Day of Rest

 8-30-2021 - Monday

Today was a visiting day -- and a much needed day of rest.  Joe went with Collins over to a sawmill here in town to get some lumber -- that was the reason Collins had come to this town.  He had gotten some wood here a couple years ago, and wanted to see if it was still available.  The sawmill was no longer giving it away like they had been, but they did give Collins some.  He had brought a battery-operated 7 1/4" skill saw to cut the boards down so they would fit in the back of his pick-up, and mission accomplished.

While they were gone, Marilyn and I got to catch up.  We needed that.  When the guys got back, Joe and Collins started working on the cord that goes from the motor home to the tow vehicle on Collins' RV.  The lights have suddenly stopped working on the tow vehicle, and they were trying to track down the source of the problem, but they had no luck.  Collins will probably head to Camping World in Ishpeming in the morning to see if they can look at it.

Joe noticed yesterday that there is a bear trap right behind this camping area -- must be bears in the area!!!  I've been watching.

Eventually we headed into town for some lunch, and found a great little restaurant.  We got there just before they closed at 2:00, so it was a late lunch.  The restaurant had raffle tickets available to win this beautiful coffee table -- Collins bought some and is fully expecting to win.  

They had a few gift items.  I took a picture of these bookends as a model for the big rock Joe carried to the Jeep Saturday.

When we left the campground, there was a big truck hauling logs going past on the highway.  I didn't get a picture of that one, but we saw another one in town -- Joe said these trucks are called "doubles" with multiple axles. 

When we got back to camp, the guys opted to take naps, so Marilyn and I walked over to the casino to redeem our free money and drink coupons.  When we came back to the RVs, we started our card game.  After the girls won, we went over to the casino and played for a while, while the guys got their free drinks.  Then we came back and played one more game of Hand & Foot.  (The girls won again.)

We quit about 10:00.  It was a good day, fun times to be with our friends again.  The day was beautiful all day, cool, cloudy in the morning but cleared off in the afternoon, about 72 degrees.  We will head our separate ways tomorrow, but it was great fun while it lasted.

Meeting Up with the Brundiges

 8-29-2021 - Sunday

Today was our day to move on, to meet Collins and Marilyn in Baraga, Michigan.  I got up fairly early and did the laundry, then when Joe got up we went into town for breakfast and a grocery stop.  While I was waiting for the laundry to finish, I shopped the office/gift shop a little.  I didn't buy anything but there were some pretty neat items that I liked.

First was a clock, which I had heard chiming.

This is a kitchen towel - I love the saying on it.

This little picture of a camper is made out of rocks.

I loved this blanket, and the saying.  It is probably too warm for Arizona, though.  I know Brenda would like it.

We like this campground and area so much that Joe went over and got information for monthly rentals, in case we would decide to come this way next year and spend a month or so.  Something to think about.

Check-out time was 12:00 and we barely made it.  We only had to drive 58 miles today, and we arrived at our casino campground in Baraga about 1:20.  There was a little process for checking in, which was pretty mickey-mouse.  We drove by the row of campsites, pulled into a parking spot and picked out number 10 for us, and 11 for Brundiges.  We went in to get registered.  The clerk said we had to go get parked in the campsite, then come tell her which one.  Joe said, "number 10."  She repeated that we had to go actually get parked in the campsite first, because otherwise, someone else might come and park in it while we were registering, then we would have to change everything.  Joe got pretty aggravated with her, but we drove back around to the RV, and I dropped him to "park" while I went back in to register.  She had also mentioned that check-in time wasn't until 3:00 and she had rooms to go check.  So when I got back, she was out checking rooms, so I just waited.  When she got back, I started the registration process and told her number 10.  She said someone was in number 10.  I said, no one was there, we were in it.  She looked again at her cards and said someone was registered there.  I repeated that no one was there and we were parked in number 10.  She walked over to the door and looked out to verify that we were the ones in number 10.  So she finally registered me and gave me a tag to put on the post.  

We barely got set up when I looked up to see Collins' RV out my front window.  I had parked the Jeep in their spot so no one else took it before they got here.  We hadn't expected them for 2-3 hours because they had a lot further to drive than we did, but here they were.  Marilyn ran into the same situation as far as registering.  She told the clerk number 11, and the clerk told her they had to go get parked, then come back to register.  Marilyn said, "if I told you our friends parked their Jeep in number 11 so no one else would park there, would that make a difference?"  The clerk grumbled a bit, said they don't usually do that, but finally agreed to let Marilyn register.  So they got situated, we visited, I fixed dinner for all of us, and we started playing cards.  

Suddenly, someone banged on our door.  I got up and went to the door, and this man said we were in his spot.  I told him no one was in this spot, so it was our spot.  He said he had been here for several days, and this is the second time that someone had taken his spot while he was gone.  He had left nothing in the spot, and there was no tag on the post.  But the clerk had said there was someone registered in number 10, so I wasn't sure what was going on.  So I told him we would move, then I headed over to the registration desk to sort the problem out.  Meanwhile, the guy parked on the other side of us suggested we ask him where his tag was because sometimes squatters come in and just take up a spot.   So Joe and Collins walked over to his pick-up (all he had was a pick-up with a camper shell on the back, no camper) and asked to see his tag.  Well, it must have gotten ugly because he marched into the registration desk and told the clerk someone was in his spot, that he had been there several days, that he was registered but someone had stolen his tag and the person at the registration desk would not give him another one.  The poor clerk told him to calm down, she was trying to figure out what was going on, she told him she had looked out and there was nothing in that spot.  He told her there was no rule that said he had to leave something in his spot.  He said these two guys had "jumped him."  It went on for a little while, finally I spoke up and said the guys had just asked for his tag.  Finally, the clerk called for a security guard and we all went out to the campground (which is just the back row of the parking lot, but has posts with electricity).  We ended up moving, and the guy walked off, then eventually came back and moved his pick-up into number 10.  So now we are in number 6, no longer next door to the Brundiges.  It was all a big mess.

We restarted our card game, and went on to visit and play cards for the remainder of the evening.  It was fun to be with Collins and Marilyn again, even if it is only for 2 nights.  They are heading east, to Indiana, and we are heading west.

Our drive today was very windy, for us and for the Brundiges.  It stayed pretty cool all day, but no rain.  I did take a couple pictures of Lake Superior just before we got into town.  

After all that excitement today, we were ready to go to bed!!

GREAT GRANDPARENTS

 8-27-2021 - Saturday

Well, today's big news is the announcement by Cody (grandson) and his girlfriend Christina that they are going to make us great grandparents next February.  Not sure we are ready for that!!!  They just bought a house, so I guess they are going to start filling it.

We really like this campground, and surprisingly, it is not full even though it's the weekend.  I took some pictures so we can remember this is a good choice if we are ever this way again.

Today was another rockhounding day. As we drove by the park by the harbor, we could see tents set up and something going on.  We don't know if this is where the march is ending up, or a 5K, or something else.  But just past that area, they had an old car show going on.  

We were headed to Presque Isle park.  we had driven this with Dave and Mazie -- we walked out to some of the lookout points and Dave followed us with the car.  Fond memories of those times with them.  Dave is very ill now, and I know we won't be doing any of these kinds of trips with them again, so the memories are bittersweet.   Anyway, the water was pretty rough pounding into shore, had a little surf going.

t

This is right beside the ore dock that is still in use, but we didn't see any ships in today.  They used to bring coal in to the power plant  and haul ore pellets out.  But that power plant is now being demolished, so it’s probably just a haul out.  Later on today, we actually stopped at the railroad track outside of the plant and gathered a cup full of the ore pellets.

This park is a pretty drive, lots of people use it, and they shut it down to traffic between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. on Saturdays for runners and bikers.

We never really knew where to rockhound here, but we talked to a lady (fellow rockhounder) in Leland and she told us where to go, to the beach at the far end of this drive.   We stopped at the first parking area and could see rocks on the shore, but the steps down to them were way past safety. 

We also stopped by the lighthouse pier and could see there were good rocks there, so I told Joe I wanted to come back here.  I remember Mazie and I picking up a few rocks here, but that was before I was seriously into this hobby.  

Our next pullout was this pretty view.  There were serious boulders there, and no safe path down.

I did pick out a boulder in the water that I suggested Joe get for our yard.

But this was another cliff, and there weren't even good, little rocks here -- mostly big boulders.  

Here, a tree had apparently been uprooted, and the hole went clear through to an opening on the outside.

Joe walked down in one area to check things out, and ran into a couple people who told him where to find rocks here at that beach we are headed to.  It was good to get confirmation.

 We could see islands out in the distance.  I thought this might be a ship, but it was just a more distant island.

We found our beach, right at the end of this drive.  I thought it was Sunset Beach, but I never found a sign.  We got a good parking spot (which later became a big deal) but had to walk over a few boulders on the way to the rocks.  Joe started working on a little pile and then just sat down in them.

I dug one out (bigger) that I liked and told Joe we were taking it home.  He said it didn't fit in his scoop.

We stayed here about 1 1/2 hours, collected a goodly amount.  So when we got ready to leave, I went ahead and got the jeep and drove it to a closer parking lot (a guy eagerly took my parking spot) so Joe didn't have to carry my big rock so far.  As he was walking up this path, he ran into a guy working on a dinasauer1  so, of course, Joe struck up a conversation with him, then called me down to take pictures.  It turned out, the guy had built this dinosaur to be taken apart -- it was made out of wood.  each part was numbered, and he would hide the pieces in the nearby sandpile for kids to find.  Then it could be rebuilt.  He was now putting iron on the pieces so if they didn't get located, they could be found with a metal detector.  He said this was his pandemic project.

this is where the pieces get hidden.

Here, he is demonstrating how the head comes apart.

He said if there is another pandemic, he will make another one -- a different dinosaur.  He talked about one mother of 4 who had two autistic kids and how much they enjoyed this.

We left, got some lunch, then came back to the lighthouse pier to gather some rocks there.  They were getting ready for a wedding here by the water.  We started to park there but it looked like they were trying to save places for the wedding guests, so we made another loop and gave up our parking space.  After we finished collecting rocks here, about an hour, it looked like the wedding was either just starting or just finishing.

Joe took the scenic way home, down another road leading to Big Bay, but our gas tank was getting low and it didn't look like the road came out anywhere (it was beside "moose country) so we had to turn around.  When he stopped for gas, there was a sign there -- a sign of our times, I guess.

Who says we aren't an adaptable society!!!!  No more green stamps.

After we rested for a little, I suggested we go get in the pool -- something we haven't done all summer.  so we walked over to it (not very far).  We had forgotten there was also a hot tub.  so I wanted to get in it first.  I usually don't like hot tubs -- but I was aching all over so it sounded like a good idea.  we walked through the little gate, and Joe said, "there isn't even a handrail."   A lady in the pool beside this one responded, "that is the kid's pool.  the hot tub is over here."  Ooops.  We told her the kitty pool is probably where we belong.  LOL.

We got in the hot tub, which felt wooonderful to our aching muscles, and especially my back.  Then we went over to the swimming pool for a little while, then back to the hot tub.  But then it started thundering so we got out and went back to the rv.  It wasn't very long before it started raining, and it continued off and on all night, sometimes hard, sometimes with lightning and thunder.  

It was a full day and we were tired.  Fortunately we had leftovers from Mama Mia’s  so we didn't have to go out to dinner.  We were ready to take our ibuprofen and call it a night by then.

Arriving Ishpenny

 8-27-2021 - Friday

It was a brisk 66 when I woke up about 6:45 this morning, and very cloudy. But by the time we got on the road, the temperature had dropped to 62, and later it got down to 59 before it came back up into the 70s.   I took a short walk to see if I could see lights on the bridge since it was just breaking daylight, and I could -- although my viewpoint was blocked by trees.  

Today we headed across the U P to the Marquette area, actually we are staying in Ishpeming.  A lady we talked to on the beach in Leland told us about a spot in Marquette to find agates.  We had driven to Marquette when we were here in June but couldn't find any good spots to rockhound, so now we have a target.  I called two campgrounds in Marquette but they were both full, so we ended up in Ishpeming, about 15 miles away, for Friday and Saturday nights.  It's very difficult to find campsites on the weekends in Michigan, both Lower and Upper.

In the giftshop here at St. Ignace, there is a box of polished Petoskey stones.  She said the small ones had already been bought, so I was forced to buy a $10 one.  A relative of hers (brother, cousin?) finds and polishes them.  I think she called this "facing," where just one side is polished.  Anyway, I was certain I needed one for my collection -- a big one to go with the small ones we are lucky enough to find.

All we had to do this morning was unhook electricity, so we were on the way by 9:25.  It started raining shortly after I got up and rained off and on all day.  We took I-75 out of St. Ignace to hwy 123, then hwy 28 across. then we started jogging a little, across 94, 553, and 35.  Pleasant drive, good roads, might have had a  little tail wind.   This is supposed to be moose territory so we were on the lookout. Didn’t see any moose but did see a sign for bear bait, so there must be bears in the area too.  Didn’t see any of them either.  We had to turn the heater on through the Newberry area, (the moose area) when it was 59. The last little bit of our drive got pretty curvy, and we came into Ishpeming the back way, but that was all ok.  We got to the campground about 1:30.  This is another nice campground (Country Village), right off of Hwy 41.  Very roomy, clean, full hook-up, laundry, right in the town of Ishpeming.  

While Joe was hooking up to electricity, etc., I started vacuuming the RV, which desperately needed it.  Well, the vacuum got plugged up, and we ended up changing the bag and shaking out the filter.  Then while I was vacuuming the bedroom, Joe started fixing up our little apple cider vinegar/dawn mixture in little glass bowls for the gnats.  I pulled the sweeper too far, and the cord came out of the plug-in, knocking off one of the little bowls and shattering the glass all over the floor I had just vacuumed.  Made a little job into a big job, and neither of us were in too great a mood by then.

We went out for pasta tonight, very good at Mama Mia's, then drove to a rock shop called Tourist Trap.  We had stopped here before, and the owner comes to Apache Junction in the winter and belongs to our rock club.  They have some nice rock on display here.

Since I had bought the larger Petoskey stone this morning, I wanted to find out how they got them to shine.  The ones I had polished before never really shined much, and got ground away to much smaller specimens.  I learned they put some kind of finish on them, something like polyurethane but much more expensive, rather than tumbling them like I had tried.  They just polish one side.

One of the most impressive things here, I think, are the sets of bookends, to which I am partial anyhow.  I kept looking at them, thinking I have a birthday coming up, but couldn't figure out where I would put them to get the viewing they deserve, so I didn't start begging.  The picture of the first one doesn't do it justice -- it was pink all over, they were both beautiful, along with some others he had.

Another sample he had was hermatite, which he gave me a piece of when we were here before.  It is almost black, very sparkly.

There is a pretty unique gift shop attached to the rock shop, and I went in there and looked around but didn't buy anything.  Meanwhile, Joe walked the grounds outside and found a sample of slag from one of the mines in this area, I imagine the "blueys" we were looking for in Leland are very similar to this, since these pieces come from the same process.

So enough about rocks.  We left there, heading to the grocery store just down from the campground, but when we started to pull onto the highway, I spotted 2 deer straight across the road, so of course, the deer won.  We went down that road until it wound its way back to the highway (we were surprised), and we did see 2 other deer.  When we turned onto Hwy 41, we really didn't know where we were with regard to the campground, and we turned the wrong way, back the way we had come into town in the RV.  But that worked out, because we had seen a produce market and planned to go back to it, and lo and behold, there it was.  We stopped and picked up a few things, they had Indiana watermelons but they didn't say whose farm they were from.  We have been fighting gnats or fruit flies in the RV all summer, so I hope we didn't bring more in.  I washed everything we bought, so we are hoping.

So we just went back to the RV, have to try again tomorrow for the grocery store.  But our plan tomorrow is to go rockhounding for agates in Marquette, in Lake Superior.  Joe just read they are having a march in Marquette tomorrow for voters rights, so we may run into problems there.  I hope not, because I'm thinking this is probably my last opportunity for rockhounding on this trip.

Yesterday I calculated our RV mileage at 6,500 miles.  Today, I got the mileage out of the Jeep, and we are at 6,432 miles in it.  Lots and lots of gasoline!

On an unrelated topic, Joe's cousin in Virginia just won the St. Jude's House Give-Away.  We were told the house is valued at $525,000.  Now that is pretty cool!  She is a great person, and well-deserving.