myself upright, and from being driven into the trees by the strong current.  I took on some water through one particularly large drop in the water.  Deb stayed dry by shooting this one to the left of where I did, but she had her turn later on when a sharp turn drove her against a log and almost rolled her over.  This same location did in another group just ahead of us where two of their four people ended up in the drink. Deb rescued one of their paddles that had gotten away.

I did manage to shoot a video clip through one set of rapids. This one was fairly straight and not as fast as some of the others.  At the end, though, I had to paddle furiously as I was about to run into the river bank and some low hanging branches.  Unfortunately, this platform will not allow me to upload a video, so you'll have to ask me personally for it.

In all, we spent 3.5 hours on the river and covered 12 miles.

The Sturgeon River has joined the list of my favorite rivers and is probably near the top.  It is fast, challenging, fun, and it parallels the North Central Bike Trail which made it super convenient to get back to the RV.  Definitely worth coming back to.

I took the bike trail back to the RV and drove back to pick up Deb and the kayaks.  While we were in Indian River we stopped at Cross in the Woods, a Catholic shrine which boasts the world’s largest crucifix.   We’ve visited some of the other World’s Largest so-and-so and I think we’ll start documenting these.  Other’s we have been to are the world’s largest hand-dug well and a few others which we did not write down.

We also stopped at a place selling fish in Indian River and picked up a couple pounds of fresh whitefish.  It’s been a while since we’ve done a fish boil so that is now on the docket for the very near future.

Back at the campsite at Haakwood we made dinner of Park Nark Beef, mashed potatoes, green beens and watermelon.  There’s a story behind Park Nark Beef which goes all the way back to 1998 on a road trip to Canyonlands, Utah.  You'll have to ask me about it.

After dinner we took a 21-mile bike ride south on the North Central State Trail, enjoying the coolness of the evening and the lengthening shadows.

Fun on the Sturgeon River

 I’m always up early in the morning so I was up but Deb was still asleep when the RV next to us fired up their generator.  There were four RVs parked overnight here, despite the slope in the parking lot.  Must be high-season.  Many times we’re the only ones or there may be one other RV when we boondock at a Cracker Barrel.

Since we had to get groceries and fuel anyway, we left and parked in the Meijer parking lot to make breakfast.  Nice not having to listen to someone else’s generator.  I don’t even like listening to my own.  It’s one of the reasons I added the solar panels and all the electronic gizmos--so we don’t have to use the generator.

One other benefit of the slow travel we have been doing: better fuel mileage.  By taking the backroads and byways instead of the interstate, we got just shy of 18 miles per gallon.  If we take the interstate, we’ll do about 14.  With the price of diesel fuel at six bucks a gallon, every little bit helps.

After loading up on food and fuel we drove to Hull Park in Traverse City to take the bikes out for a spin.  The Boardmen Lake Trail runs all the way around Boardmen Lake and we joined the other bikers and dog-walkers in a circuit around the lake.  There was a gathering of kids on one end of the lake getting instructions on sailing as we went by, and later on we saw them all out on the lake, trying their hand at sailing while an instructor in a small motorboat motored about and yelled instructions/encouragement.  Looked pretty cool with all those little sails plying about the lake.

We also biked over to a thrift store that Deb spotted on the map.  I came away with a Up North Michigan T-shirt and Deb found a small planter that she really liked.  She wanted to go to additional thrift stores but my bike bags were full and we needed to get going to our next destination.

Next stop on the tour was Haakwood State Forest Campground.  This was to be our home base for a couple days while we kayaked the Sturgeon River.  It was a bit of a drive to get here so we didn’t have a lot of time to explore once we set up camp.  So we kayaked a small section of the river, putting in at the county park in Wolverine, and taking out at the Haakwood campground, a distance of about 2.5 miles.

The Sturgeon River is swift, unlike the Crystal River of yesterday.  It only took about 45 minutes to do the 2.5 miles of river.  And what a ride!  Forward progress is taken care of by the current, our job was to steer clear of the overhanging vegetation along the sides and the occasional tree trunks in the water.  There were several sections of rapids, and Deb shipped some water at one of them. The only pictures I have are of some of the calmer areas, as I didn’t want to lose my phone attempting to photograph some of the wilder areas.  This would be a great trip for the BFMR group.

We managed to find the takeout point because I had pinned the location beforehand on my phone, otherwise we would have surely missed it.  The water was moving so fast that we wouldn’t have recognized it.

I rode back on my bike to retrieve the RV and we made dinner at our camp site.  We then took a bike ride on the North Central State Trail, ending up in Indian River, 8 miles up the trail.  We stopped at Burt Lake State Park to check out tomorrow’s take-out point.  We plan on putting in here at the campground and taking out at the state park, which is probably somewhere north of 10 miles of river.

On the way back, Deb was actually willing to step up to the next speed level on our e-bikes.  20 miles per hour.  She thinks it’s cheating, but there was ice cream waiting at the other end, so she was willing to cheat.

When I retrieve the RV after kayaking, I always use the top speed. 28 miles per hour.  It shortens the travel time and is a lot of fun doing that kind of speed on a bicycle.

A Day in Glen Arbor

We left our spot overlooking the Flexible busses and continued on M-22 north through Frankfort and on towards Empire.  Just before descending the final hill into Empire, Deb spotted a sign: U-pick cherries.  We drove the 1 mile off-route to a beautiful (and apparently quite popular) farm where they were selling cherries.  They didn’t have any black ones, but they had yellow cherries and red ones.  We came away with a couple pounds of yellow cherries which the guy claimed were sweeter than the red ones.  Deb doesn’t think so, but I like ‘em.  Made for some good eating while we were picking.

When we drove past the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb, we were surprised by the line-up of cars slowly making their way into the parking lot.  The line even stretched out onto the main road, which delayed us a bit because several cars in front of us wanted to turn in also.

It was the same way in Glen Arbor.  Tuesday morning and the place is packed with people.  We managed to drop off a bicycle at the Crystal River Outfitters, our take-out point and then drove to the launch point at the Crystal View Trailhead.  The parking lot there was really only meant for cars, but I managed to squeeze the RV in a single parking space and we launched the kayaks in Crystal River.

Crystal River is shallow, relatively slow, and with the lack of rain in the area, below normal levels.  Probably for these reasons it is billed as a ‘family-friendly river.’  Tip the boat over and you will be in ankle-deep water.  A life vest would just be unnecessary baggage.

Still, the river is crystal clear (hence the name) and meanders through some beautiful wooded land mostly devoid of any development.  For the most part, we managed to avoid grounding the kayaks on the bottom, and when we did, using the paddles as poles to push the kayak was usually effective.  It was busy and we had to navigate around some groups of people who obviously had little experience in operating a kayak.

There are three portages, the first around a dam, and the other two around culverts under the road.  The first  culvert is large enough to fit a canoe and most people “shoot the tube”, and run right through the culvert.  We did too.  Kinda like whitewater rafting: most of the trip is slow but there are a few times of brief excitement.  This was the whitewater of this trip.  The water was low enough that the kayaks made a loud grating sound on the corrugated culvert.  And just like that it was all over.

When we reached the take-out point, I rode the bike back to the RV and then drove back to where Deb was waiting with the kayaks.

We put the kayaks back on and took the bikes off and rode the Sleeping Bear Heritage Trail for about 10 miles north.  We’ve been on the southern part of this that runs pas DH Day Campground and the Dune Climb, but have never taken it north.  This was a nice ride on paved or hard-pack gravel that winds through land managed by the National Park Service.  Other groups are trying to preserve and restore some 360 old buildings, mostly farm buildings and we stopped at one that was actively being worked on.

The guy there was repairing squirrel and mouse damage to the farmhouse, which has been converted to an interpretive center.  The coordinator for Preserve Historic Sleeping Bear was there also, and, even though it was after hours and the building was locked, she let us in for a while to view the exhibits.  We talked with her for almost an hour and heard all about the preservation efforts and interactions with the National Park Service.

We rode further on the trail, eventually turning around because it was close to time to eat.  

Since we were going to turn inland and away from Lake Michigan, we chose a spot to eat that overlooked the lake.  At the end of Bohemian Road (County Road 669) is a lake access.  In fact, the road literally ends at the lake.  This was far enough away from the crowds that only a few people were here.  I’m sure not many people know about this place or care to drive this distance to see this little gem. 

We made dinner here and then walked the beach for an hour or so, enjoying the cool breezes and the sound of the surf.  Deb found a Petoskey stone.

Leaving Bohemian Beach, we drove to Traverse City, where we stopped for the night in a Cracker Barrel parking lot.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 36th wedding anniversary.  What a cool thing that we could do some traveling over our anniversary.   We also planned a special dinner at Watervale Inn for this occasion.  More later.

We woke up this morning without much of an agenda.  Meander north, stop at a few places, perhaps discover something.  About the only plans were for dinner at Watervale at 6pm.  Since that was less than 50 miles away, that left us a lot of time to wander.

We were tooling north on US-31 when Deb did here usual Turn Here, and pointed down a road we were just passing.  She does this a lot.  My job then was to bring nearly five tons of hurtling mass to a safe stop and turn around in the middle of a two-lane highway.  But I did just that, and rather admirably, I might add.

Deb had spotted a small brown sign that said “Magoon Creek Preserve” and decided we needed to check it out.  She has this radar for little brown signs and can probably spot them from outer space.

So we arrived at Magoon Creek Park, which was not even listed on our detailed map and it turned out to be a gem of a place with some very walkable beach and some great views of the Lake Michigan coastline.

We walked the beach for a while and found our next beachfront property.  This was right on the water and had a commanding view of the lake.  The front door was a little small for tall people, however.

We exchanged a few texts with Paul and Cindy, Alex’s other grandparents, asking them if they had been here.  They had, and they also invited us to come up to Manistee to join them on a beach walk.

So we drove through Manistee (we were going that direction anyway), and stopped at their cottage on Bar Lake.  They took us to Lake Bluff Farms, a preserve situated on a bluff above Lake Michigan that boasts a wide variety of flora and fauna including three giant Sequoia trees, transplanted from California in the mid-20th century.  Some very interesting trees, would love to have them on my place but not patient enough to wait the 100 or so years to grow them to that size.

We walked the beach for a while, talking and skimming stones, enjoying the wind and the waves.  This was entirely unplanned but worked out great on a day that we had very few plans.

We made a quick lunch in a parking lot in Manistee before heading north again.  On the north side of Manistee we made our usual stop at Townline Unlimited Bargain Barn and picked up some items there.  While we were there, we ran into Paul and Cindy again.  This seems to be a pattern; third time this trip we have run into them.

As we were going through Onekama on M-22, Deb did another Turn Here but this time I was only traveling at 25 miles per hour and the traffic was lighter.  The destination this time was Glen Park, which had some mineral springs.  This was just a short hike to a small stream and the springs that fed it.

We stopped at the beach access in Arcadia and watched a kite surfer do his thing.  Pretty good wind coming on shore and he made kite surfing look easy.  Almost easy enough for this 60-year-old to give it a try.  Then again, maybe not.

Next stop was the usual stop at the overlook on M-22 just north of Arcadia.  Love the view of the coastline and the occasional stretches of the highway that can be seen through the trees.  There’s a reason this is a favorite route for many, including myself.

Also stopped at Arcadia Bluffs and hiked to the overlook that is supposed to have a view of  Baldy dune.  Unfortunately, the vegetation has grown to a point where the overlook only offers a view of the lake itself.  Someone should cut down all those trees.

We arrived at Watervale Inn just before our scheduled dinner time of 6pm.  Watervale was a lumber town built in the late 1800’s. The lumber mill went bankrupt in 1893 and the town was abandoned.  The town was purchased by Dr. Kraft in 1917, who worked to restore the abandoned and falling-down buildings and opened it up to guests.  The town is still owned by one family and serves as a gathering place for groups and families in an idyllic setting on both Lower Herring Lake and Lake Michigan.  I don’t think they advertise anywhere, Deb found this quite by accident a few years ago.  We tried to make a reservation back then, but found out it was Pritchard week, and the Pritchard family had the entire place reserved.

We did manage to get a reservation for today, on our anniversary, and now we were here to enjoy a good meal.

A lot of people have been coming here for years, and are on a first-name basis with the staff.  We felt a bit like outsiders, but the staff was friendly and helpful and we enjoyed our time here.  Summer is busy here and the place is usually full up, but they squeezed us in, literally, in one of the porch dining areas next to a family of about a dozen or more people who were celebrating Molly’s birthday.  We’re probably in some of their pictures because we were sitting almost directly behind Molly.

The food was excellent, and despite the birthday party, it was a very pleasant setting.  Definitely recommend if you can get them to squeeze you in.  Just don’t come during Pritchard week.

Our boondocking host was located just about 10 minutes from where we were and we arrived here at just after 8pm.  It was raining lightly, but we talked to Dan for almost an hour.  They all have interesting stories to tell, and Dan was no exception.  On his place we could see a couple of 1969 Flexible Buses (think Greyhound), which he travels in during the winter months.  “That one there is my parts bus,” he said, pointing at the green one. “I bought that one in Hudsonville, Michigan for $2000.  I sold a few parts off of it for $2000 and it supplies parts for the one sitting next to it.”  A third bus, not visible behind the barn, is his latest one that he is outfitting for off-grid travel.  He has added all the amenities, including solar and an office area in which he can operate his graphic and and sign business from anywhere.  He usually lives off-grid in Florida during the winter, and works 70-hour weeks here near Frankfort in the summers.

Seems we had a bit of excitement back home also.  I got a call as we were walking with Paul and Cindy.  I almost didn’t pick up, not wanting to be distracted.  It was the neighbor across the street.  “Just want you to know, there were some loud bangs last night about midnight, and they weren’t firecrackers,” she told me.  The apartment complex across the street was swarming with police and detectives this morning.  Apparently some buildings had been hit, just not mine.  My phone rang again about a half hour later.  It was the Ottawa County Police department.  The neighbor had told them that one of my security cameras points in that direction and he was asking if I had camera footage from last night.  The shots were fired from about the mailboxes in front of my house, and they were looking for any clues.

I can access the camera footage remotely, however, cell service is not always reliable enough to download two hours of 4K video.  I did manage to view a couple small sections of the footage and there probably won’t be much useable stuff there.  The street and the mailboxes are too far away for the infrared night-vision lights to pick up, so all that area is just pitch black.  So they may not get footage until I get back at the end of this week.

There’s some strange things going on at one of the apartments across the street.  We were sitting on our front porch a couple weeks ago and watched as someone was arrested.  And the cops have been there once or twice before.

Not the kind of excitement you want to see in your neighborhood.

Kayaking Ludington State Park

Today dawned bright and clear and cool--it was 55 degrees in the RV when I got up.  I was tempted to turn on the heat but decided to just layer up instead.  After breakfast we headed back to the state park for some kayaking, first in Lost Lake, then in the Big Sable River below the dam.  Despite the busy-ness of the weekend, the lake was almost deserted except for a few fishermen.  We paddled about the lake for a while, enjoying the breeze and the perfect temperatures.

Back at the boat launch, it was getting quite a bit busier. The campground takes a bit to wake up but eventually gets there.  We made up a lunch and then put the kayaks in the river below the dam and paddled towards Lake Michigan.

Again, a leisurely paddle, relatively quiet.  There were a few people on the beach by Lake Michigan but still surprisingly un-busy for being shortly after noon on a Sunday.  We sat in the kayaks and ate our lunches, enjoying the sound of the surf of Lake Michigan and watching a large family of ducks try to stay together in the waves and when disturbed by boys playing in the water.

We took a walk along the beach and one of life’s difficult questions started nagging my mind.  There has been a significant die-off of alewives this year and as we stepped over thousands of their little carcasses, I began to wonder: why do all the alewives that are right along the water’s edge face south? The fish all die pointing in the same direction.  Why?

We paddled back upstream to the dam, put the kayaks back on the RV, and headed out.  By this time, the parking lot was full, the beach was full, and as we drove by the river over the bridge, we could see that our place where we left the kayaks to go on our beach walk was full.  An early start definitely means less crowds.

Turning north again, we headed towards Noordhouse Dunes, hoping to disperse camp somewhere along a forest road.  Deb read a couple guides that suggested Green Road.  Some sections of this road were accessible by RV, others, not so much.  We took the suggested section of the road and arrived here at our dispersed campsite with a lot of daylight to spare.  This is a great camp site, lots of room, and some good trees at the right distance to hang a hammock.

We took a walk down the road a little farther and noticed that it narrowed considerably and the vegetation hung lower over the road soon after our campsite.  Our RV probably wouldn’t have made it much farther, so we picked a good spot.  In case we ever want to come here again, the GPS coordinates are 44* 6’ 16” N, 86* 24’ 3” W.

I’m sure if we would have come here on a Friday or a Saturday, there would be nothing available.  Here is one of the advantages of not being tied to a W-2 job: we can come on a Sunday night or a weekday when everyone else is working their W-2 jobs and have our pick of the campsites.

We made dinner of chicken salad and grilled peppers, with a few cherries that Jill had given us yesterday thrown in the salad.  We may be camping, but we generally eat like kings.  For dessert, we had cheesecake with chocolate ganache and a few strawberries left over from Abigail’s birthday party.

We took our bikes to the beach access and walked along this beach for a while.  Here, another of life’s vexing questions came up:  Can those who own dogs read?  A large sign sits at the entrance to the beach access steps which says Dogs prohibited in swim area.  As we got down to the swim area, we could see that nearly everyone down there had a dog, sometimes more than one.  I know that dogs can’t read but it seems like many owners can’t either.

After a walk on the beach, we returned to the bikes, took a detour through the campground just to see how busy it was and who was there, and returned to the RV for the evening.

A Great Day for a Beach Wedding

 Started out this morning by taking a walk around the campground.  We both remarked that it was surprisingly quiet here last night, for being a crowded campground, and our position and the wind direction made it so that we avoided most of the smoke that is so much a part of large campgrounds.  Overall, a pleasant night.

After breakfast (which included Nueske bacon), we drove to the pedestrian parking lot for the Silver Lake Sand Dunes and walked the dunes for a while.  We watched the ORV area for a bit and recorded a few for Alex, who is so into cars and things that go.

On the way out we drove past Grace Adventures, a place that is very popular with the SOWERs during the summer.  Then on to Pentwater which we discovered was raging busy because of an art fair going on.  No room to park at the state park so we managed to find street parking a few blocks away from downtown and checked out the art fair.  Lots of cool stuff made by local artisans that would probably look good in other people’s houses.

Since it was now past noon and we were getting quite hungry, we stopped at one of our usual stops, Bortell’s Fisheries, for lunch.  This is a little hole-in-the-wall place near nothing significant, but, as the lines can attest, is very popular.  Fish isn’t cheap--we dropped thirty bucks for a pound of fried lake perch, but the wait and the cost are worth it.  We parked at Summit Park across from Bortell’s to eat our catch.

Summit park is one of those relatively undiscovered county parks but today was very busy as there was a wedding that was soon to happen on the beach.  After finishing our lunch, we took our lawn chairs down to the beach and sat at the water’s edge with our feet in the water, enjoying the perfect weather.  We also watched the wedding happenings.  It was interesting watching them try to hold down the aisle runner in the stiff wind that was blowing. The ceremony started at 3:30.  I’m not sure it lasted even ten minutes.  But it was a great day for it and we had front row seats, sitting on the beach just a hundred feet or so from the gathering.

We had just left when we got a text from our Boondocker’s Welcome host, wondering what our ETA was. We stopped in the parking lot of a small church on the Pere Marquette Highway to see how far it was away from our current position.  Turns out it was less than a mile down the road so we drove down there and met the host.  Jill turned out to be a pleasant woman, a widow and former full-time RVer.  She still lives full time in her Winnebago Adventurer RV, parked on a concrete slab behind the cornfield on the place where she grew up, and takes off to Arizona for several months of the year.

Having checked in with our host, we headed towards Ludington, stopping at a couple thrift stores before ending up at the state park.  We made dinner with some leftovers that Deb had squirreled away in the freezer a couple weeks ago and then took a bike ride through the state park and the campground.  It’s always interesting to observe how other people camp.  We are the kind that are always moving, usually stopping at a place just to have a place to spend the night.  Others come to a campground in large groups and set up a site that looks like they will live there for years, with their outdoor kitchens and cooking appliances and camp games and gazebos.  Must have taken hours to set it all up.  Both are fun in their own way--we just gravitate towards the former when it’s just the two of us.

After a walk along the beach, we headed back to the cornfield.  Jill came out with a bowl of cherries and we invited her in for some cheesecake and some conversation.  We talked for probably an hour and a half.  Fellow RVers always have something in common and as a general rule are pleasant people with lots of stories to tell, and she was no exception.

Weather today was amazing--mid 70’s for the high, down to 55 tonight.  Good sleeping weather and it’s super quiet here.

The Start of a Michigan Road Trip

 We had originally planned on leaving tomorrow, as we had a dinner date with Mike and Bonnie St Amour, but those plans changed to a lunch date so we made sure we had the RV packed and ready to go for a quick getaway after lunch.  After a delightful lunch at Rush Creek Bistro with Mike and Bonnie, we managed to hit the road at about 3:00.

Our first stop is usually the Ice Box Ice Cream Bars store in Whitehall, but they closed at 3pm so we couldn’t load the freezer with delectable treats like we usually do.

Failing that, we went on to Whitehall and stopped at the Goodrich park right on White Lake and made some sandwiches for dinner.  We then  got the bikes out and rode the Hart-Montague Bike trail to Country Dairy, a distance of about 13 miles one-way.  Country Dairy is another must-stop when heading North on US-31, as the ice cream and the bottomless chocolate milk is the stuff of legend.

We were just getting on our bikes to leave when we heard our names coming  from a car at the drive through window.  It was Cindy and Paul, Alex’s other grandparents, out for a drive and a snack.  We talked to them for just a bit and then headed back to the RV.

Next stop, Silver Lake State Park, where we had reservations for the night.  We took the route past Stony Lake, just for old time’s sake, reminiscing about all the times spent at Camp Ao-Wa-Ki-Ya.  We also enjoy the drive through the Michigan countryside.

We stopped at the Sable Lighthouse to stroll the beach and watch the sunset.  It was dramatically cloudy earlier in the day, but by now it had all but cleared out, with a small band of clouds on the horizon.  But I tried to make the best of what clouds I had and took a few pictures.