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!