October 24, 2008 by Tim Enright.

Today we discovered a terrific RV resort. It is called Lake Huron Campground and it is located just north of Port Sanilac on the east coast of Michigan. I found the place while looking for a resort that still had water this late in the season. I ran across their website while doing some research at www.HitchUpandGo.com. From what I could tell it looked nice.

When we arrived we were truly surprised. This place was REALLY nice. Someone has put a lot of money into putting this resort together.  It was everything the website had stated.

The resort has a small lake with beach, a club house, a banquet room, arcade, pool, fitness center, playground, picnic shelter, mini golf and a general store. They even have a pizza parlor that will deliver directly to your site (we tried it and the pizza was not bad).

The campsites are large 40×80 foot and offer electric, water, sewer, cable TV and Wi-Fi internet service. If we had to say anything bad about the place it would be that the Wi-Fi did not work well while we were there. This is a very common problem for most parks and I am just nit-picking now. There also are not very many restrooms for the size of the park, but then again we have full hookups so restrooms are not much needed.

The place also offers 25 rustic log cabins for rent. These are small 2 bedroom units that come with a large shared outdoor kitchen.

I have to say that this is currently one of the nicest places in the state of Michigan for RVing.  Very few places can offer what this place has to offer.

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October 17, 2008 by Tim Enright.

It is Friday night and we are in Gladwin, Michigan. It is a chilly and dark night. It is not very late but it sure is dark out. When we arrived at the park we were amazed to find so many people here. This is a nice park but since it is so late in the season we expected fewer campers to be out.

The park office was closed and we had no reservations so we just drove around until we found a spot to set up camp. Several of the sites are unlevel and some of the water connections are quite far away. We found a spot that is quite nice. In the morning we will try to find someone to pay.

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October 1, 2008 by Tim Enright.

On the way home from Traverse City we decided that we were not quite ready to go home yet. We chose to stop at Saginaw Bay Resort in Standish through the weekend.

The weather is quite different than it was a week ago. Last week it was in the 80’s and now it is in the 50’s. Those are daytime temperatures. What a difference a week can make when you live in Michigan.

The park is gearing up for their Halloween weekend. There are spooky and scary things everywhere. Most of the things are hand crafted. The people here are quite handy when it comes to decorating.  I hear this place throws a spectacular Halloween party. We are told that they are always full for the event. We have never attended and will be leaving in a couple of days. We will need to plan on coming for the fun some year.  This will be their last big bash for the season. They will then slow down for the winter season.

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September 26, 2008 by Tim Enright.

We are in northwestern Michigan to spend an extended weekend. We choose to stay at a place called Holiday RV Park. It is located in what is called Chums Corner just south of Traverse City. It is owned and operated by Michigan Airstreamers Park Association.

We called ahead to make a reservation and received a phone message stating they had closed at 5pm and to get more information we should go online. We decided to take the chance that we could get into the park and continued our journey. Once we arrived, we noticed a note on the door listing a few sites that were available to choose from.

We chose a corner site. It offered full hookups including cable TV and WiFi. The sewer connection was over 30 foot from our hookup, so we had to do some maneuvering to make it work. The site is landscaped nicely. It had a gravel pad. Some sites offered trees while some did not. Some sites are located along the shore of Silver Lake. Over all, the campground was pretty nice. It was well maintained and very clean.

The next morning we went up to the office to pay for our site. The sign on the door listed this place as a member of Good Sams Club, yet they refused to offer the discount. They stated that they only offered the discount during their peak season. I have not heard of this practice at any other park before.

We spent enough time in the Traverse City area to visit some of our favorite restaurants. These are some of our favorites:

Modes Bum Steer:  This place used to be my favorite steak in Michigan, until I discovered there was a Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Troy, Michigan. Since the steak I had on our trip to Maine this spring, it will be real hard to top Ruth’s Chris Steak House.

Schelde’s Grille & Spirits: We head here whenever we are in Traverse City on Sunday to enjoy the Brunch Buffet.  This year we sadly discovered they no longer offer the buffet. We should have known by the lack of cars parked in the lot. We will only have memories now.

Paesano’s Pizza: Since we discovered this place a couple of years ago, we always make a point to pickup one of these pizzas. We have had our share of pizzas while in the Traverse City area and we can now truly say the area has a pizza worth eating. 

Boones Long Lake Inn: This is one of those places in Michigan that everyone has heard of, just like Tonys in Birch Run. The house specialty is their New York Strip. It starts out as extra thick 24oz cut strip and is broiled to perfection. They then list the steak as an 18oz cooked portion, but I am informed it always ends up larger than that. Any way you look at it this is one gigantic steak.  While here don’t forget to try their house brand of seasoning. It is good on almost anything. We always purchase some for the road.

Ham-Bonz: This is without a doubt one the best Pulled-Pork sandwiches I have ever eaten.

UPDATE: On the trip home I decided to give Good Sams a call to find out how common it is for a campground to only their membership discount at certain times of the year. I was informed that the practice was not even allowed by the club.

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September 5, 2008 by Tim Enright.

This weekend brings our entire family together to celebrate my mother’s 70th birthday.  I have spent the last several months organizing this surprise along with the help of my brothers and can tell you that it was worth all the effort. My mother was truly delighted.The surprise brought tears of happiness to her eyes.

We chose the Valley Plaza RV Resort because it was a place that both Rvers and Non-Rvers in the family could stay. The place not only offered an RV Park, but also has two hotels to choose from. This worked perfect for our occasion. We also had use of a picnic area to hold our gathering. This is a nice place to hold a family reunion.

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August 29, 2008 by Tim Enright.

We are doing a bit of camping out in the wilderness this weekend. We are alongside the Black River in northern Michigan. This is a spot we refer to as Paradise Point. We only have a couple of days to spend here this year. We have promised our 2 boys that we would take them to the Zoo on Labor Day.

This is one of our very favorite places in the world. This year it was not as tranquil as years past, due to the invasion of ATVs. These machines have done to our forest what Jet Skis have done to our lakes. They turn a quiet, peaceful setting into a four ring circus. I have nothing personally against these machines. My family and I have been on ATVs and enjoy them just as much as anyone else. It is just the fact that some people think they are the only people around and neglect to respect the existence of others in the area.

We happened to be the victims of just this type of invasion. These characters would whip around our campsite kicking up dust just like Indians circling a wagon train. But unlike the horses used by the Indians, these horses made a real racket. We soon realized that it was a good thing that our trip was a short one this year. I guess just because this is paradise, doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

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August 22, 2008 by Tim Enright.

I have not been happy with the way my trailer brakes have been working. I tried replacing my brake controller and I still did not get the stopping power I was looking for. So today I purchased 4 new electric trailer brake backing plates and drums. These along with my new brake controller will give me a totally new braking system.

Please take a look at my RV Article on trailer brakes for more information on what I have learned along the way.

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August 8, 2008 by Tim Enright.

Today is 08-08-08 and we should be at the casino betting on something. Look at me I sound like a big time gambler. We went to the casino on Friday the 13th to try our luck and I lost the $20 limit we each spend in less than 10 minutes. It was probably a good thing we didn’t go today.

We decided to go to Valley Plaza RV Resort for the weekend. I needed a place with full hookups to flush the tanks out. With rain in the forecast we were not looking to do much camping, we just needed a place to hookup for a night or two.

The conference center was holding an event so the place was quite full. A couple younger guys here for the conference came up to us and told us they were informed that they could not pitch their tent on a site. They were not very happy. They were not acquainted with the differences between a RV Park and a Campground.  I explained this was a common in a RV Park to not allow tents.

I noticed that they have a couple more seasonal rigs spending the summer here this year. You can tell because they have much more stuff than anyone else. They are not allowed to stay all year, so you will not find any porches or sheds on their sites. I believe that makes the place much more inviting to the regular RVers.

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July 31, 2008 by Tim Enright.

The headline this year will read “Aussum Aussie losses title to Sawmill Smoke House”.
 
Today we once again attended the Pig Gig. This is a rib cook-off competition for best in the Midwest. I am sad to say that after a very long reign Aussum Aussie has lost its title as Best Ribs this year. Every year we sample most, if not all of the ribs offered here and this year we were surprised in what we found. Sawmill Smoke House from Freeland, Michigan had a very tender, juicy and flavorful rack of ribs. Aussum Aussie had to lay down their title this year. I do have to add that if you wanted to make a good thing better, you needed to put some of Bar-B-Cutie’s BBQ sauce on top of the Sawmill Smoke House ribs to acquire near perfection.

 
On a sad note the piggy races did not show up this year. We spoke with Event Organizer, Wendy Dore and she informed us that they were booked to participate but did not show up.  We all hope to see the piggys again next year.

As evening came around we decided to head over to a small dive near the Bay City State Park called Mussell Beach Drive-In. We chose this place because it featured “Ashby’s Sterling Ice Cream”. We simply love this brand of ice-cream and get it every time we find someplace that serves it. We have been to dozens of these places selling Ashby’s (it is easier now that www.ashbysicecream.com offers a store locator) . We have always been served a generous portion for a fair price, until now. Mussell Beach Drive-In does Ashby’s a REAL injustice. What we were served was somewhat embarrassing.

To begin, they were out of waffle cones. For a beautiful summer evening, I am not sure how they could let this occur but, I guess it can be an honest mistake. To make matters worse, the plain cones they had left were some kind of baby-sized, soft serve cones. When they showed me what they were going to try and perch my beloved ice-cream upon I had to chuckle.  When they asked if I would like a double scoop, I lost it. I laughed and asked if I was on some kind of hidden camera show or something. How in the world was this guy going to pile 2 scoops of ice-cream on this golf tee sized cone?

When I received my single cone, I didn’t trust the balancing act I would have to do to keep from dumping it, so I asked for a bowl to place it in. I was then given a small Styrofoam drinking cup. At this point I was not surprised; they didn’t even spell the word “Mussell” correct in the name of the place.

I do need to make some mention of the park since it is the title of my blog entry.  We stayed at Bay City State Park located in Bay City, Michigan. We enjoyed a very nice stay spent with family. The weather was nice and the county was even kind enough to come through and eliminate the mosquitoes for us.

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July 17, 2008 by Tim Enright.

My wife and I ran over to the Saganing Eagles Landing Casino in Standish, Michigan and guess what….WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!!!

I won $35.00 on a 2-penny slot machine. I put a $5 bill in and got $35 back after only a couple of spins. That was the good part. The bad part was after winning such a huge jackpot, I had to quit. So I was done for the night. This was the 2nd time I won BIG money in one of these machines this year, last time it was on Donald Trump’s dime at his Plaza in Atlantic City. I am sooooo lucky. I usually never win anything.

Ok, back to the camping part. We are now at Outdoor Adventures, Wilderness Resort in Omer, Michigan. Of the Outdoor Adventure Resorts, this is one of our favorites. This will be a working-vacation, as we will continue to drive to work from here. This is a very relaxing place to wind down after work.

But then again, don’t lose track of the most important part of this entire blog entry…. WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER!!!

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