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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

trip #3

Good morning.
We spent the holiday weekend at Maumee Bay State Park. This park is located about 15 miles east of Toledo Ohio, and sits on the shore of Lake Erie.
We left after work on Friday, leaving around noon and arriving at the campground just before 3pm. Would have gotten there a bit earlier, but road construction slowed us down a bit.
Here's a few pics of the campground....

Sunrise from our site. Maumee Bay has the most spacious camp sites of just about any park we've been in. The 8 loops are even space far from each other.


We arrived during a heat wave of 93 out. Had to take many breaks during set-up. For dinner, we had turkey cheddar kielbasas on the grill.
Saturday morning, while Craig slept, I took a bike ride around several loops in the campground. Came back, took a shower, woke Craig up, fixed us coffee, and went for a morning walk. Then we left the park for downtown Toledo, where they have a very nice farmers market. The holiday weekend also meant they were also having a massive plant sale too, so it was very crowded. But me managed to find some nice zucchini, asparagus, potatoes and even some banana nut bread.
Dropped the veggies off at the car, then walked over to the Libby Glass Outlet store nearby. By time we were done there, it was time for lunch. We walked the 4 blocks to Tony Packo's.
This is the place to get the famous Hungarian Hot Dogs. We have ours topped with their famous chili sauce and cheese. Delicious!
Then it was back to the campground where we took an afternoon bike tour of all the campground loops. It's always fun to see what types of rvs there are.And we saw every type and age possible from tents, super old motor homes and trailers, to brand new including a monster 45 ft Monaco Dynasty that barely fit into it's site.
 The temps were much better with mid 70's and a few lightly scattered showers.
That evening we had pork steaks, asparagus and potatoes on the grill.
Sunday morning, I took another bike ride. This time I took what's called the beach loop.
 

The beach is actually about a mile from the campground. Either by trail, or a rd. The beach loop is a trail that heads to the beach, and then back through another area of the park.  It was a pleasant ride with temps in the 60's.
Back at the campsite, I showered, got Craig up, fixed coffee, and we went for a morning walk. Are you seeing a routine here/  :-)
Then we headed out for breakfast. I didn't pack any supplies for breakfast so we hit McDonald's. The sausage mcmuffin with egg and  hash brown potato hit the spot. The we went to the Toledo Botanical Gardens. There were acres and acres of trees, shrubs, perennials and flowers. I couldn't believe I forgot my camera. Afterwards, we stopped for the Sunday paper, and headed back to the campground.
After relaxing and reading the paper, we went for another bike ride. Then we headed over to the beach to soak up a little sun and people watch.
Back at the campground, we started breaking camp in anticipation of an early departure in the morning. The campground was completely booked, and there would be a mass exodus on Monday. Dinner was chicken, zucchini, and baked potatoes on the grill.
Monday morning, I awoke Craig at 6am. to beat the  departing rush. It turned out to be plenty early enough. With out a pull trough site, we had to wait until we pulled the mo-ho out of it's site to hook up the car caddy and load the car. It only takes about 15-20 minutes, but we have to do that out in the rd. We made it to the dump site around 7am with only 1 other person in front of us. By the time we dumped and was ready to go, there were several waiting. We planned our departure just about right.  :-)
It was a nice drive back to Lansing, with minimal traffic early on Memorial Day, arriving at Flying J to gas up and do a final dump around 10am. Yes, we dump our tanks twice. Once at the campground, then put a bag of ice down the toilet to agitate while we drive home, then another dump and flush at Flying J. Keeps the black tank operating smoothly.  :-)
We arrived home by 11am.
As I always say, we got there safe, arrived home safe, everything worked properly. It was a good trip.
There was however, one incident......
When we got into the mo-ho to start our trip, there was a funny smell. Like maybe a drain had dried out and we were getting some odor into the mo-ho. So I ran water down the drains and after driving with the air on, the odor dissipated. Once we got to the campground and got set up, I could smell the odor again, but this time it was in the back bedroom area, I sniffed and sniffed trying to locate where it was originating and soon found it was coming from the back corner closet. It smelled of something dead. I thought something, maybe a mouse got up the electrical cord in the bay below the closet and died, so I went out, opened the back bays and started to remove everything looking for the cause of the odor. I found nothing.
Now we do have mouse bait in the bays, just in case. All I could figure, was maybe it possibly crawled I to the wall where electrical cords go. There was a hole certainly large enough. And the smell in the closet was certainly strong. So, we spent the weekend leaving the bay doors open during the day to help air out, and spraying febreze in the closet. It kept the smell away so was not a problem sleeping. Back home, I researched the issue, and if it indeed died inside the wall, it may take several weeks for full decomposition, where the smell will go away by itself. In the meantime, it recommends coffee grounds to absorb any odor. I'll be buying some cheap coffee today.
And once the odor is completely gone, I'm plugging every hole in that bay I can find.  :-)
So overall, it was a very good trip.  :-)

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:32 AM

    Maumee Bay is a nice park. You can use baking soda to absorb smells too. I get mice trapped in between walls of my kitchen and garage frequently. All you can do is mask the smell with a deodorizer. Dead mice have a distinctive smell. I use Renuzit gels. They work well and better the more you pull up on the top and expose more of the gel. It comes in different fragrances.
    Gene in Ohio

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  2. Sounds like a nice trip. I wish state parks would do the sewer hookups. We'd be in trouble. I don't think we'd make it a full weekend.

    We've done the ice thing too. A very good idea.

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