Day trip to Bronners

Only 49 days until Christmas!! (Ok, I only know because of that sign in Bronners, I don't actually keep count)

Considering my love of lists, surely you know I'm already preparing for Christmas right?  Yes, it's November 6.  I know that.

My kids had school off today for Parent Teacher Conferences.  I work as a substitute teacher at their school, which means we had a free day today.  It occurred to me that we hadn't been to Bronners Christmas Wonderland in a couple years.  I suggested it to the kids this morning and off we went.

Bronners is located in Frankenmuth, Michigan.  It takes a bit over an hour to get there from our house.  A nice day trip ensuring we could get back in time for dinner and Oldest Kid's gymnastics class.  Frankenmuth is a fun town, well known for it's chicken dinners, shopping, and Bronners.  Today, we just stuck to Bronners for time consideration.

You're wondering where the connection to camping is.  I get it.  It's coming.

The world's largest Christmas store is, well, enormous.  According to the trivia card in the Season's Eatings snack shop, the store area for customers is 1.7 acres (7 acres total).  Ornaments are grouped by color, type of food, activity, occupation, animal type, character type, vacation location, life stage, hobby, sport, religion.  You name it, they've got it.  Then there's the area dedicated to trees, nativities, candy, lights, outdoor displays, kids, breakables (well, more breakable than normal ornaments).

They even have a section for camping!  (See, I told you it was coming!).  Santa in a camper.  A 5th wheel, a travel trailer, a pop-up, a tent.  S'mores.  S'mores doing things.  Actually, there were lots of s'mores ornaments all over the store to coincide with the theme of the display was.  I quite liked the marshmallow guy fishing in a graham cracker boat, sitting on chocolate.  Anyway, camping.  We already have several camping ornaments.  We found a marshmallow on a stick early in our shopping excursion, so we picked that up.

More info for camping, there is a private campground only a couple of miles from Bronners.  My parents have stayed there, but I don't know enough information to speak about it.

Depending on your proximity, Bronners and Frankenmuth is a good day trip or weekend trip any time of the year.  And you'll see a McDonalds made to look like an old German building.

Some of the ornaments we came home with

East Harbor State Park

Site C-58

We spent this past weekend at East Harbor State Park in Ohio.  We were there for our annual Halloween camping trip and I'll make another post about that later.

East Harbor is on the shores of Lake Erie, about halfway between Toledo and Sandusky.  I went to high school not too far away from there.  My best friend lives in the Cleveland area.  This is a great meeting point because it's somewhere in the middle.

We've been to East Harbor several times before.  When searching for sites, I HIGHLY recommend paying attention to the sites that state, "This can be a wet site as it is prone to flooding after heavy rains."  That is no joke.  Our first time there?  Our reserved campsite was under several inches of water.  Thankfully it was super early in the camping season and we could easily select a drier campsite.  Still muddy, but not flooded.  When we were there for the 4th of July weekend in 2013, there was rain off and on all weekend.  We couldn't escape the mud and our feet were just filthy.

East Harbor is part of the reason I own rainboots now.

Wet and muck is really the negative side of East Harbor.  There are great things about it, too.  Things that outweigh the muck.

We made a three-night camping trip for this weekend.  We got there shortly before dark, enough time to unhitch and get set up.  Not enough time to do anything much besides that, eat dinner and put our school-tired kids to bed.  We are clearly on the downside of the equinox.

Friday morning, I went for a run first thing.  I was greeted by the sunrise over the bay.  Not a bad way to start the day.  I wound my way through different sections of the park.  We like electricity and we like our dog, so we always end up in Section C.  You can end up in different sections based on your pet and electricity choices.

Once I got back and cleaned up for the day, the kids wanted to ride their bikes over to the Glacial Grooves.  I've been to the Glacial Grooves on Kelleys Island, those are impressive to look at.  The ones at East Harbor State Park?  Not-so-much.  My oldest kid certainly thinks they're cool.  I think I might think more highly of them if I'd not seen the other ones.  A short bike ride later, we were at the grooves.

The sign explaining the history of the grooves.

I'd guess the length is about 1/2 a football field, so a longer distance shot.

A closer shot with the toe of my rain boot to give some size perspective.  You can definitely see the direction that the glacier moved however many years ago that happened.

We did not make a trip to go fishing on this trip, but we've done it from the pier and from a boat.  We've had good luck with catching.

The camp store is nice.  There was a 1/2 off sale on ice cream treats because it's October.  Somehow, the kids wanted ice cream on a 55 degree day.  The grown-ups opted to skip that particular treat ;)

The majority of our remaining time at East Harbor was spent participating in Halloween activities.  Look for that post to come.

N. Higgins Lake State Park

A canceled trip.  Not the first time we've had to scrap a trip because of illness.  I do hope it is the last time, but I'm also realistic.  I'm sure we'll have others.

We sad campers had to make due.  The trip was planned with my parents.  They still went to N. Higgins Lake State Park for the weekend.  I took the kids up for the day on Saturday while Husband stayed home and rested while watching bad TV on the couch.

When we booked our campsites, I purposefully picked campsites right by the playground, hopeful that the kids could just run over and play while the adults stayed at the campsite.  We had sites 66 & 64, and that certainly would have happened if we'd spent the weekend.  But the playground was nothing to write home about (but apparently worthy of writing about in a blog?).  It was an old swing set and an old, tall slide.  And that's it.

We walked down to the beach and the kids enjoyed searching for snail shells & clam/muscle shells.  Grandpa tried to teach Oldest Kid how to skip rocks on the lake.

Right across the street from the state park is the Civilian Conservation Corp Museum.  It was every bit as exciting as it sounds.  Worthy of the free price tag.  It was interesting, I learned new information.  Kids enjoyed spending time with Grandma & Grandpa, which was really the most important thing to me.

All things considered, I think we made best out of the situation.  Oldest Kid has asked that we go back and experience North Higgins Lake State Park on a real camping trip.

Sleepy Hollow State Park

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Sleepy Hollow State Park, it's one of the closest state parks to the Lansing area.  We usually have at least 1 trip there a year, this year we had two.

For our first trip to Sleepy Hollow this year, there was a college-aged employee who came around and invited all the families to join him on a walk for Big Foot.  The kids were all about this, it was the first time we'd seen programming like this at Sleepy Hollow.  We joined Ranger Tim (ok, probably not a real ranger, but a fun nickname nonetheless).  He made it fun for the kids as we slogged our way through the mosquito infested woods to a swamp area filled with even more mosquitoes.  Smoky the Bear was spotted on our trek to find Big Foot.  Ranger Tim also had more programming for the kids on Saturday, Youngest Kid really enjoyed the Weasel Games with Dad while I stayed back at the campsite with Oldest Kid, who wanted to craft.  I appreciate that Sleepy Hollow has added programming for the kids and a bit disappointed that he'd gone back to college for our return trip.

If the weather works, we like to spend some time at the Lake Ovid beach.  On one of our first trips to Sleepy Hollow, I'd guess that oldest kid was a toddler, we saw the signs pointing toward the beach at a footpath in the campground.  We had no idea how far away the beach actually was and Husband went back to get the truck for our return trip.  While my kids are older now and could handle the trek, we usually drive the beach now instead.

There is a nice fishing pier along a walking path not far from the campground.  The kids are always excited to catch Blue Gill and Sunfish.  We saw a very large Great Northern Pike swim by as we were packing up the fishing gear on this last trip.

All of the footpaths and nature trails made a great opportunity to go on our Nature Scavenger Hunt, and the kids enjoyed finding the different items.  Well, they enjoyed it until they got too annoyed at the mosquitoes.

Have I mentioned that there are mosquitoes?  Always included on my packing list for Sleepy Hollow is the most powerful bug spray I can find, calamine and what I call the Itch Stick, Sting Eze Insect Bite Relief.

If you decide to make a trip, pay very close attention to the website's information on how much power cord you need.  Our first trip there, probably the same one where we walked to the beach, Husband had to make a run to Walmart in St. Johns to get us more power cord.  The people next to us on our most recent trip had to do the same thing.

You're probably not going to head to Sleepy Hollow and see the sights in the area, since Ovid is just a small town, but it makes for great weekend camping.

Hoffmaster State Park

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Hoffmaster State Park, it's extremely popular.  We got in there for the first time in September 2013 and loved it.

For our trip to Hoffmaster in August 2014, we planned our trip with friends 5.5 months in advance.  There was only one group of 3 campsites together left when I looked.  We snatched them up as quickly as we could.

The campsites are dirt and grass cover, tons of tree cover.  The sites are usually quite big, but there are some smaller sites.  The lack of an asphalt pad allowed our 3 sites to have the campers in a U shape.  By manipulating the smaller campers, the pop-ups, the kids had 3 sites worth of space to run and play.  After bedtime, the adults were right there and no one felt uncomfortable not being able to see their camper and kids while we chatted around the fire.

After dinner the first night, we headed to the beach.  Kids played in the sand and in the water.  We watched a spectacular Lake Michigan sunset.  It was the stuff the Pure Michigan ads are made of.

Our 2nd day, we and another family headed over the Michigan's Adventure for the day.  You'd think that I'd know better than to go to an amusement park on a Saturday in August since I worked at Cedar Point (owned by the same parent company) for 3 summers in my late teenage years.  However, the big crowds headed back toward the water park by mid afternoon and we had minimal waits for the amusement park rides.

The other family that didn't go to Michigan's Adventure spent more time on the beach, went to the Hoffmaster Nature Center, climbed a sand dune.

A word to the wise, if you want to head to the Nature Center, which is quite nice, don't do what we did last year.  We thought, "Oh, it's only 1/4 mile up the road, let's ride our bikes!"  Yeah, the ROAD to the nature center is 1/4 mile away from the campground.  I'm not sure how far the nature center is into the park on that road, but it's all uphill and felt like forever as an adult, my kids were great and hung in there with the uphill biking for a long time, but... yeah, don't do that.

The playground is quite large and serves the whole campground, my kids enjoy it.

Also, last year, we camped near the Campground Host site.  I've interacted with a lot of campground hosts over the years.  These hosts were extremely friendly, their programming was better than any other host, they were very knowledgeable.  I was so impressed with them, I wrote to the head of the campground to say how great I thought they were.  While this trip didn't bring much interaction with the hosts, I saw them keeping traffic flowing at the waste water station on Sunday morning, helping people with put their garbage in the dumpsters, having friendly conversations.  The head of the campground does a phenomenal job getting campground hosts.

I know Hoffmaster has a Halloween camping weekend.  I saw on the campground map that there is a vintage camper weekend in June, which sounds neat.

If you can plan ahead enough during high camping season, it's worth the trip.  If you can't plan ahead, it's pretty easy to get in during September and early May.

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Gatlinburg Trip part 10: The end

This post is the final in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 9.

The campfire, the last night, with the cacophony of frogs and the stream.  It was a good trip and I was sad to see it end.  What better way to end a day camping, what better way to end this series.

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Gatlinburg Vacation part 9: Henwallow Falls Hike

This post is the ninth in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 8 and Part 10.

Our last full day in Gatlinburg was another unplanned day for us.  We headed to Hen Wallow Falls in the Cosby area of the park based on similar thought processes that we used for our hike to Fern Branch Falls in Part 7.

If Fern Branch Falls was "off the beaten path," then Hen Wallow Falls was REALLY off the beaten path.  We saw 2 people the entire way up the mountain.  Two.  One, two.  Two.  On a Saturday.  We saw more people heading up as we headed back down, but still.

The other thing we were greeted with were numerous bear signs.

I know Husband and I were much, much more watchful on our hike.  Let's be real, if I were a bear, I'd choose to live farther away from the big touristy places.

The entire hike, it very much felt like we were climbing a mountain.  The kids tired more quickly, there weren't many things to see along the way.  There was a lot of the hiking path where you tried to look over the edge and you're pretty sure the bottom is 200 feet down, but you're not really sure because there's tons of foliage.

We found lots of millipedes along the way, it was neat to see the legs moving.

But, we never made it all the way to Hen Wallow Falls, kids got tired and our information said that the end of the hike would get tricky for kids.  If anyone has made it all the way, I think we were pretty close. If you've been there, I'd love to see your pictures!

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Gatlinburg Vacation part 8: Mountain Farm Museum

This post is the eighth in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 7 and Part 9.

The day we headed to the Mountain Farm Museum and Oconaluftee Visitor Center, we were greeted with gorgeous views of the North Carolina mountains along the way.

I liked that there are more opportunities for education at the Mountain Farm Museum than at other locations we visited.  This is where my kids participated in their Ranger-led Junior Ranger program that I mentioned in Part 2 of this series.  As I was looking at the schedule of events posted in the Oconaluftee Visitor Center, a Park Ranger came right over and told me to scoot quickly to get to the next program that started so that the kids could get there in time.  I appreciated her helpfulness and awareness of time.

As we chatted with a Park Ranger, she mentioned that not very many people who visit Gatlinburg make their way to this area of the national park.  Further evidence of my like of "off the beaten path" kind of places, I liked that this location is far less crowded than Sugarlands Visitors Center in Gatlinburg.  I liked the different opportunities for experiences.  The park ranger also mentioned that elk had been in the pasture all week, but of course not the day we were there.

We also stopped at Mingus Mill.  The guy running the mill... eh... well... he seemed more interested in his book than talking with visitors.  But it was very pretty and peaceful.

Gatlinburg Vacation part 7: Fern Branch Falls

This post is the seventh in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 6 and Part 8.

One of my favorite days of our trip was an unplanned day.  On our first day, Husband picked up Family Hiking in the Smokies: Time Well Spent at the Sugarlands Visitors Center.  The book breaks down a ton of different hiking options with how hard it will be for kids of different ages, what you'll see along the way, how long the hike will take, and more.

With that knowledge, we headed to the Greenbriar section of the park for Porter's Creek Trail and Fern Branch Falls.  Without this book, I highly doubt we would have headed to these locations.  I just tried to grab some links on the national park website and came up short.  The book described these paths as "off the beaten path" and considering how few people we met along the way, and the lack of links, I'd wholeheartedly agree.

An off shoot of the trail lead to a historic farm site and cabin, there was a cemetery along the way.  We followed a river up the mountain.  When we got to the water fall, it was beautiful.

Gatlinburg Vacation part 6: Aquarium of the Smokies

This post is the sixth in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 5 and Part 7.

There are tons and tons of tourist traps in Gatlinburg.  Lots of ways to spend a boatload of money.  Seeing what all there is to do, I came across the brochure for Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies.  The closest aquarium to us is in Chicago and we didn't stop on our trip there a couple of years ago.  This was a top contender for our only tourist trap stop.  Then, I had numerous people tell me it's a great place to go.

The decision was made, the kids were excited, we headed to the aquarium.

It did not disappoint, I think I had a smile on my face the whole time.  Husband did, too.  The kids talked about it for days.  Oldest kid loved the sharks.  Youngest kid loved the penguins.

We got to pet a jellyfish, watched the sting ray show, climbed into the penguin area.  We marveled as the creatures swam over, under, and around us.

Gatlinburg Vacation part 5: Cades Cove Loop

This post is the fifth in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 4 and Part 6.

Oh beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America! God shed His grace on thee

And crown they good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

I don't think I've ever had a moment where I saw - no, felt - every fiber of a patriotic song as I did while we were in the Cades Cove Loop.  I saw the purple mountains.  The amber waves of grain.  I felt God's grace.

If I were the song-writing type, I would have been inspired, too.  Instead, I'll just leave you with a photo.

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Gatlinburg Vacation part 4: Clingman's Dome & Newfound Gap

This post is the fourth in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 3 and Part 5.

Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the Smoky Mountains.  We arrived at the Clingman's Dome Visitors Center in shorts & t-shirts.  It was 55 degrees, 20+ degrees cooler than our campsite when we left.  We had 700 feet to climb before reaching the summit.  Scoured the truck to find a construction worker's coat and a men's XL rain jacket.  My kids now have Great Smoky Mountains sweatshirts.  Not the cheapest souvenir we could have purchased...  ANYWAY...

The climb, while paved, is not for the faint of heart.  I saw and heard others panting and needing breaks along the way.  While we were walking up the mountain, we were very much up in the clouds.  When we reached the pinnacle, we were in a cloud.  The pictures I have are of us in a cloud.  When we got back down to parking lot level, we were treated with breathtaking views of the mountains of North Carolina.  I took a picture of my kids sorta reenacting the opening scene of The Sound of Music with Julie Andrews (LOVE that movie!  I happened to read Forever Liesl by Charmian Carr on the trip).

Since Newfound Gap was on our way back down the mountain, we stopped there, too.  I got pictures of us at the Tennessee/North Carolina state line.  The Appalachian Trail also crosses right there and Husband spent about a week hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was in college.  We got pictures with that sign, too.

You know, I'm staring at the picture I've put in this post, still just mesmerized by the beauty.

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Gatlinburg Vacation part 3: Cataract Falls

This post is the third in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 2 & Part 4.

After we explored the Sugarlands Visitors Center and our talk with the Park Ranger, we headed out for our first hike during our vacation.  It was a shorter hike compared to what we did later in the week, but a nice way to start our mountain exploration.

Along the way, trees and plants are well marked, helping kids fill out their Junior Ranger packets.  We stopped near the falls, admired the beauty while the kids had a snack.  I looked up and saw a big bird's nest 30 feet above me.

We tried to extend our hike, but Youngest Kid needed to use the bathroom, so we headed back to the Visitors Center.

Gatlinburg Vacation part 2: Junior Rangers

This post is the second in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is Part 1 and Part 3.

As I was deep in planning for our trip, I asked a friend about their family trip.  She mentioned the Junior Ranger program and how much her kids enjoyed it.  I looked into the program on the website and knew my kids would enjoy it, too.

I found I could order the booklets online before our trip, but decided not to chance how long shipping would take.  You can pick up booklets at any of the visitors centers, we got ours at the Sugarlands Visitors Center.

The first activity in the booklets had the kids asking a park ranger questions.  The park ranger we talked to at the Sugarlands Visitors Center was extremely friendly, happy to talk to kids.  As our conversation unfolded, talking about different animals in the park, he slipped off to a back room.  When he came back a few minutes later, he had a fur from a black bear and a river otter for my kids to pet and learn more about.  It was a really great moment.  Not surprisingly, when asked what his favorite part of his job is, his answer was educating children.

The Junior Ranger program also requires the child to participate in a Ranger-led program.  Looking at the list of options online, I was both very impressed and overwhelmed at the sheer number of opportunities to participate in a ranger-led program.  Also impressing me was that almost all of the programs are free.  We did the Batteries Not Included program at the Mountain Farm Museum, and the kids enjoyed learning about the toys kids in the olden days would have played with, they even got to make their own "Buzz Button" and to bring it home.

The rest of the Junior Ranger booklet had different activities for some of the most popular places in the Smoky Mountain National Park.  There are questions to answer, things to observe.  What animals have you seen?  What kinds of plants have you seen?  How did kids learn in the olden days?  There also activities that kids can do on their own.

At the end of our trip, we took the mostly completed booklets to talk to another Park Ranger.  The kids talked with her about what they did, where they went, what their favorite location was.  The Ranger Rhonda then had a little ceremony where the kids got completion certificates and a Junior Ranger badge.  Oldest kid proudly wore her badge for 2 days afterward.

We let the kids each pick out a trinket for completing the program and they are the proud owners of key chains to decorate their school backpacks.

For the $2.50 cost of the booklet, this was a program that was very much worth the cost and the time.  My kids really enjoyed it.

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Gatlinburg Vacation part 1: The campground

This post is the first in a series about our vacation to Gatlinburg, Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  Look for more posts of trip from me, here is part 2.

When Husband and I decided to head to Gatlinburg for our family vacation this year, figuring out where we were staying and getting a reservation became my top priority.  My first place to look was the Great Smoky Mountains National Park website.  I quickly learned that most campsites in the park do not have electricity, and if they do have electricity it wouldn't be at the capacity to support our camper [cough: air conditioning].

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So, then I went to Google and searched.  I spent 2 full days scouring private campground websites.  I was mentally exhausted when I finally settled on Crazy Horse/Adventure Bound.  I liked the stream-side campsite opportunities, the full hook-up, the kids' activities, the feel that we were in the mountains.  You can book your campsite on the website, but I decided to call to make my reservation.  There's something about talking to a person when I wanted to do my best to get a bigger campsite of the options I was looking at.

I think my conversation worked well, we had a great campsite.  I think my days of searching did well, too.  It is a very nice campground.

Staff are friendly and helpful.  Happy to chat or be on their way if that's what you want.  And in a bit, you'll learn that they're safety oriented.

Our campsite was decently sized, it was far bigger than many sites we've had at private campgrounds.  Having the stream right behind our campsite was absolutely lovely, probably my favorite part of our campsite.  It drowned out all noise from our camping neighbors, the ambiance of the sound was incredibly relaxing.  The downside to our campsite was the rental cabin directly across the stream.  Thankfully, the cabin people didn't come outside much so it wasn't a big deal.

On our 2nd day, we hit the water slide and pool.  It was Youngest Kid's first time on a big water slide, and because of her shorter height, she and I rode together.  Hearing her giggle the whole way down the slide?  It was completely awesome.  It's a gentle but fun slide.  The little pool at the end of the slide was a great depth for Youngest Kid, but she just loved riding with Dad & Mom.  Then we headed to the swimming pool, which had varying depths for kids of all ages.

That night, a big storm rolled through the area.  I mean a BIG storm.  Campground staff came around early on and suggested that we put up our awning and utilize the campground bathrooms if we felt uncomfortable because of the weather.  A bit later, still before a drop of rain fell, campground staff came around again and strongly suggested that we head to the campground bathroom for safety.  We spent well over an hour in the Men's Bathroom with a lot of other campers.  This was a first-time experience for me, taking shelter in a campground bathroom.  An experience I hope to never have again.  All the people were friendly, it was kind of a bonding time, we continued to chat with our bathroom friends for the rest of our visit.  Thankfully, no tornado touched down near us, everyone and everything was safe.

Another highlight for our family at the campground was Jack Tales.  A play of sorts, storytelling really.  It involves Jack the Storyteller and campers - young and old - helping to act out the stories.  Costumes are required and provided.  This is right up Youngest Kid's alley, she dressed as a party animal and so did I.  Oldest kid loved watching the show with Daddy.  We went back for another show later in our stay and Youngest Kid was right in there again.

The location of the campground had us a bit outside of Gatlinburg, between the Greenbriar and Cosby entrances into Smoky Mountain National Park.  Being away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Gatlinburg was a good fit for our family because we wanted the mountain experience.

Crazy Horse/Adventure Bound was a good home base for us on our vacation.

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Harrison Lake - June 2014

A weekend without camping?  How can that be?  On Wednesday, I booked a trip for the weekend to Harrison Lake State Park.  There wasn't an overabundance of campsites available when I booked, but there WERE sites available.

Previously, I'd written a post about Harrison Lake, thinking we'd not make a trip there this year.  I really think this is a hidden camping gem, so close to home.
Big campsites - check
Quiet - check
Nature-y activities - check
Fishing - check
Swimming - check

Decent shower house - check (the buildings with just toilets and sinks aren't anything to write home about, but you're not spending much time in there)
Organized kid activities - check
Playgrounds - check
Electric sites - check

Our campsite, Site 77, wasn't the biggest at the campground, but booking only 2 days out, it was nothing to sneeze at.  One of the best - BEST - things about Harrison Lake is that most of the campsites are large.  Making them even larger, there is a TON of space behind the campsites, between the sites on the next campground road.  We had a drainage ditch behind our site, which really limited the use of that space behind our campsite, but Oldest Kid still found a way to utilize the space.

Want to go fishing?  Youngest Kid caught an impressive number of Blue Gill and Sunfish.  Want to go swimming?  The park staff makes sure to tend the beach so you're not dodging goose poop.    Want to talk to your kids about the advantages of having a dam and what it does for the wildlife?  You can do that, too.

There's a neat little walking bridge that connects the North Campground to the dams and to the swimming area and to the South Campground.

Both the staff and the Friends of Harrison Lake State Park are great about putting on programs for park visitors.  Last year's visit, there was a bike rally and all the kids got free bike helmets.  This year, there was an ice cream social.  There are free crafts every weekend we're there during the summer.

While I was on my run Saturday morning, the dog and I went over to the other campground.  As we were making our way back, there was a crane standing on the dam.  I got a picture.  As we made our way closer, I tried to get another picture and the crane decided to not hang around a person and a dog (can't really blame it).  It was a neat moment and my kids enjoyed seeing my pictures.

It was a dam good morning to crane my neck - haha, I'm so punny.

I served the Strawberry Bread and Strawberry Butter to our friends that camped with us and earned rave reviews.  It's still strawberry season around these parts and you have the opportunity to pick your own strawberries to make your own yumminess.

It was a great weekend.  A little bit of rain, but it didn't dampen (get it? another pun!) our weekend at all.  Lots of bike riding and games.  It's time together, and I'm always happy with that.

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.

Holland State Park: Lake Macatawa

Campsite 108

We spent Memorial Weekend at Holland State Park.  Holland is split into two different campgrounds.  We stayed at the Lake Macatawa campground, rather than the Lake Michigan campground.  We have stayed at Lake Macatawa several times before, but it has been a few years.  While the Lake Michigan campground is very close to the beach, it looks to me like a parking lot of campers with a bunch of sand in between them.

Lake Macatawa is about a mile inland from the beach.  The campsites are bigger.  There are trees.  There are two loops to the Lake Macatawa campground.  We stayed on the Pines Loop, which has considerably more trees and shade than the Woodstock Loop.

Since our last trip in 2010, the shower/bathroom building in the Pines Loop is completely new, with individual shower rooms.  The shower/bathroom in the Woodstock Loop is still the old building.  Both loops have a playground.  My kids would tell you that the Pines Loop playground is better, but my adult eye didn't see much difference.

Lake Macatawa from Mt. Pisgah

Ottawa Beach Rd is the way to get to both campgrounds, to get to the swimming beach.  Across the street from the Lake Macatawa campground is a small beach on Lake Macatawa.  It's a nice little beach with calm water.  Lots of kayakers launching from here.  It's a lovely place to watch the sun rise.  You can see all sorts of boats heading out to the channel, past the Big Red Lighthouse, and out onto Lake Michigan.  I think the main people who use this beach are campers because there isn't much parking for others.

On the backside of the campground is a big hill, a sand dune with tons of foliage.  You can climb the dune right near the check-in building.  From there, you're on some great hiking paths.  The paths have check points with maps for easy navigation, several loops to take to lengthen or shorten your way.  The greatest part of these hiking paths is that they lead to Mt. Pisgah.  There is a separate entrance, outside of the campground, to Mt. Pisgah.  The separate entrance involves climbing 239 stairs to the very top of the sand dune, affording you spectacular views of Lake Michigan, Big Red, Lake Macatawa.  If school weren't still in session, I would have loved to watch the sun set from up there.  We loved hiking that area so much, we did so 4 times over the course of the weekend.

Big Red from Mt. Pisgah

Of course, being so close to Lake Michigan, we had to make that part of our trip.  We were right across the channel from Big Red and walked all the way out on the northern barrier making the channel.  Kids stuck their toes in Lake Michigan.

Kids being kids, they wanted to play on the beach and go into the water.  We headed back on Sunday morning.  The kids were in their bathing suits, the adults were in regular clothes.  Winter 2013-2014 was exceptionally hard, exceptionally cold.  The Great Lakes had something like 90% ice coverage.  What I'm saying is that the water was cold.  I saw at the campground that the water temp was 40 degrees.  That's cold.  But the kids were determined.  In they went to play, running back and forth from the sand to the water, having a grand time.  Husband and I were cold sitting on the beach watching them.  They had no complaints... until they were told to rinse the sand off.  Then the water was too cold.  Okie dokie.

We couldn't ask for much better weather than what we had.  We had highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s and 60s.  Sunshine.  When the wind kicked up, it was chilly, but you can't expect it much differently when the lake temp is so cold.

Camping is my happy place.  I love the time spent together as a family.  We played lots of games - ladderball, toss the washer (surely there's a better name for that?), Uno, Clue.  Bike rides.  Walking for ice cream.  S'mores.  Walks.  Popcorn.  Holding hands with my kids.  Uninterrupted time together.

Alum Creek

My view on the way

Just got home from our first trip of the season.  I love the view in this picture.  Yes, there were clouds all the way down, a little bit of rain as we were still in Michigan.  Once we were in Ohio, it looked like we just chased the rain the whole way with the clouds, but never dealt with any rain.

We headed down to Alum Creek State Park in Delaware, Ohio, on our side of Columbus.  Why would we go there?  Between the W family and us, we have 3 girls *right* at the age where American Girl is awesome.  We are equi-distant for the store in Columbus and the store in Chicago.  Camping in Chicago is... uh... not something we want to do.  Plus, the W family lives near Cleveland.

Alum Creek is quite large, many different roads, all named after letters.  We arrived and asked where to fill up with water.  The water hadn't been turned on yet for the season.    Thankfully, we were only the 2nd camper in line waiting for the line waiting to fill up the tank, and the first was a very friendly, patient woman.  Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long and then were on our way to our campsite.

We were on Road K, very close to the smaller of the 2 playgrounds.  We were almost near the water, campsites near us were on the water.  Lots and lots of roads for bike rides.  There were plenty of fishing boats on the water.  We tried two different locations for fishing, got nothing.  We tried the boat launch and another place not far from there, on Road J.  Nothing.  Mama "supervises" and Dad is the one in charge of fishing.

Another great thing about Alum Creek was the dam that's just a short

Kite flying

drive from the campground.  There are two great playgrounds at the Dam.  There are great open spaces, tons of wind that makes for great kite flying.  When we finished flying kites, we climbed the stairs up to the top of the dam.  All

Top of the Dam

101 of them (the kids counted, not me).  Made for fun things to see that we don't see on most camping trips.

Once we got back to the campground, the girls were giddy to check out all their new goodies from American Girl.  The boy started putting together his Legos.  The kids were very happy.  The parents were happy with what we'd given the kids.  Dinner prep was underway.

We had a great trip.  The drive there wasn't short, but I figure it's just prep for future trips.  We'd happily go back, especially if it were closer.