Family camping 2009

We just returned from the annual camping trip. This year we went north, to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

This is a continuation of an annual tradition, and was also the triumphant return of Amy to the world of camping. For those of you who don't know, the last time Amy joined us was in 2004. That was the trip that experienced several dinners cooked in the rain and eaten in the tent, unseasonably cold temps in Colorado, the worst campground ever (think packs of stray dogs) in Arizona, and Amy ended up suffering with strep throat on the ride home from Phoenix. Nice huh? Then just in case it that wasn't enough, she had to have her tonsils taken out.

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I think that it is fair to say that having body parts removed surgically constitutes 'roughing it', and is fortunately, fairly uncommon. So needless to say, none of us blames Mama for taking a pass the last few years. There was also a chorus of "Are you sure?" from the three of us when she decided she was back in this time.

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So in the years since, the girls and I have embarked on the Daddy/daughter camping trip. We have been to the U.P., Colorado, North and South Dakota, and West Virginia/Virginia. Now you're all caught up.

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We were originally thinking Colorado again (I tend to be a slow learner I guess), but my ticker and the fuel budget dictated a midwestern locale. So we thought it would be fun to go see some of the Great Lakes and make a visit to the town where Grammy grew up.

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So off we go. We spent the first couple days camped at the Bay Furnace Campground near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This is part of the Hiawatha National Forest and is situated right on Lake Superior. Several of the sites are on the beach, but as we arrived on Labor Day weekend, those were already taken. However, there was nothing wrong with the site we had.

The beach was only a two minute walk from our site. We went into the park to hike one afternoon and walked up to this cool waterfall.

We also spent alot of time at the beach and visited the Bay Furnace which is why the campground is named as it is. The furnace was used to melt iron into pigs to be transported from the area. This is the furnace.

At the beach;

On Tuesday we moved further east towards Sault Ste. Marie. We had intended to stay at the State Park at Tuquamenon Falls. When we got there the campground was a little more developed than were used to and we realized that we could go another 20 miles into the National Forest and cut some time off the drive to Cedarville. So we kept movin' east hopeful that we would find something good.
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What we found turned out to be one of our all time favorite campgrounds. Its called Bay View and is right on Lake Superior near (11 miles) the town of Brimley. We sent the tent up right on the dune overlooking the lake.

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This is the view from the tent. Pretty slick eh?

Our campsite was enormous. We could have had a whole village of tents in there and still had room. This picture is from near the fire pit, which was still at least 50 feet from the road. You can just see the tent in the back of the site (near the beach towels hanging on the line).

We spent alot of time in the water, the weather was perfect, it was in the upper 70s or low 80s and sunny every day. We brought the bikes along on this trip too which turned out to be a good idea. We rode quite a bit and one morning we found a neat fire road that was fun to explore.One day we took a drive into Sault Ste. Marie to visit the Soo Locks. Another day we explored the Iroquios Point Lighthouse.

The beach was excellent, and there was very few people around. We could probable see 10 or 15 miles of beach from our site, and I don't think we ever saw more than 7 or 8 people as far as we could see.

This was sunrise one morning.

We had to do quite a bit of extra planning for meals this trip since Im on that diet now. It wasnt a big deal, we just rememberd that I could only have portions of meat the size of my palm.

On Thursday we took a ride down to Cedarville to visit with family. We saw alot of the places from Grammys childhood and got to spend time with some of Amys cousins. Amy also wanted to visit the campground that her family camped in when she was a kid. She hasn't been there since she was around 9 years old. But as were driving down the road through the forest , she starts hollerin' at me to slow down. She knew right where we were. It was amazing. Like a homing pigeon or something. Anyway, she says that it hasn't changed much over the years...even has the same proprietress who is apparently now in here 90s.

So all in all it was a success. The weather was perfect. We found some more really cool places to camp. We met some really neat people - Jori suggested to us that she could just stay behind at Aunt Pat's place and we could come and visit now and then. And most importantly, Mom was with us and has even suggested that she might want to come along again next year. We'll keep hoping.