Wilson State Park

Site 28

Back from another trip.  We typically take a weekend trip with both sets of our parents every year.  My father-in-law is scheduled to have replacement knee surgery in a few weeks time.  We scheduled our trip with them earlier in the camping season than previous years.  Looking at where they live and where we live, I studied the map of Michigan state campgrounds and found Wilson State Park in Harrison, Michigan.  It was fairly equidistant.  Having never been there, I figured if it sucked we'd just never go back.

First of all, we're definitely in camping season here.  No doubt about that.  It's June.  Kids are out of school.  The park is right on Budd Lake (yeah, I'd never heard of it, either).  I booked this trip pretty recently and found there to be plenty of sites to choose from.  As we got off US127, there were lots of Mom & Pop motels on the lake that had No Vacancy signs.  Huh, wonder what the campground is going to be like, will it be busy?

Acorn turns into an oak tree

There were tons of sites available all weekend.  Maybe 1/3 of the campground was in use.  Mostly the perimeter sites were where people picked, certainly the sites lining the tree lined lake.  The campground is a little bit hilly, so you'd better get your speed up when you're riding your bike to climb those hills.  There was great tree coverage and our site was very shady - great for the hot days of summer, not so great when your Friday night low is 40 (in June!!) and the wind is going crazy.

Right away, we noticed countless acorns that had split open on the ground on the campsite.  Most of them had red roots poking out them, headed into the ground.  Some of them, like the picture I've got here, had a root going into the ground and another part pointing up and making itself into an oak tree.  It was a fun science lesson for all of us, seeing the differing early stages of the oak life cycle.

As I mentioned Wilson State Park is right on Budd Lake (did you Google it because you'd never heard of it?).  In theory, our campsite backed up to the lake, but there were tons of trees blocking our view.  The site next to us had itty-bitty glimpses of the lake, others had slightly better views of the lake, but none had great views (at least that I saw, feel free to prove me wrong in your comments).  A short walk, and 37 steps down (207 steps fewer than what we went up and down at Holland's Mt. Pisgah), we were at the beach.

Beach at Budd Lake

Budd Lake beach at the state park is unusual, there is a small upper level with sand held in place with a retaining wall and about 10 steps lower you're at a small, regular beach.  The kids loved putting their toes in the water, finding unusual rocks, and seeing curlicue snail shells (with and without the snail).  Husband and Grandpa took the kids fishing where they all caught (and released) several kinds of fish.

On our walk to the beach on Saturday morning, we had our other, cool sciency moment.  Walking along, I saw a butterfly.  Typically, butterflies have their wings pointed up while sitting.  This butterfly had it's wings laying flat as it sat on the damp sand of the beach.  I called the kids over to see it.  I wasn't sure if it was trying to dry it's wings or if it was hurt.  We watched it kind of move it's wings a bit.  Oldest kid went off to find more rocks.  Youngest stayed with me.  Then said, "I want to blow on it's wings," and blew gently.  Suddenly, the butterfly takes flight.  It flies around for a minute.  Lands about 5 feet from where it was when we found it.  Youngest and I keep watching it.  Butterfly does the same thing with it's wings.  I say to youngest, "Hey, will you blow on the butterfly's wings again so I can get a picture?"  Youngest does her

Butterfly dries it's wings

magic and - POOF - butterfly flies again.

Let's be clear.  I'm a kid at heart.  IT WAS SO COOL!

The downside to this otherwise nice campground is that there isn't a whole lot to do unless you're boat people.  We're not boat people, as much as Husband wants a small row boat, we're still not boat people. We biked the entire, small campground 3 times in about 20 minutes.  There aren't hiking paths.  There isn't a nature center.  You're in the middle of no where, there aren't exactly sights to see away from the campground.

We had a lovely weekend, despite the cold and windy Friday night.  We have plenty to keep ourselves busy and entertained at our campsite (UNO anyone?).  Kids wanted to use their Rainbow Loom to make bracelets and rings and made so many I couldn't keep count.  They even taught Grandma how to make her

own bracelet.  For a brief moment, even the dog had a rubber band loom ring on his tail.

Wilson State Park is a nice little campground with a beach.  They have a handful of special event weekends (Memorial, 4th of July, some Harvest festival thing).  It's right across the street from the Clare County fairgrounds and I expect that the place is hopping during fair week.  While it was fun weekend, Husband was very clear he'd prefer to go somewhere else for the same amount of drive-time.  I'd have to agree.