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Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore — Munising, MI

On Tuesday we took a 2-1/2 hour boat tour of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. If you have your maps handy, that’s a ride along the shore from Munising almost up to Grand Marais, MI.

When we arrived at the Munising dock where the ride starts, the passenger line was really really long, and we were pretty near the end of it. My thought: no window seats.

But as people climbed onto the boat, I noticed that most of them were going up to the seats on the open boat roof. Eureka!

There was NO way we wanted to ride in the hot sun for 2.5 hours, so when it came our turn to board, we went for the below deck seats. Bingo — we landed window seats! However, the seats were on the left (port) side of the boat, and all the Painted Rocks would be passing by on the right (starboard) side. C’est la vie. Nevertheless, the boat captain assured us that on the way back the left side folks would see the same sights. (He neglected to mention that we’d be returning at Warp 9 speed.)

Regardless, the weather was perfect and the tour was grand. Here are some photos . . .

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Woodland Park Campground — Grand Marais, MI

Woodland Park

Another find — both the campground and the nearby town, Grand Marais, are gems.

Woodland Park is a county campground with over 100 sites perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Superior.

The campground is First-Come-First-Served, so there are no reservations. At first I thought that there would be no way to get into Woodland during the height of summer, but we did it. In fact there were several sites available when we arrived on Thursday, July 25th.

Most of the sites, including ours, have electric (50A) and water hookups, but no sewer. This doesn’t seem that big of a deal this time because we really like the area. There are showers within a hundred feet, so we’re happy campers.

There are stairways that lead to the beach — a huge expanse of dunes and water — and NO zebra mussels. That was the first thing I noticed. When I looked down at the beach, there were no mounds of zebra mussel shells.

One end of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is within walking distance. Jan took a hike — actually two hikes — to nearby Sable Falls. More photos on this coming up.

WOODLAND CAMPGROUND PHOTOS

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Grand Marais is a treat. It’s like a small Pepin — small with lots of character. It looks like Grand Marais is in the midst of an “upgrade” or upscale or something. Lots of street repair going on, a local winery opening, and so on.

GRAND MARAIS PHOTOS

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Flirt and I took a long walk through town and I noticed two things — Grand Marais has alleys and most houses have front porches. I grew up with both these things and didn’t know how much I missed them until I saw them again.

THE PORCHES OF GRAND MARAIS

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Dometic Fridge Upgrade

Just finished a project that allows us to better control the fridge temp of our Dometic NDR1292 — Dinosaur Adjustable Thermistor project.

Country Village RV Park — Ishpeming, MI

We needed a full hookup place to recover from our state and county park stays. And Country Village RV Park fit the bill.

Though we had big plans for checking out the area, we hung out at our RV most of the time. It was what we needed — a week “off”.

We saw a movie, I waxed one side of the RV and cleaned the basement, and Jan cooked some interesting meals.

Photos from the week that was . . .

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NEXT STOP: Woodland Park Campground in Grand Marais, MI.

OB Fuller Campground — Bark River, MI

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This park was a find, but I’m not sure how we discovered it . . . probably from RVParkReviews.com.

OB Fuller Campground is a small county park about 15 miles south of Escanaba, MI. There are 40 sites, 5 of which are practically on the beach. We selected one of these lake sites, but almost got our RV stuck in the sand. Thanks to the camp host and plenty of wood planks — plus great driving by the Mrs — we were able to maneuver onto solid ground. However, that took an hour in 80-degree heat.

Nevertheless, we really like the park. The beach is a short walk away and it’s very shallow. In fact, the water is knee deep for about 100 yards out. Our dogs, Flirt and Ellie, loved it as they could just wade around.

The camp host made it, though. He lives and breathes this park, and he’s always cleaning, repairing, or helping out campers. Kudos!

For Jan, the high point was a visit to an eagle’s nest that was just a short walk from our camp site.

NEXT STOP:  Ishpeming, MI.