9/18/07 (Tuesday): I'm way behind in my blogging! I'm just back from five days in Ypsilanti with Tom's family, but today I'm going to blog about our days off the week before I left for Ypsi. I'll download pics and blog about my exceptional granddaughters and the fun we had another time.

Monday a week ago, we went into downtown Muskegon to explore a few places we'd missed. We took a walk through the historic area of town and visited the small, but very good museum.

Most of the homes appear to be from the Victorian era.












This is the Board of Education building. I don't know when it dates from--it's very dark and forbidding looking.


It was interesting to learn the history of the city, which basically parallels the history of most of northwest Michigan. At the end of the last ice age, this part of Michigan was blanketed with huge forests of spruce trees. Herds of large mammals, including mammoths and mastadons roamed freely. Nomadic bands of paleo indians hunted the mammals using stone-tipped spears. The mammoth and mastadon became extinct about 10,000 years after the arrival of humans, and experts speculate that humans may be responsible, at least in part, for their extinction. The early humans also used copper, found in the upper peninsula, which was soft enough to be worked with stone tools, and wove natural fibers into clothing, baskets and fish nets.

Over time, other groups of Native Americans were drawn to the area by the abundant natural resources. They banded together into tribes, which eventually merged and became known as the People of the Three Fires. They farmed corn, squash and beans, fished the rivers and lakes and traveled in birch bark canoes, and lived in homes built from bent saplings covered with birch bark or woven mats which could be rolled up and carried with them as they roamed.
French fur traders later moved into the area. followed by major lumbering companies. Muskegon's location right on Lake Michigan (almost directly across from Milwaukee) allowed it to participate in the growing maritime industries as well. Great ships transported people, raw materials and finished goods to many major Midwestern destinations. There was also good money to be made fishing the cold waters and shipping the harvest to tables all over the area. Many immigrants came from Europe and even as far away as China as industry flourished. The automotive industry helped the area to prosper even during the Great Depression.

During both World Wars, Muskegon was a thriving industrial city. Many warships were built here, including this landing craft which is now moored permanently in Lake Muskegon and can be toured. It's a really depressed economy here now, though, with numerous empty/abandoned factories and warehouses. A number of houses are empty and for sale as well.




We finished our day with a visit to Pere Marquette Beach for a walk on the shore at sunset. It was a very windy day, and waves were pretty big. These guys were kite surfboarding. It was great fun to watch. They were capable of actually flying through the air, many feet above the surface of the water, and even doing flips!



Tuesday (a week ago) dawned gray and drizzly (and cold!), so we decided to take a peek at the Country Dairy, a local tourist attraction that's mostly either indoors or in a covered tram. We enjoyed it a lot more than we thought we would! It's a working dairy (about 800 cows) that sells milk, cheese and ice cream to some of the local grocery stores (including the Meijers where we shop). They breed and raise the cows, milk them, doctor them, and bottle the milk as well as process it into butter, cheese and ice cream.

There were nice clean barns with feeding troughs where the cows had constant access to a specially formulated feed consisting of alfalfa, corn, vitamins and other all natural ingredients. The dairy advertises that their cows are "all natural"--there are no growth hormones or anything except medications for any diseases they may acquire.

We started our tour in the barn, where there was a newborn calf. After 24 hours, they take the calves from their mothers and put them in these "cowdominiums." Eventually, the males are sold and the females join the milk herd.

They were milking a batch of cows, too.

We toured the labs where they test the milk and the processing room where the raw milk is pasteurized and the butter and ice cream making areas. This is one of the bottling lines. They were bottling pints for schools and hospitals. They just got a contract with the Whole Foods chain for their butter.

This is the cheese room. One of the wheels of cheddar was a disgusting shade of blue because they'd added black raspberries as an experiment. The staff called it "Blue Cheese!"

We finished up our visit with lunch in their little cafe. Another great adventure!

I''ll blog again soon with my Ypsilanti visit.

9/7/07 (Friday): Big news--we accepted the job at Lake Piru in Ventura County, California! We'll head out probably the first week in October, and take our time crossing the country. We're a little nervous about crossing those big mountains! We'll work 20 hours a week in exchange for our site and free laundry. There will be two or three other Workamper couples on site and we'll get to plan our own schedules. Although it's a little further from Mark's family than we'd hoped, we'll have plenty of free time to make the trip.

The campground office here is closed now, so I'm not working any more. Wiley is going to put in two weeks, pretty much full time, doing some landscaping and work on the lakes. I'm going to go visit with Tom and Kristin for a few days next week--my last visit for a while :( Then we're going to visit Florida for a week the last week in September.

While we were off this week, we went north to Ludington on Tuesday and South to Holland on Wednesday. The weather was beautiful, if a little warmer than it's been before. This lighthouse at Ludington sits at the end of a long breakwater. We enjoyed walking out to the very end. Having weekdays off means we don't have to share the sights with a lot of other people!












On the way to Holland, we stopped at a state park. The Little Sable Light is one of the prettiest lighthouses we've seen. It's all brick and sits on top of a high dune. The lake was just gorgeous in shades ranging from dark blue to jade green.














The trip to Holland included another lighthouse, this one with a roof designed like roofs in Holland.













We took a hike. It was really steep, but the views of the lake were fantastic. It seems so strange to hike on what looks like mountain trails but they're sandy! As you get away from the lake, the sand dunes are forested with maple, oak and beech trees. The trail in this picture leaves the forest and goes down several flights of stairs to the beach. Gorgeous!





We enjoyed a stop for ice cream at this cute little beach store. It reminded me of summers when I was a kid.











We finished up our lazy days with a short bike ride on a trail near camp. A good time was had by all!

9/3/07 (Monday): Greetings from the cool and beautiful northland! We've had delightful weather for the last couple of weeks. It's been in the mid-70's every day and down into the 50's at night. Yesterday was my last day of work. The campground was completely full for the Labor Day weekend, but now everyone is pulling out. Our next registered campers aren't until 9/6, and then it's only two families. Wiley will work for about 2 more weeks doing some landscaping and lake cleaning, then we'll probably fly to Orlando for a week or so.

My digital camera died, and I bought a new one. Now you'll have to bear with me while I figure out how to set everything up correctly again. I just reviewed this blog after posting it, and I realized that the pictures are too big. I'll adjust that before my next posting.

We've had an offer in California! We're not making a final decision until the end of this week. We put out about 25 resumes to places all over the country and we want to be open to any other offers that come through. The offer is from Lake Piru, which is in the southern end of the Los Padres National Forest. We'd work 20 hours for a full hookup site, and there's lots of flexibility in the schedule. The downside is that it's about 300 miles from Mark and Heather. But on the upside, it's only 30 miles from the coast and it's gorgeous country. We're also waiting to hear from a commercial campground that's between San Francisco and Sacramento, a little closer to Mark and Heather. That would be a paid position, and the area looks pretty nice. We'll see--we'll make a decision later this week.

Last week we went to Tom and Kristin's for our two days off. We stopped for breakfast at a little place in South Muskegon. It had this really cool trophy room with specimens collected by the owner from all over the world.















We had a good time playing with the girls. They have this tent thing set up in the living room with tunnels and different rooms. All three girls enjoyed it. Granny watched all three girls Tuesday night while Mom and Dad were out. We managed to get teeth brushed, jammies on, stories told and songs sung by bedtime, but I'll tell you, it really makes you appreciate the work involved in parenting!





We took a back way home and saw some great scenery. Michigan is full of great old barns. There were lots and lots of soybean and corn fields, but this was the only field of sunflowers that we saw. It had to have been 10-15 acres of blooms, all facing the same way. Reminded me of some of Van Gogh's paintings.



We stopped for an early supper at this little diner. It was actually three old train cars--one was a diner, one was a bar, and one had bathrooms and the kitchen in it. Cool!








Last night after work we went back to our favorite spot, the canal between Lake Michigan and Lake Muskegon. I walked the beach while Wiley fished, and then we enjoyed a great sunset together. I love my life!

8/28/07 (Thursday): Nothing special to report today. I just got back some photos from our trip to Grand Haven a couple of weeks ago. My battery got low, so I bought a disposable camera. I thought you might like to see some of those photos. This is us in front of the store. The President's Award is pretty prestigious. It's awarded based on a number of factors, including cleanliness, friendliness of staff, level of business, etc. We're proud to work at one of the nicest KOA's around. It'll look really good on our resume!



This is all of our Workampers except Al, who was taking the photo. From left to right: Claude, Steve (one of the owners), Maryanne, Ralph, Debbie (the other owner), me, JoAnne (Ralph and JoAnne live offsite), Wiley, Carol and Gary. Actually, it's not all of them. We have a night security guy (also named Gary).











This is the Grand Haven Pier and lighthouse. Julie - that photo you liked of Lake Huron where there were scallops along the edge? that was taken from this pier and the scallops were the edge of the pier. You can see the lighthouse in the mist at the very end of the pier. I walked all the way out!

That's it for this time. I had to get a new camera because the old one died a couple of days ago. I've taken some pics with it that I'll put on the next blog.

8/24/07 (Friday): Hi to all of you who have waited so patiently for this blog. We've had some wild weather here, and one of the storms took down the electricity, the office computers and our WiFi connection to the internet. We didn't have any damage, but some of our campers lost awnings again. We've finally cleared up and the forecast for the weekend looks good. Our temperatures have dropped from the mid-80's during the day to the mid-70's. Some of our trees are already beginning to change.

Things have settled down into a routine in the store. Our men's room is almost completed and looks great. We hope it will be up and running for the Labor Day weekend. The campground stays about half full during the week and fills to capacity most weekends. The owners tell us things slow down considerably after Labor Day.

We've been working hard to find a winter assignment, but have been unsuccessful so far. We had high hopes for a job at the Santa Cruz/Monterey KOA. It looks like a gorgeous campground, just 1/2 mile from the Pacific, close to Mark and his family, and with all the amenities we could wish for. They thought they might need some part-time help because a Workamper's child took a bad fall and was in critical condition. Fortunately, the child is recovering and the Workampers have decided not to leave, so there is not a posistion there. Needless to say, I am very glad the child is recovering, despite the job not being available.

We were off Tuesday and Wednesday this week. We did some work around the camper on Tuesday and on Wednesday we drove to Grand Rapids, about an hour east of here. We went to the new Camping World store and bought some RV supplies we needed and then headed for Meijer's Botanic Gardens. It's a really lovely spot, full of sculptures as well as gorgeous flowers. This is the children's garden. In addition to the sculptures of children playing a circle game, there was a section of the garden where all the flowers smelled like food--licorice, chocolate, peppermint and spaghetti to name a few.

There was also a trail through a wetlands. We saw lots of birds, including these ducks all lined up in a row.

Speaking of birds, we continue to enjoy our feeders. There are more goldfinches than any other kind of bird, including sparrows! They're such cheerful looking little yellow fellows. We also have a hummingbird feeder and see these tiny jewels several times a day. The other day, one of the hummingbirds got into the laundry room and the owner came running to our RV to see if I could help get the poor thing back out. We finally succeeded, but not before we made idiots of ourselves with a broom and a big crabbing net!


There was also an old farmhouse with gardens that would have been typical of the flowers and vegetables that would have been planted in the early part of the 20th century.










I know that farm kids probably had a blast riding horses and ponies, but I never would have guessed they'd ride a pig! I wonder if the pig would cooperate?!










On the way back home we stopped and bought peaches at the same stand we had bought cherries at earlier in the season. The hollyhocks have died back, but the apple trees are loaded with ripening fruit and the peaches smelled heavenly! I imagine this old wagon made many trips over the dirt roads laden with great produce in its day!

Wiley and I have been on a jelly making kick lately. He's picked lots of blackberries and blueberries that we've turned into jam, so we decided we'd try some peach butter (like apple butter, but made from peaches). We think it turned out great, and it was really simple. You cut the peaches and combine them with sugar, cinnamon, cloves, allspice and nutmeg and put it in the crock pot. It's cooked for 5 hours covered and another 5 hours uncovered. It's a beautiful, rich brown color and smells heavenly!

We're going to Ypsilanti for another visit with Tom and his family next week. I can't believe that Anna is starting kindergarten, Margo is starting preschool, and Claire is starting to walk! Time sure flies. Wiley and I miss all of you and appreciate hearing from you. Have a great week, and check in again next week for some more of our ramblings.

8/16/07 (Thursday): When I got off work last night, I asked Wiley what time I worked today. He looked up Friday on our schedule, told me I worked 9 to noon, and I got up this AM and got ready for work. Both of us were firmly convinced it was Friday. We were sitting by the window, talking to Mag on the phone, when I saw JoAnn, one of the office Workampers, report for work. After a little confusion, I figured out that today is Thursday, not Friday, and I don't go to work until 1 PM. You know you're retired and having a great adventure when the day of the week doesn't seem all that important!!

Anyhow, here are some pictures from our latest mini adventure along the shores of Lake Huron. We traveled around Michigan's "thumb" (look at this map and you'll see what I mean). Map. We spent the first night in a nondescript (but clean) motel between Saginaw and Port Sanilac. Then we drove around the thumb on Rt. 25 to Bay City, where we spent our second night in a really nice Sleep Inn. It had an indoor pool and hot tub. We also enjoyed watching some cable TV (we only get 4 channels with our antenna in the campground).

Lake Huron had mostly flat beaches (unlike Lake Michigan's impressive sand dunes). There were more boulders and rocks than on the Lake Michigan shore, though. It was a warm, sunny day, but there was a stiff breeze and some rough surf.








We saw several lighthouses (of course)! This one is the Port Sanilac Light. The keeper's house was completely covered with ivy. The lighthouse was built in 1886. It's an octagonal brick tower with a flared top created by "stair-stepping" the rows of bricks. The keeper's house was connected to the light by a covered passageway, and it had the same stair-stepped detail as the lighthouse.







We poked around on the beach for a while and also walked around town. I love all the brick houses in Michigan and the Victorian details on even modest houses.










Our next stop was Harbor Beach. There's a lighthouse there, too, but it can't be seen from shore. But the Port Aux Basques lighthouse (the next stop), was fantastic. Wiley fished for a little while and I wandered around and enjoyed the scenery.

The final stop for the day was in Port Austin. The lighthouse there (Port Austin Reef Light) sits way out in the water. You can barely see it in the middle of the picture way out on the horizon. The other structure is a channel marker that sits out on the end of a breakwater. As you can see, the waves were really crashing on the breakwater.






After a relaxing evening in Bay City, we headed home, with a stop at Hardy Dam on the way. Hardy Dam was built in the early 1900's and is one of a string of dams. It was considered an engineering marvel in its time.








Land all along the Muskegon River has been set aside for fishing, hiking and boating. We hiked a 3-mile nature trail. It was lovely--there were a number of small creeks and great views of the river.













We've been enjoying our bird feeders--lots of goldfinches, and even a hummingbird. But I was thrilled to spot this cedar waxwing in one of the towns we walked through. There was a whole flock of them, and I'd never seen one before.








We also got a kick out of this old house and car. It's now a bed and breakfast called "Garfield House." President Garfield stayed there with friends.















This was an altogether relaxing trip. Hope you enjoyed traveling with us!

8/13/07 (Monday): We're at an inn in Sandusky (MI) this morning, getting ready for a mini adventure driving up the coast of Lake Huron. I hope I'll have some good stories and pics for you in a couple of days.

We decided after work yesterday (I got off at 3 PM) to head east--quite spontaneously! We packed a small bag and an ice chest and were gone within the hour! We're off today and tomorrow and Wiley has a list of lighthouses he wants to visit. The drive thus far has been beautiful--lots of huge farms (mostly corn and soy beans). Many of the fields of corn had signs indicating they were designated to become ethanol.

Stay tuned!

8/9/07 (Thursday): Well, I'm not an especially happy camper today. Maybe doing a post will cheer me up a little.

There's a plumbing problem at our site, and we're not able to dump our holding tanks. The owner is not being particularly helpful. We were able to dump on a nearby site yesterday, but now there's a camper on the site, and we're full up for the weekend. It doesn't look like any work will be completed until next week at the earliest, so we're out of options (other than not using our kitchen or bathroom). I guess we're going to have to be conservative in our water/bathroom use and then go to the dump station when we're full. That's a real pain, because we have to secure everything inside the camper, hook up to the truck, drive to the dump station and then reverse the process. Bummer. I'd be taking the whole situation more calmly if the owner was being more pleasant about it, but he's not helping at all and doesn't seem to understand why there's any problem. Oh well, we'll work something out.

We had a pleasant walk one evening last week on the dirt road that runs by the campground. There are a lot of dirt roads in this area and we love to drive or walk them.










There are also lots of interesting old barns.













There are still lots of wildflowers in bloom here. Unfortunately, there's a drought and the trees and ferns are beginning to drop their leaves. I fear there won't be much fall color this year.










We've had my cousin, Donna, her husband, Dave, and their two grandchildren, Ashley and Christopher, visiting for the last couple of days. (They're camping in their humongous motor home in a site near us.) That's been a bright spot in our week. We've enjoyed a couple of camp fires, s'mores, and fishing. They're having a problem with their refrigerator, so it's been nice for all of us to have a break from our difficulties. We enjoyed a great (late) dinner at a little beach restaurant on Lake Michigan. It was a spectacular sunset, but I was a little too late taking this picture to capture the best of it.

We went to Tom and Kristin's on Monday and Tuesday. Anna starts Kindergarden in September, and she was having some safety orientation, so I got to spend some time with Margo and Claire. It was awfully quiet with Anna out of the house, but I think the other girls enjoyed having some time with their Granny.

Okay. I do feel better now. I guess the owners are pretty stressed with the robbery and fire, so I'll try to bear with them.

8/4/07 (Saturday): Okay--I want everyone to send good vibes our way. We've been in touch a couple of times now with a campground between Santa Cruz and Monterey that would be absolutely perfect for us. They really need someone to start now, which we can't do because we're committed here through September, but they're considering whether they could wait until then. It's just turned into a KOA, and our experience here would really be helpful to them. We'd really like to get this job!

I forgot to post one of my favorite pictures of last week's canoe trip. Isn't this gorgeous?!












We worked today and we work tomorrow morning, then we leave for Ypsilanti right after work tomorrow. I'm taking the old laptop with me in hopes that I can retrieve some of my files from it. It's really been nice to have the ability to visit with Tom and his family.

8/2/07 (Thursday): Okay--I'm back in business! I've got the new computer running (boy, do I hate Windows Vista!) and a nice clerk at Walmart solved my problem of not being able to download my photos by selling me a device that reads my camera card. Yay! So, with no further ado, here are some pics of our great adventure!

Here's a picture of the carrier pigeon we rescued (see the previous blog). We were so happy to be able to help the poor thing.











Here are some pics from our trip to Ypsilanti to visit the grands. It was Claire's first birthday (gosh, time sure flies, doesn't it?). She really demolished the cupcake--it was her first taste of chocolate, and she sure has her grandmother's taste for it!











My present to her was a Fisher Price train. She's scared of it! Bad Granny!!












We had a lovely day yesterday. We went canoing on the White River through the Manistee National Forest.











It's a really pretty little river. The water is very clear and shallow. Wiley tried fishing, but the fish must have been able to see him coming, because he didn't even get a nibble.










We didn't see much wildlife--this baby turtle,
a water snake and a couple of kingfishers--













but the wildflowerswere magnificent!
A good time was had by all!

The next blog will be about our adventure in Grand Haven. Stay tuned!

7/27/07 (Friday): Another crazy week! Our laptop died. We think it's just the monitor because it sounds like it's loading up properly. I'm hopeful that my computer wiz, Mark, will be able to hook it up to a monitor and retrieve some of my files/software so I can load it on the new computer. Until I get the software for the digital camera, I can't post pictures, but bear with me and I'll keep posting without pics for now.

We've made settlement on our house--yay! It's kind of sad to give up our home that we treasured for so many years, but we believe it was the right decision for us. We plan to keep enough money to buy or rent another place when (if) we give up this roaming lifestyle. We both love Florida and want to be fairly close to our family and friends, but Orlando has gotten so busy that we probably wouldn't have wanted to go back to that house anyhow. We hope that our buyers will have as happy a life there as we did. It turns out that their previous address was right around the corner from us! We figure that maybe they were renting and wanted to stay in the neighborhood.

I forgot to mention that the day before the computer died and we made settlement, we had a bird day. By that I mean that we were at Lake Michigan and Wiley was fishing while I sat on a bench and crocheted. I was talking on the phone to the title agency about our upcoming settlement, when Wiley started hollering for me to come help him, he'd caught a seagull! I think the title agent thought I was crazy!! We managed to release the poor bird (the hook was in his beak), but he then got tangled in the fishing line when he tried to fly away. We released him a second time and he flew off, apparently none the worse for wear.

As if that wasn't enough birdly contact, we got back to camp to discover that a camper had found a carrier pigeon (it had two bands on its legs) that had crashed into the window of the camp office. We carried it into the camper and put it into a laundry basket, gave it food and water and covered the basket with a towel. The poor thing ate, drank and went promptly to sleep. The next morning, we contacted the bird's owners and returned the bird to them. They said that several birds had escaped a few days previously. They were really happy to have the bird back!

We continue to have a good time here. The weather has been beautiful--although we could use some rain. There are still lots of places we want to visit. I've settled into the routine of the store and feel pretty confident with most of the tasks. Wiley is constantly getting compliments from the boss about the speed and quality of his work. I think we'll be getting a pretty good reference from these folks. We're also enjoying socializing with the other workampers. We have two new workampers, and have already spent an evening with them. The insurance company has had investigators out here looking into the fire damage and they're gradually getting all cleaned up from that. Everything in the store had to be discarded because of smoke damage, but we have new merchandise lined up and waiting in the barn for when the store has been cleaned. The campers are being very understanding about sharing the one remaining restroom. We've got our awning back and really enjoy sitting outside in the evenings.

That's it for now--sorry I don't have pics for you. I have some on the camera that I'll share when I get my software back.

7/21/07 (Saturday): No pics today--just a quick blog to update everyone about what's up in our neck of the woods.

We traveled to Ypsilanti Tuesday afternoon right after work for a visit with Tom and his family. My granddaughter, Claire, had surgery the week before, and Kristin had asked for my help with the older girls so that she and Tom could go to Claire's post-op visit. Claire is healing nicely and there will probably be no future complications, other than (possibly) some work on the scar as she grows. We're really thankful for that! I took Anna and Margo to their gymnastics class on Wednesday, and that was a treat. They really seemed to enjoy the class. Thursday was Anna's swimming class, and I spent some time playing in the pool with them after the lesson. Great fun! We'll probably visit again next month.

We came back to a very upsetting situation here. There was a fire in the men's room that pretty much destroyed it. The investigators have been here for two days now, and arson is suspected. This, on the heels of the burglary, has the owners very upset. Most of the campers have been wonderful about it, taking turns using the remaining ladies' room and porta potties. Hopefully the campground's insurance will cover most of the losses, and maybe they'll even come out of it better than whole, because new rest rooms were in the planning stages anyhow. Thankfully no one was hurt. The owner's live upstairs, and their home was heavily smoke damaged and their little dog had to go to the vet. But the owners have an RV they can stay in until the mess gets cleaned up. I just hope the owner doesn't decide to close for the rest of the season, which would leave us looking for another position late in the season. Oh well, what will be will be, and we'll figure something out. Maybe we'll take something in California and finish out the season there!

I went out and bought the new Harry Potter book this morning at Walmart. I don't have to go to work until 5 PM today, so I have a cup of tea and some pleasant hours ahead of me! I'll post again as soon as I upload the pictures from my camera. Peace!