Today we had a plan. Early start (8:00 a.m.), drive 60 miles to Muskegan, go see two attractions, drive 60 more miles to Ludington. And it pretty well worked. The neighbors next to the Brundiges and the Johnsons kept them up partying most of the night, and then they didn't sleep even after the neighbors got quiet, so they were all tired today. Dave was up at 4:00 a.m. showering, Marilyn said she was awake from 2:00 to 4:30, so that makes for a long day, no matter how early we quit.
We had a little confusion to start with. Dave and Mazie left early and stopped at the grocery store. Collins and Marilyn had already dumped and pulled out too, but we pulled out at 8:00, right on time. Dave and Mazie didn't see us go by, so after we fueled, we were waiting on them and they were waiting on us. But we finally got all together in the right traveling order and made it to Muskegan about 9:30. It rained again during the night and was overcast when we started out, but it eventually cleared off and got up into the 80s, and a bit more humid. One thing about all the rain -- Joe has only been on the ladder washing the windshield once since we left Florida. Guess we need to look on the bright side.
Our first excursion was the USS Silversides Submarine Museum. And once we got near Lake Michigan, we were in heavy fog -- could barely even see the beach and the water we were driving alongside. We did see about a dozen turkeys on the side of the road just before we turned onto the shore drive. We haven't been on many submaries and this is the most famous surviving one from WWII. She sunk more ships and damaged and took down more tonnage than any other surviving WWII submarine.
Torpedo tube.
Torpedo.
Up Scope. Joe and I both looked through the periscope to check out our perimeter.
There was also a section on paratroopers, and I thought of Uncle Marlin's role in WWII, since we had just talked about that last night with Jan.
Dave served in the Navy and was a radio operator, and he found one here on exhibit similar to what he used.
This museum had inside exhibits but we also got to tour the ship. And you could see the fog still hanging over Lake Michigan.
There's a little white boat in this fog.
We climbed up and down a lot of "not very user friendly" stairs today, through some hatches.
When we got off the ship, I caught sight of a little board floating, loaded with ducks. Looked like they were all out for a sail.
We next toured the Coast Guard Cutter docked right beside this submarine. We couldn't get in all the rooms on this one but we were able to see quite a bit of it.
One of the exhibits was a model LST, with the top deck loaded with equipment. Joe came back from the Dominican Republic on one of these ships, bringing all of their construction equipment back to North Carolina since they had been ordered out of that country. They encountered a hurricane and lost a lot of equipment overboard. (Joe's bulldozen was down in the belly, so it was safe.)
We finished this tour, had lunch in our RVs, then headed over to the next tour, an LST like the model we had just looked at. Our GPS didn't give us the best directions to this museum, and we missed the turn. We tried to catch David before he too passed the turn, but we didn't get him quick enough. And when he tried to make the U-turn to come back, he didn't have enough room and had to unhook the car in the street, holding up one lane of traffic. But they finally got through the turn and caught back up with us.
When we walked in, Joe spotted his "water buffalo weapon" mounted on top of a jeep.
This USSS LST 393 took American soldiers to Omaha Beach on D-Day. It was 5 restored decks with lots of artifacts and displays, and we could walk in most parts of the ship including the engine room, wheel house, galley, berthing area, etc.
Joe took over the wheel, then let me have a turn. Seemed to me that there was an awful lot of boat in front of the steering wheel.
We got out of here and headed up the road to Ludington. We pulled into Kibby Creek Campground about 4:00, and were set up by 4:30. We had driven 120 miles today, so that was a little more progress than we have been making. We bought gas today for $2.599, not great but we have paid more.
Just before we got to the campground, we saw a sign for the Jam Farm (on our list but we had decided not to chase it down -- turned out to be just a mile from us here). And we saw a sign for fresh cherries too, and a winery. So once we got set up, Marilyn, Collins and Mazie took off to check all that out. We followed shortly after, but we skipped the winery and instead drove toward the beach. But we all bought some jam, and cherries. And Marilyn bought rhubarb. We tried the jam with dinner and it was yummy (blueberry lemon). And Marilyn invited us over for dessert after dinner -- an apple-blueberry pie she made yesterday during her down time.
The campground is like a city park, grassy spots, a pool, miniature golf, volley ball.
And a little train for the kids to ride, made out of 55-gallon drums. They went right by the RV, sounded like the ice cream truck.
We saw it parked in the roundhouse later when we took a short walk. Collins is our train man and he's trying to figure out how to get a ride on it. He missed it today so he may have to stay over tomorrow night.
We are all parked next to each other, Looks like people are walking toward the office so I'm thinking maybe they show outdoor movies once it gets dark (somewhere around 9:30 I think). We will all be asleep by then, I think. In fact, Joe just headed to bed and I'm not even sure the sun has gone down (9:15 here).
I said today that this trip has become "planes, trains and automobiles" although we were on the waterfall kick for a while. And I guess I have to add ships in there too. Our plans tomorrow are to take a lighthouse tour here, then move on up the road about 100 miles. We are On The Move!
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