The Camping Thing

It’s not often we do the camping thing, where we park at a camp site, build a fire, and spend the evening around the fire.  We are usually on the go, parking somewhere only to crash for the night, leaving right away the next morning.

We’re taking Zhen on an overnight kayaking trip on the Pine River, since experiences are about the only thing we can give him that won’t come back to us the next time he moves somewhere.

So Zhen gets to experience our brand of slow travel.  He marveled that it took over six hours to reach our camp site near Manistee, when he could see from Google Maps that the driving time is about two hours.

We managed to leave at 10am.  Weather was sunny and cool, looking for a high in the upper 60’s today.  We borrowed a kayak from Sue and Dan and I managed to strap it on the back with the others so we didn’t have to carry it inside.  It snuggled up rather nicely on the plywood platform I built for it.

We drove up US-31 and made all our usual stops...

Ice Box Brand Ice Cream Bars.  We loaded up the freezer with such flavors as Fancy Pants Raspberry and Green Dragon.  Fifty dollars worth of ice cream and a full freezer later, we were on our way again.

Country Dairy. We arrived here about noon and made lunch in the parking lot.  We then had ice cream cones for dessert.  We also picked up a bundle of asparagus at the nearby Lewis Farm.  Something to grill tonight.

The Daily BakeHouse in Manistee.  Source of some fantastic breads.

Alpine Chocolat Haus.  A favorite for some of the best chocolate around.  We picked up several morsels for later.

We then walked the river walk to Lake Michigan and back. The wind coming off the lake was rather chilly, but it was a pleasant walk.

It was a short 20-minute drive to our campsite for the night, at the Marzinski Trailhead.  This 19-site campground is deserted except for a single camper, so we had our choice of sites.  It’s supposed to cater to horses, and there is a horse trail here, but there are no signs of recent horses.  We had driven through here before and made a note of it, now we are actually staying here.

Again, it only took us six hours to get here and Zhen could now see why.  We just enjoyed a lot of stuff along the way.  Usually food-related.

Doing the camping-thing, we built a fire and made campfire quesadillas for dinner.  A simple thing to prepare, but, oh-so-good.

Looking at this area from above, it’s easy to see how this area made lumber barons rich.  The forest stretches away for as far as the eye can see.

Great campsite, beautiful evening, and we are enjoying the nature around us. 

Zhen working on his blog