Continuation of camping report, Sept. 2019

Leaving Onaway State Park and moving to Fisherman’s Island:

September 4th: 

In the morning the skies were gray and there were still whitecaps on the lake from the wind. This was our moving day, so we got up and got going. We’re heading over to Fisherman’s Island on the other side of Michigan.
We stopped for gas in Alanson and I walked across the busy highway 31 to a bakery called Dutch Oven Shops. Pastries! Expensive, but worth it. My favorite thing was the huge cherry turnover that was almost the size of half a cherry pie. Tim and I split it. I give it a 10 out of10.
A short while later we passed the Oden Fish Hatchery and turned around to go back and see that. Took the hike. Very enjoyable, made for visitors. Free. I recommend it.
Arriving at Fisherman’s SP, we found our site: #70 on the southern loop. Its incline didn’t look like much, but it was enough to make it difficult to level our trailer. We repositioned the camper twice before we could set it up. That’s my only complaint. Some of the sites are too small for a trailer, but ours was spacious enough. Only a few could be considered level. A short walk down a beautiful north woods path leads to the Lake Michigan beach. When I read up about Fisherman‘s island, the explanation was that, when the level of the lakes went down, the island became a peninsula, but I’m here to tell you that the island of Fisherman‘s Island is now an island again. As you probably know, Lake Michigan is exceptionally high this year. The camp ground is a beautiful forest with large trees and many white birch, my fav.
We were visited by a young raccoon that came inquiring about a possible meal? We politely declined. He didn’t seem scared of us, though he maintained a respectful 10-foot distance. I think some campers might have unwisely entertained him.
We went into Charlevoix for dinner. We were headed towards a restaurant called Terry’s, but ended up eating at The Village Pub (because it advertised walleye) instead. We were told that Terry’s is one of the best restaurants in town, but there was a 45-minute wait to be seated there. The food at the Village Pub was good; the fish was a little over done. It was expensive, but Charlevoix is an expensive place. You have to be prepared for it.

After we returned to camp, we went down to the official SP beach to watch the sunset at about 8:15. There were no clouds in the sky so I wasn’t expecting much, but just as the last little piece of sun dipped below the horizon, I saw the green flash. I have read about the green flash but I’ve never seen it before. I wish I had been taking a movie. I could hardly believe what I was seeing and might’ve even gotten a photograph if I had been ready.

The next day we decided to take 31 S. We drove down around Torch Lake and we checked out some lots for building that were for sale because we were wondering exactly what it would cost to have a lakefront lot on Torch, the “third most beautiful lake in the world.” I called the realtor. A 1 acre lot was priced from about $400,000-$700,000, depending on how much of the lot was buildable. Our dreams are crushed. But not as crushed as the realtor’s when I didn’t follow through on the lot.
On the way back to camp we stopped at Friske’s Fruit-and-everything-else stand. I can approve of their cherry turnovers.
Back at camp Tim went for a dip in Lake Michigan, but I could only force myself in waist -deep. Too cold. We grilled brats for dinner.
That night clouds cancelled my sunset plans.
Sitting by the campfire, we heard what sounded like a large tree crashing to the ground north of us. Later that night while in my sleeping bag, I heard another tree falling. It was a little scary.
Rain rain rain rain...

Friday morning it was still raining. I took a quick shower in my bathing suit outside the camper. Tim didn’t want to overfill the gray water tank.
Still raining so we went into Charlevoix to look around. Great stuff but, of course, all high priced. We thought about dinner at Terry’s, but according to the menu posted out side the restaurant, dinner for two will cost you no less than $60-70, and we had spent our wad on the fish the night before. We decided my home-made chili at the campfire would be every bit as good.
We drove south on 31 to Bier’s Art Gallery. That was the highlight of our day. Such beautiful works of art! I totally enjoyed just looking around. We bought a small brass figure of a lion by Scott Nelles, because it was one of the few things we could afford and I wanted something from that place. Afterwards we popped back down to Friskes again so Tim could get a cherry turnover this time.
Back to camp for chili. The clouds are finally breaking up.
Our little raccoon visitor is back, quietly, unobtrusively surveying the perimeter of camp. Then he came right up to Tim who was sitting by the camp fire, but skittered away quickly as soon as Tim noticed him.
Now I am on the beach, waiting to see if there will be a sunset tonight or not. It’s one of those maybe things: mostly cloudy with a few breaks here and there. A thin rose-colored glow on the horizon suggests maybe there will be something to see. The sun peeks through the crack for a minute, and then goes to bed. It’s over. Nothing spectacular.

Saturday: time to go home.

Last night I finally learned the secret of how to be comfortable in a sleeping bag. Most nights I wake up entrapped in my sleeping bag, the thing wound around my like a python, giving me a severe case of claustrophobia. But this night I tried something different. You put the slippery side in. That way it doesn’t wrap itself around you as you change positions in the night. Hallelujah!

Before we broke camp, I climbed a steep path - and by that I mean a heart-attack inducing path - that lead to the top of the ridge behind our site. I wanted to see what was up there. Turns out there is a beautiful trail that follows the top of the ridge. I went back to camp, changed into my Keens, and got my camera, my phone, and my husband. We found a less strenuous way to get to the path behind the water pump. The trail is twisty-turny and up and down, but it’s great! I highly recommend it for hikers. I understand the trail head is by the entrance to the camp and leads to the camp beach, a distance of about 3 miles as the crow flies, but not as the path winds, according to the camp person who drove by and stopped to answer our questions.
After returning to camp, we finished packing everything up and left about 11:30. All said, Fisherman’s Island is a favorite park for me!

Camping at Onaway SP last week - Julie  Reporting

Sunday: arrived at Onaway State Park. Adequate sized spot, but crowded close to other campers. On Site 23, we are across the road from sites on the lake. View of lake somewhat blocked by trailers. Can’t see sunrise or sunset from this side of the lake, so walked to the beach area to watch the sunset.

The lake is rocky with what looks like angular pieces of limestone. Not good swimming lake for that reason, here, but the swimming area is sandy and looks nice. If it wasn’t so cold, I would go swimming.

That night our large group of neighbors were having a great time, and I was tired and wanted to sleep, but I could hear every word of their loud conversations. They talked standing right next to my tent. I think it was about ten when they quieted down, so that wasn’t too bad. However, by 6:00 am they were up and talking as they were breaking camp. After they left it was reasonably quiet again. That morning, being Labor Day, most of the campers cleared out, and now the camp is peaceful, although the weather is a bit cool. Tim and I went to see the falls. They were nice. We continued over to ROGERS City on Lake Huron. Traveling up the coastline, we stopped at Hoeft State Park to give it a look see. I loved this park, mostly because of the golden sandy dunes and the jewel-tone blues of the lake and paths running throughout. I put it on my list of parks to visit in the future.

We also checked out Cheybogen SP. lots of room between camp sites. We didn’t have time to do much more than take a quick look and move on because I was hungry.

We drove up to Mackinaw City for lunch/dinner and explored the touristy strip on the main road. We ate at Pancake Chef. I had the patty melt. I had to remove the onions that weren’t grilled because I don’t like raw onions, but other than that, it was very good. Tim said his hamburger was tasty. After that we got ice cream in waffle cones and walked around. We bought a large decal for the back of our trailer: silver plate metal in the shape of Michigan. So far Michigan is the only state we’ve camped since we got the trailer.

On the way back to camp, we drove by Aloha State Park and pulled in to check it out. Nice, but basically a big grassy parking lot by the lake. The lake is stony. I didn’t get out and look at the beach. Not my kind of camp ground. (Update: several people have kindly informed me that the lake at Aloha is stoney next to the shore, but gets sandy as you go deeper. Also that the swimming beach is sandy. Thank you to them.) (I still prefer widely-spaced wilderness woodsey campsites to grassy close-together campsites. I'm a nature fanatic.)

Beautiful evening on Monday. Lots of lakeside sites available now.

Tuesday we woke to pouring rain. It’s a good thing our noisy neighbors left on Monday. Their tent sites were underwater. FYI: Don’t reserve site 24.

Tim and I took showers. I would give the showers a rating of 10 for cleanliness, a place to sit, powerful hot-but-not-too-hot showers, two hooks (3 is ideal), BUT the shower drains were slow and pretty soon one is standing in two inches of water with people’s hair wads floating around one’s feet. So they get a 9.

The sun came out and it warmed up. Tim had no interest in going to Mackinaw Island, so we stayed at camp. We got out our new toy: an inflatable kayak. Although it was supposed to be suitable for two people, it really wasn’t. So Tim and I took turns kayaking the lake.

Clouds moved in and the rain returned. We had hobo dinners for supper, but the potatoes didn’t get done so we had to finish them in a frying pan.

That night there was more rain, but mostly there was wind. All night the wind whistled through the trees. Condensation appeared on the inside of the tent part of our hybrid camper and the wind shook it off on us occasionally throughout the night just let us know who was boss.

More to come...