trip # 12

Good morning.
Recapping the previous week.....
The work week ended very busy, with us leaving early on Friday for one of our last weekend trips of the season.
This trip took us back to Indiana Dunes State Park. On Lake Michigan, about 10 miles south of Michigan City Indiana.
The weather wasn't the best. We drove down with gusty winds, and it was windy all weekend, including the drive back. But, we got there safe, arrived home safe, and without incidence.
The weather wasn't a big issue, since this was our casino weekend. From the park, we are with-in a 30 minute drive to 4 casinos. And over the weekend, we hit them all. When all was said and done, we came home with over 3/4th of our gambling budget. Not bad, a good value for the entertainment.
We started out Friday afternoon, after arriving at the campground, we headed a short drive into Michigan City, and the Blue Chip Casino. Here, we spent a couple of hours playing the slots. Left with Craig up a tiny bit, and me down a little. Headed to the truck stop by the highway and got Popeye's chicken for dinner. Was delish! After a cozy night in the mo-ho, we headed over to Gary Indiana, where 2 casinos sit with-in a few blocks of each other, the Majestic Star, and Ameristar. We did one, had lunch, and then the other, taking a break to watch some football, where our Sparty's beat Michigan. Left for the campground with me up quite a bit, and Craig down some.
Had turkey kielbasas for dinner.
Sunday, we awoke to more wind and this time rain also. We headed out toward the Four Winds Casino, about 25 miles north, just across the Michigan border. This is one of the largest, nicest casino's in the area, and it was busy. They must be doing good, as they are adding a large hotel expansion. It's probably form all the money they're wringing out of customers, as we both did poorly there. So it was lunch at the Stray Dog in New Buffalo, and back to the Blue Chip Casino.
There, I got lucky and hit a couple of small jackpots, while Craig's bad luck continued. But like I said, when all was said and done, we didn't do too bad over all. :-)
Back at the campground, we relaxed with cocktails and the Sunday paper. Dinner was delicious sirloin steaks on the grill with potatoes and grilled carrots.
Monday morning, we packed up, dumped, and arrived home early afternoon.
It was another good trip. :-)

weekend trip #6

Good morning.
This past weekends trip took us to a campground between the cities of Battle Creek, and Kalamazoo.
We arrived Friday afternoon, driving through a horrendous rain storm. But the storm had past by the time we got to the campground, so the set-up was easy. We took a walk around the campground to find it about 2/3 full. The park sits next to the Kalamazoo river, which is popular for boating. The river is still closed from the oil spill a year earlier. They estimate only about 10% of the oil has been recovered. The rest is sitting at the bottom of the river in various stretches. That may be why the campground wasn't full.
Anyway, we fixed turkey sausages for dinner and watched a couple of DVDs. No campfires this trip. 90 is too hot for a fire, although many campers had one.
I awoke Saturday morning to another rain storm. Thunder and lightening all over the place. Decided to put down the antenna. Just in case. By the time I woke up Craig, it was over. Had our coffee walk, and headed out to the MSU Bird Sanctuary on a nearby lake between us and Kalamazoo.

It was a really beautiful setting, with a large assortment of birds eager to get some of the corn they sell you when you come in.
The birds of prey they have are in small pens scattered through the park.
After that, it was off to the Taste Of Kalamazoo. We were quite impressed with the number of restaurants and the entertainment they had. We've been to the grand daddy of tastes, the Taste of Chicago, and this was every bit as good if not better. The food seemed expensive at first. Tickets were $.50 each and most things were 8 tickets. But we soon discovered that these were full size portions! I had some tasty ribs and a fried oyster sandwich, Craig gobbled down a beef tip wrap, and a beef burrito. Washed it all down with some beer, and to the sounds of live entertainment. A very nice afternoon. As the sky again darkened, we headed back to the campground, arriving just before another round of rain.
We finished the evening with cocktails, snacks and DVDS.
Sunday morning, I went for a bike ride, since it was a nice cool 73 out. :-) Came back, took a shower, woke Craig up, and had our coffee walk. Back at the campsite, fixed us breakfast of eggs, toast, and vegi sausage links. We really like these vegi products. Good texture and taste considering they're not meat. We use Morning Star brand.
Anyway, after breakfast we decide to get a little gambling fix. Fire Keepers casino is just a few miles down the highway. There, we spent a couple of hours, Craig losing as usual and me winning. Came out about even all together. We stopped at a Meijer store for ingredients for a pasta salad Craig was going to make for dinner. Back at the campground we decided to go to the beach. They have a nice lake inside the park.

Even with a rainy weekend, you can see how dry it's been here in Michigan.

We brought our camp chairs, relaxed on the beach reading the Sunday paper, and people watching. Back at the camp site, I helped Craig prepare the pasta salad, and as it 'rested', we went for a walk. They were talking of possible severe storms for during the night, so we broke down camp, taking down the lights, and rolling up the awning. I grilled chicken thighs and legs to go with the pasta salad. We finished the evening with more DVDs.
Monday morning, I went for another bike ride, and then strapped them back on the bike rack. Cleaned the grill and stored it away. Took my shower, woke Craig up, made him coffee, finished preparing the mo-ho for the trip home, and we arrived around noon. Another good trip!

trip #2

Good afternoon.
We've just returned from our 2nd trip of the season.
The weather again wasn't the best. Cooler than normal temps only in the mid 50's and mostly cloudy. But at least we weren't in a tent. :-) And there were a few tenters in the campground.
This trip took us 200 miles north to Young State Park on beautiful Lake Charlevoix.

That weekend was Boyne City's Morel Tastefest.
Does everyone know what a morel is? It's a special mushroom that for some reason can't be grown commercially and can only be found this time of year. I understand they can be found across
most of the country, but grow mainly in certain soil types.
Anyway..... we left Lansing around noon on Friday and headed north. Part way up I let Craig drive. I usually drive all our trips. He doesn't like driving the big guy, but he knows he needs to once in a while, especially on longer trips when I need a break. Of course, while he was driving, the jacks down warning siren went off nearly causing him to lose control. But he got the mo-ho safely stopped on the shoulder of the highway. I turned on the hydraulic jack pad and saw the light showing the front passenger jack wasn't up. I pushed the store button, and the light went out instantly. I don't know what caused the alarm to go off, the jack wasn't down, but obviously wasn't making contact with a sensor that says it's up. So, Craig was happy to get me back driving. :-)We arrived at the campground with no other issues. :-)
We reserved a nice pull-through site with a view of the Lake.
Got all set up, and ordered pizza from a place we found on the net, Spicy Bob's. An easy drive from the campground there and back. We got 2 med pizza's, a traditional beef and mushroom, and a specialty, philly cheese steak. The philly cheese steak was very good, the traditional, so-so. We finished the evening watching Toy Story 3.
Saturday....

I awoke to cloudy and cool, 53 out. Played on the puter for while. Then, went out and scrubed the bug guts off the front of the mo-ho. It looked as if we drove through a swarm . It was nasty!Went back inside and wrote part of this post on notepad to be published when we returned. I took my shower, and discovered a small stain by the skylight. That means we have a leak on the roof around the skylight seal. The stain wasn't wet, so it was an older stain. Probably from the heavy rains we got during April. When we get home, I'll have to get on the roof and reseal the skylight.By time I woke up lazy bones, it had started to rain. And it rained a-l-l day. Little did I know, 53 ended up being the high for the day. :-\

But, we had plans, and a little cold rain wasn't going to stop them. We bundled up, I made our coffee, grabbed the umbrellas, and off we went to the Morel Mushroom Festival. It was just a short 15 min drive from the campground to downtown Boyne City. They had an arts and craft show, a farmer's market, and a carnival, besides the big tent for the Morel Mushroom Taste Fest. We wandered the grounds and Craig bought some cherry apple salsa.

Craig wanted one of these ugly large carved mushrooms and I said don't even think about it. he said it would look good in my shade garden. I said don't even think about it.

Then we went into the big tent for the tasting.
They had numerous area restaurants serving Morel infused dishes. We ended up trying, the Chicken bacon Morel spin rolls, the Home on the Range Buffalo Morel Perogie, the Steak and Morel Pasties, and the Morel and Steak Pizza. We wanted to try Cooper's Morel Mushroom Soup, but by the time we got through the others, the tent was so crowded, and the line for the soup was ridiculous.

We left the festival, and wandered through their downtown, looking through the different stores. Managed to not buy a thing. :-)

Since it was still raining, and we couldn't go biking or hiking, we took a drive around Lake Charlevoix.It was a nice drive. Back at the mo-ho, we played Parcheesi on the puter, where I beat Craig twice. :-) Then I played a couple of other games, while Craig fixed us kielbasas for dinner. With our TV only getting 3 stations, and nothing we liked, we watched a couple of DVDs. It was still raining when we went to bed, but we slept good.
Sunday.....
I awoke to 46, but no rain, partly cloudy. Played on the puter awhile and watched the morning news. Woke Craig up around 9. Made us coffee and off we went. Stopped at Micky D's for a sausage,egg muffin and headed about 20 miles north to Petoskey, MI where there is the Odawa Casino. And as you know, that's almost never a good thing. :-)
And today wasn't any different. But I left only about $10 down, although Craig was down a bit more than that. But it's a nice casino, and wasn't busy at all. On the way back, we stopped and picked up the Sunday paper. Back at the campground, we read the paper, and then got the car loaded on the car caddy for an early Monday departure. It had finnally gotten nice out. It was near 60, sunny, and the wind was being blocked by all the trees.

So we took a walk through the campgrounds. there's 3 here at Young State park.
The original Pines and Oak, and the newer one Terrace. Way back in the 80's when we camped in a tent, the terrace campground was new and just a big field with campsites. It's also huge with 8 loops compared to the Pines and Oak campgrounds with just 2. Well, the planted trees through that one too and now it looks much better, but still not near as wooded as the others.

After our walk, it was getting sooo nice, we got the chairs out and relaxed and enjoyed some nice weather and the beautiful lake.It ended up getting all the way to 65, after a forecast high of only 54. You can never trust the weather people. They're almost always wrong.
For dinner I cooked pork steaks on the grill and had them with a pasta salad we picked up with the paper.Watched some TV and called it a night.
Monday morning, 38 out with a beautiful blue sky.
Finished typing this post, and started to get the mo-ho ready for the drive back to Lansing.
And now I'm typing this from home, as we returned safely. Got there and back safe, and every thing functions normally.
It was another good trip.

trip #13, the details

Good morning.
Trip # 13 details.
We left early Friday afternoon, arriving at Indiana Dunes State Park around 2:30 their time. They are on central time, so we gained an hour.
We should have known with it being Halloween weekend, the park was having all sorts of goings on, including trick or treating on Saturday. We got settled in at our usual site, 83. We fixed beverages, and took a walk around the campground. It was all ready quite busy, and was completely booked for the weekend. The weather was cool with a high only around 50. There were lot's of people decorating their sites. It seems a bit silly to go to all that work for just barely one day. I mean, by Sunday afternoon, there were only about a dozen of us left in the campground. So most people arrive Friday afternoon, have one whole day Saturday, and pack up and leave on Sunday. But I guess it gives people something to do. Us, we like to sit and watch everyone else. :-)
Then it was time for dinner. With this being our last trip, it was a treat of Popeye's Chicken. There is one just down the road from the park in a truck plaza next to the interstate. After we filled our bellies with tasty spicy chicken, it was time for a walk to check out all the decorations. Some people were going all out. Of course, there was also a site decorating contest with the first place winner receiving a $100 dnr gift card and 4 bundles of wood. 2nd and 3rd gets a $25 dnr gift card and 2 bundles of wood.We didn't do anything which is good because the site next to us was going ridiculous with the decorating, and ours would have looked quite puny. :-)

Later that evening we watched a DVD, 10,000 BC. A really good movie!

Saturday, the start of our casino weekend began, we headed west to East Chicago, about a 20 minute drive from the park to the Majestic Casino. In Indiana, Casinos have to be on the water. This one is one of the older casinos and is actually on 2 ships connected together. So you have several floors of gaming. They had a Sabarro's in the hotel lobby where we had lunch. After an hour or so of not much luck, we headed 10 minutes away to another ship, the Ameristar casino. This is just one ship with 4 floors. Quite a bit smaller. As it was very crowded and we weren't doing well there either, we left after an hour. We decide to stop at the Meijer store in Michigan City just north of the park to pick up dinner extras, and of course, candy for the trick or treaters.

Back at the campground, I started a fire while Craig prepped dinner, which was to be baked potatoes, pork steaks and marinated Zucchini. I then saw early trick or treaters and set up a table near the front of the mo-ho. I set out 3 little plastic pumpkins and a torch to make it look a little bit festive. We sat around the campfire and watched all the trick or treaters in all their cute costumes thinking that after today, they'll all go home on Sunday, and get to do it all again. They'll be on a sugar high for a month!

At one point, we were both inside working on dinner, when I heard a little girl say, "there's no one here!" I look out the window as she and her friends grabbed handfuls of candy. That's what happens when you have an honor system, there's going to be some that will abuse it. So I went back out to sit at the fire and left Craig alone to finish with dinner. Most kids would come by and take just one piece, some would take 2, but most, one.

Another little girl came by with her parents, took a piece of candy, and as they were leaving, she said, "they aren't going to win, they have just 3 little pumpkins!" Kids are brutally honest aren't they?

We were in a bad spot for trick or treating, as we were in a corner spot between the 2 campgrounds. So the kids would come by us twice. going from their campground to the other, and then back. There were so many, I'm sure we were 'double dipped' :-)

But we had enough candy for all.
Later, after finding our spartans were killed by Iowa for their first and humiliating lost, we search through the channels and found one called My TV. It shows old sitcoms and was a fun watch for the evening.

Sunday, With our morning coffee walk, we saw people leaving, and others taking down their elaborate Halloween displays. We stopped by the office to see who the winners of the decorating contest were, and not to our surprise, site 84 won. That's the one next to us. Back next to our site, they had 5 people helping to take down their decorations. I figured they'd be their most of the day with all the stuff they had. I said our congratulations as we left for another day of gaming. This day took us north, 20 or so mile across the border to the Four Winds casino. The place was packed! Apparently some contest going on all day. We were there less than and hour and left. Since it was lunch time, we drove into nearby New Buffalo, and found a nice restaurant called the Stray Dog. All the workers had t-shirts with the a mangy dog on the front and the name of the restaurant, and on the back it said, SIT, STAY. cute. I had a very tasty hot dog. It was stuffed with cheese, wrapped with bacon and deep fried. Craig had a cheese casadia.

The wall in the bathroom, covered with dog pics.

Than a short drive back to Michigan City, and the Blue Chip Casino. This is a nice small cozy casino. It also was very busy and we were there only about an hour. We don't like going to casino's and not being able to play the games we like. The good news about that, is we don't leave as much money as we could have. :-)

Back at the campground, our winning neighbors were gone. I was impressed how quickly they packed. We fixed beverages and walked around the campground. There were more people there than I thought. We fixed a campfire, and sat and talked and watched as more stragglers slowly left.

Dinner was chicken kielbasa's and left over candy for dessert. :-) Monday morning, as soon as the sun rose, (about 8am Lansing time) we packed up, dumped, and left.

Arriving back in Lansing, and being the last trip of the season, we filled the propane tank, filled the gas tank and added Sta-bil, and did a power flush of the holding tanks. And next week, we'll take it in for an oil change, and gen maintenance.

We went, and arrived back safe, no incidences. It was a great trip to end a very nice season.

Now it's time to winterize, empty out everything, and park him for the long winter.

But it's not all sad. After getting through the busy holiday season, we'll be able to spend the winter thinking about, and planning, the next seasons trips. Some fun regular spots, and some new, interesting spots. Any suggestions?

trip #8

Good morning.
We've just returned from our latest weekend trip.
This one took us a couple of hours away to Lake Michigan and Van Buren State Park.

Here's our campsite. It's a fairly wooded campground, and not a very big state park. But it does have a nice beach and a lot of day use areas.
And although we got there and back safe, it wasn't with out a few incidences. First, after we parked, leveled and started to put out our chairs, Craig noticed pink liquid running out from under the mo-ho. The front passenger jack was leaking hydraulic fluid!

So quickly I went inside, pulled in the slides, and raised the jacks. Since our site was fairly unlevel, I was able to put down the 2 jacks on the drivers side to level us side to side, but our front was low so we felt like we were walking uphill or down hill for our stay. But that wasn't enough to abort our stay. It wasn't until we were ready to leave that I thought about putting some boards down and driving up on them to raise the front. Oh well. I did call and make an appointment to take it in this morning. I hope it's just a bad seal. It would be nice for a change if it didn't coast much. We'll see.
That evening, as we were setting in for some TV viewing, the handle that turns the antenna striped. So I had to go up on the roof to manually turn it. I had to do that about half a dozen times trying to get the best direction for TV viewing.
Of course, the local RV dealer here carries Winegard parts, but our antenna is a different brand, so they had to order it. Should be in later this week.
Then, later as I went to put more pop in the fridge, (we keep extra pop in a tub under the sink) there was half an inch of water in the tub! Discovered the drain pipe was leaking. One of the screw caps was split. This must have happened to the previous owners, because the cap that split was white, and all the rest are black. I did have that part in the garage since its the same stuff I used in our house.
But we didn't let those 3 fairly miner things keep us from enjoying out trip.
So Saturday morning I awoke to rain. Turned on the TV and found it was going to continue until around noon time. So what do we do when the weather is crappy? You guessed right! Off to the nearest casino! Which just happened to be the Four Winds about 40 minutes south of us near the Michigan border. After a couple of hours, and not doing so good, we headed back toward the campground but first stopped half way back at the city of Saint Joesph which has a restaurant called Clementines Too. The original is in South Haven just north of the campground and is always too busy to get in so we hoped this one would be easier. And it was!

And the food was tasty!
After that, we got back to the campground with sunshine and headed down to the beach.

I swear, Michigan has the best beaches! lake Michigan is soo blue, and the sand, while not white, is still great!

And we finished off the day with a bike ride, pork on the grill, and a DVD, Journey to the Center of the Earth. A bit corny, but entertaining.

Sunday found us going to South Haven to see 5 tall ships. We even manage to get there when they opened the drawbridge.

There are many marina's along the river, and they open the bridge at regular intervals to let the sail boats through.

And here's the tall ships. Now this one was pretty neat, but the others in the top pic were pretty puny looking. Found out these were smaller replicas. That was a wast of time, so it was off a little farther north to Saugatuck where they were having the 'Taste of Saugatuck'.

And for a small tourist town, it was packed! it was held on the street near a park. And they set up tables and chairs in the shady park where you could sit and eat.
It was real nice. I had fish tacos that were yummy!

Then a little shopping, and back to the campground and another trip to the beach.

It was very windy, and as you can see, they have a red flag which means 'dangerous conditions, no swimming.' But as you can see, it didn't seem to stop anyone. They don't have lifeguards here in Michigan at most beaches due to budget cuts, so they just post signs saying swim at your own risk, which people do. There have been several drownings this summer, partly due to a very hot summer and more people going to the beach's. The undertows can be very strong.

And we finished the day with another bike ride, kielbasas on the grill and some TV.

All in all a good trip!

And now I'm off to clean the Salon, and then wake up Craig and take in the mo-ho. Wish me luck!

trip #5

Good morning.
It was a beautiful Independence Day weekend! Upper 80's, sunshine, and good friends. We were joined at the campground by Tom and Dean, our camping friends from Wisconsin.
Since they arrived a day earlier then us, Tom made us a welcome dinner of tater tot casserole on Friday after we arrived. We spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on each others lives. With the distance between us, we only see each other once or twice a year.

Our campsite with Tom and Dean across the way.

After catching up, it was down to the beach, where local communities teamed up with the DNR to do fireworks. They had a barge out in the lake they shot the fireworks from. It was a good show with thousands of people there to watch. But being by the lake as it got dark, the temps quickly dropped. We weren't dressed for that and it was a cold long walk back to the campground as the beach trail is still closed. On Saturday, Dean fixed a delicious breakfast of omelets, toast and sausage links. After hanging out and enjoying the weather, we decided to go up to the Four Winds casino 20 some miles north of the campground just across the Michigan border. It's a much nicer casino than the Blue Chip and Tom and Dean hadn't been there yet. Well, as our apparent tradition continued, they lost money, and we walked out $7 ahead. So we took them to the Texas Corral for steak dinners. Then back to the campground for movie night. Sunday had us repeating breakfast since it was so good the day before, and Dean loves to cook. Then it was down to the beach for sun, sand, and scenery. Here's a pic I took of my early Sunday morning bike ride while everyone was still sleeping. The beach was deserted. Not even the clean-up crews were out yet.

And here's a couple of pics of the beach as we were leaving around 1pm.

For those of you who don't live near the great lakes. They look just like oceans. And fortunately, we have no oil wells.

Then back to the campground to shower to remove the suntan lotion and sweat. It was a hot weekend with temps around 90.

For dinner, I cooked some pork cutlets, Dean grilled corn, and we added some store bought potato salad and macaroni salad.

Then another movie night since it was way to hot for a campfire.

Monday morning, we broke down the camp, said our goodbyes, since they were staying one more day, and made it back home safely without any 'incidences'.

It was a good trip

Ft Custer Recreation Area

Good morning.
As I said yesterday, we've just returned from trip #4. This took us just 75 miles to the Ft Custer Recreation Area. We arrived late Friday afternoon, and since rain and storms were in the forecast, we left the awning closed and rug and outdoor furniture put away. It was also very humid and warm in the upper 80's, and with having so much rain, the bugs were bad. But as usual, we adjusted. Saturday morning took us about 18 miles to the Kalamazoo Air Zoo. They have an amazing collection of planes. And they are displayed in chronological order. They've also have many amusement park-style rides, full-motion flight simulators, 4-D Missions Theater, Magic Planet, Space Ball and a Zero Gravity Experience, as well as historical exhibits and educational activities. So it's a family destination, which seems odd since none of the kids we saw seemed at all interested with the planes, just the rides. But I guess that's what get people in the door. And admission to the the Air Zoo is free. But you have to buy tickets to get on any of the rides, so that's how they make money. And there were a bunch of kids there the day we went.
Anyway, here's a couple of pics....






After the museum, we headed into downtown Kalamazoo. I've lived in this state most of my life, and managed to never go here. I thought I'd now find out why. And we were pleasantly surprised. Being a smaller city than Lansing, it has a really nice downtown. They've managed to keep most of the old storefronts and after a nice lunch at the Olde Peninsula brewpub where Craig had a burrito, and I a tasty California Ruben, and as you see, Craig doesn't like his pic taken, hehehe, We took a couple of self guiding walking tours of downtown.





They have many cool old buildings, and I didn't take one pic. I'm just terrible at taking pics. ;-)


Then to the heart of downtown to Acadia Festival Place. This is a park in the heart of downtown where they hold city festivals, and this weekend was Kalamazoo Pride.

They had rainbow banners everywhere! Music, food, vendors, and lot's of people. But it was too hot out for us to stay the rest of the day, and after purchasing a few items, we headed back to the campground.
Took a walk around the campground which is quite large, and then fixed turkey/cheddar kielbasa for dinner, and watched Our DVD set of Eating Out. A very funny movie night.

Then on Sunday morning, while lazy bones slept, I took a bike ride around the park.

I ended up down at the Kalamazoo river, which runs along the west boundary of the park. You can see how high the water level is. We've had a lot of rain in mid Michigan.
After my ride, I showered, woke Craig up, and we took a walk with our coffee. Then it was over to the Firekeepers Casino, where as you know, is usually not a good idea. ;-) But we had fun, and as usual, one of us won, and one of us lost. We left about $30 down, but felt we had spent enough time there to get our money's worth, Then a quick lunch, and back to the campground, where we did some extensive biking around the park. A front went through the previous night, so the temps were better, (mid 70's) and lower humidity. Back to the campsite, and a campfire to go with the Sunday paper, and cocktails. For dinner, pork streaks on the grill and Craig's homemade pasta salad. It rained during the night again, and so it was a buggy damp morning, packing up to go home. We made it safe, and finally a trip without any incidents.

What did piss me off is we always dump our tanks at the campground, add a couple gallons of water, and a bag of ice. We let that 'agitate' while we drive home to better 'clean' the tank and then we stop at the Flying J to gas up and power flush the dump tanks. Well, they're now charging $5 to use the dump station. I would think with all the money we spend on gas for the mo-ho, we should be able to dump for free. I fired off an e-mail to them saying so. I doubt I'll hear anything back. We'll see.

we're back!!

Good morning.
We made it safely back from our first camping trip. We were originally scheduled to go to Proud lake recreation area. It was to open on March 26th. Well, thanks to Michigan's economy, they pushed it back to April 1st. So we had to scramble to find an alternate campground. And we did. We ended up at Detroit Greenfield campground. It actually ended up closer to the things we planned to do, although a little longer drive in the mo-ho.
Here's Craig in our campsite. The campground wasn't very busy, which is understandable since it was a bitter cold, windy weekend. But like I said, we always have a back-up itinerary, in case of bad weather. And for this trip, it meant shopping!

Our evening view....
So, Saturday morning, we headed over to IKEA! If you've never been to one and are going to be nearby, you really need to check it out. It's an enormous home furnishing store!

And we found just the things we wanted. But that's a separate post right after this one. Then after a tasty lunch at a nearby Chilli's, we went to a large Camping World store. They were having a spring 'sale'. We thought it would be fun to look at the new mo-ho's. Well, they had none. All they had were used. But we looked at a couple. One had a 3 zone living layout with 3 slides. A kitchen/couch slide, a dinette/closet slide, and a bed slide. I thought it would look small divided into 3 areas, but it really looked nicely laid out for only a 37 footer. The salesman was a real piece of work though, we discovered that the generator had been removed. He acted like he didn't know about it. They'll probably sell it to some poor soul who doesn't know what to look for and they'll be stuck paying for a new one. I have a fairly low respect for salesmen.

Anyway, with temps not even hitting 50 on Sunday, with a still cold north wind, we decided to take a short drive into downtown Detroit to, you guessed it, The Greektown Casino!

Now, you'll remember back in early January, we stayed here for Craig's birthday, and liked it well enough to come back. But this time, no expensive hotel room. Just good food, and slots, which I won at and Craig lost at, so we ended up close to breaking even. Not bad, and lot's of fun.

And we packed up Monday morning and headed back to Lansing, just in time for some decent weather to return. It got into the low 60's with calm winds and sunshine. But no trip is without an incident, and this one was no different. Craig arrived home first to move the car and truck so I could get the mo-ho in the driveway, and the truck was dead. So I parked across the street in the golf course parking lot. Put the charger on, and got enough charge in about 10 minutes to start and move the truck. Then put the charger back on for about another 30 minutes. Ever since I had that remote starter put on, I'm getting a battery drain. If I don't drive it at least once a week, the battery goes dead. I need to get around and take it back in sometime and get it fixed.

So anyway, I worked out side the rest of the afternoon, dividing and potting up another 37 plants for my big sale in June. I now have 149 so far, hopping to reach 300 before I'm done.

The new season has begun!

I think spring is coming!

I'm hoping we're having an early spring. It's cold today, but the rest of the week is calling for mid to upper 50's. But it is only mid March........
Sorry I've been absent, but not much to tell you.
Work ended on a very busy note.
I was able to do my customer at the Alzheimer facility. I think they have a system figured out now.
The snow is completely gone and our pond is thawed.
If it ever quits raining, (5 days of off and on rain and drizzle) I'm anxious to get out and start doing spring clean-up.
Oh, and Craig and I, bored with the long winter, and way to wet to do anything outside, we decided to go to the new Fire Keepers Casino. It's near Battle Creek, about a 45 min. drive from Lansing. We'd been there one time before, back in the fall when we camped at Ft Custer State Park, which is on the other side of Battle Creek and didn't care for it too much. Well, we were lucky for a change, and came home with a nice amount of their money. And we ended up being there nearly 5 hours! We even had lunch there. I had a delicious Walleye sandwich and Craig had a quesadilla.
Today I leave Craig alone. We finally got our business returns from our accountant, and he's working on our personal tax returns today. So that means not saying anything unless he speaks first. ;-)
Well, I guess I had a little bit to say.
But that's all for now!

our last one

Good morning,
We are home from our 12th, and last trip of the season. We went back to Indiana Dunes State Park, which was also our 3rd, 7th, and 9th trip this year. We stay at this park often because it's only 45 min to downtown Chicago, and all it has to offer. It was a wet dreary weekend, and we were surprised to see so many tenters this late in the camping season. The temps got down in the low 40's at night.
We arrived around 3pm their time. The coast of Indiana is on Chicago time. Lansing is eastern time, Chicago, central time.
We decided for our anniversary, we'd have a casino weekend. There are 5 casino's near Indiana Dunes. 1 in East Chicago, 2 in Hammond, 1 in Michigan City, and 1 in New Buffalo, just across the state line in Michigan. All 5 less than 30 min from our campground. Now I know what your going to say, 'why go if you never win'. Well, we realise that and go for just the entertainment aspect. If you go without expectations, you can have a lot of fun.
So with the afternoon open, off to the Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, just a short, 10 min drive.
This is a nice small casino, and never real busy. Probably because the extremely nice Four Winds casino opened 3 years ago just 20 miles north of here. Now, we did real good here the last time we came, but today, not so well. So it was back to the campground after about 2 hours. And since it was our anniversary, a treat! We stopped at Popeye's for some spicy chicken. They have the best Cajun Chicken!
Then Saturday morning, it was off to Chicago! Who doesn't love Chicago! Well, maybe except for the traffic. But we went in, did some shopping, and then it was off to East Chicago, and the Horseshoe Casino. This was the first time we've been to this one, and it was Vegas all the way! Big shiny ornate Chandeliers hung everywhere! Very posh! And we didn't stay long. The machines were quite expensive. This casino obviously caters to a different crowd. So our next stop was the smaller Ameristar Casino. Now the casino's in Indiana have to be on water, and the Blue chip and Horseshoe are built on large barges, floating on water. The Ameristar is an actual ship, with four floors of gambling. So back to the car.
But then, an incident happens. We get in the car, and it won't start. And by that, I mean Craig puts the key in the ignition, and it won't turn. He tried and tried, and then tried my key and no go. The ignition was frozen. He jerked and jerked on the steering wheel hoping that'd free it up, but nothing! Great! In a parking ramp and the car won't start. I said, we'll just have to call Good Sam's emergency road service. But he kept trying, and it finally turned! So now, he's afraid to turn it off. So do we go to the Ameristar, or back to the campground? I said we have road service, so I say continue. He's worried. And for anyone who knows Craig, he's a worrier. So I say, if your going to worry about the car not starting and want to go back to the campground, we might as well cancel the rest of the trip, load up the car, and head home. And I knew what his answer would be. No, he didn't want to cancel the rest of the trip. But he decided, no more parking ramps, only lots where he can back in, in case we need a tow truck. I said fine, let's continue on then. So it was off to the Ameristar Casino. We parked outside in a lot near the ramp. Now this was a fun casino! the smallest of them all, but we were doing good on the machines. We stopped an hour in to eat at one of the restaurants, then back to the machines. After about 2 hours of fun, we actually left with about a $20 profit! Cool! But would the car start? No.....
Actually, it didn't start right away, but eventually it did start, so then back to the campground.
It was actually nice enough out, to take a walk, and see how busy the campground was.
Sunday morning was mild, and we made our coffee, and did our morning walk. Many more motor homes than usual. Probably people on their way south for the season.
Then, it was the off to the Four Winds Casino. But would the car start? Yes! It started right up! Go figure! Now unlike the other casino's we've been to, this is an Indian Casino, and it is really nice. Not posh like the Horseshoe, but very well decorated. And this was also a fun casino. We managed to spend a few hours, and left down only about $40. So we decided to finish back were we started, the Blue Chip. And this time we did a little better. All and all, we ended the weekend with more money to take back home than we planned, so not a winner, but certainly not losing as much as budgeted. And we cooked pork steaks on the grill, and Craig made a tasty pasta salad. We walked some more and had a nice campfire that evening. It rained all night, but quit before morning, so an easy time breaking down our site and loading up the car, which started right up again. And has since then, so I don't know what happened, but it seems to be fine now. And I know, if I take it in to get checked, because it is currently working, they'll probably not be able to tell me what happened. So I guess we'll just take our chances with it.
So we arrived back home safe, and now the process of emptying out the mo-ho, and getting it ready for another long Michigan winter.