Busy day hunting a lighthouse

September 9 – It was 50 this morning and wasn’t expected to get over 65.  Good thing we’re headed south!  I woke Bill at 8:30 and we had some sausage with our cinnamon rolls and fruit.  We dressed, packed up and Bill wanted to take one last look at the first parking spot to see if our awning rod was there and don’t you know we found it!  It was on a picnic table and someone must have put it there as I looked on both tables when I first looked for it.  Anyway, Bill was once again a Happy Camper!

We did have more issues with the left front leveling jack and I’m so over it!  I tried repeatedly to get it to retract and it stays down about 4 inches and the error screen just flashes and the jack light stays on.  We just left and went on our way!

The drive to our campground, Weslyan woods, outside of Vassar, Michigan was rather uneventful. Traffic was not bad and the weather was good and we found our campground with no issues. However they had failed to leave our check-in packet and there was no one at the check-in building and no one answered when we called. We left a message and then just unhooked the RV and snuck through the gate to see if we could scope out a good spot. This is a very nice facility with a rather large campground in the back behind three small lakes. One area is electric and water only and another area is full hook up. On the way back I asked a lady if she knew anything about the place and she is a employee there and said we should have no problem just pick a spot and that the office person would probably be in around 1 o’clock after church. So we drove all around and picked site 28 because we could actually pull through on it although it is designed to have two RVs end to end. We went back and got the RV and the lady had given me her gate code and we parked with no difficulty as the sites are relatively level.

We ate our lunch and Bill did some rearranging in the back of the truck and an employee stopped by to see if we needed ice or firewood and we told him we had not officially checked in and he said the lady would be there from one until five. I assured him we would stop on our way out and make sure everything was kosher. We did stop and she said she had no one coming in on this site so we were good and we signed our appropriate papers and we headed onto Bay City Michigan where we had planned to see the Saginaw range Light House.

We googled the lighthouse and hit the direction button and it took us right to Lighthouse Lane which had a locked gate so I looked at the map at other roads that would get us there and it ended up all those roads are gated off because it’s private property owned by Dow Chemical. We googled other options and one lighthouse site gave directions to the Coast Guard facility where the Fresnel lens from the lighthouse is on display and that you are supposed to be able to see the lighthouse from across the river at the Coast Guard station. Well you cannot get on the Coast Guard property without a pass as it’s locked and gated. Property at the end of the drive after the Coast Guard is guarded and gated so we pulled into a boat repair kind of place that was not open and I went to the back along the river but the trees and shrubbery block any possible view. I asked a gentleman who was doing something at his boat at the marina next-door and he said there was a lot that had pathways but that with all the foliage in bloom he wasn’t sure I could locate the path. We drove back up to it because it is between the Coast Guard station and the private gated property and there so many sea oats along the roadway and there was one possible pass along the fence line but Bill would not allow me to venture back there. So it was a wasted trip and we don’t understand why the directions that everybody post don’t just tell you that you can’t see it except from the water.

We had brought our laptops with us because there is no Wi-Fi or phone service for ATT at the campground. I wanted to get a couple of days posted so on our way to Meijers we saw a McDonald’s and went in there for about an hour. We ordered beverages and I managed to complete and post today’s posting while Bill listened to music and watched videos and checked his email. From there we drove a couple of blocks down the road to the Meijers where we took in the last of our recyclables. Our final efforts garnered us $10.80. Brings the total for the summer of our recycle project to $167.30. 

Since we were now on the outskirts of Bay City all the good restaurants according to Yelp

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were behind us and I really did not want to backtrack so I looked towards the campground and in the town before our campground there was a place that was highly recommended.  When we got there it was closed, I guess they are not open on Sundays. So I checked at the town Vassar and we found Cork Pine Eatery and Saloon, which was also highly recommended. For a bar saloon type place they had a very large menu, however the girl did not point out the Sunday specials we didn’t see until after we had placed our orders. I wasn’t really very hungry but she said they make their own Alfredo sauce so I went with chicken Alfredo and a house salad. Bill had the lake perch platter which came with six planks of perch which was way more than he was going to eat after a salad and a baked potato. He ended up bringing home three of his fish fillets and I brought home more than half of my Alfredo. I have never had Alfredo with so much chicken in it.

On the way home we saw a beautiful Michigan sunset so we stopped and I took some photos and we managed to get back to the campground before total darkness. All of the seasonal people who are parked on the row in front of us had gone home but we noted there were six or seven cars behind us of people who are seasonals or just camping.

Although we have no phone service we do have great satellite service here, so we watched some TV and Bill got to watch some football.

He has been coughing more and I guess coming down with something worse than we had hoped and I have started to have a little cough and will blame it on him. Just as we were headed to bed we had some rain but not the thunderous out pores of rain that we had in Muskegon.