Lake Erie Love

I've always been a fan of Lake Erie. It is probably because I grew up on its shoreline in Monroe, MI.  I have very fond memories of perch fishing with my dad, taking long walks at Luna Pier to clear my head or just sitting on the beach at Sterling State Park. This past weekend (June 6-8) we ventured to Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon Ohio located on the opposite shores of Lake Erie. 

Have you seen Ohio's newest marketing campaign, "Lake Erie Love?" Here's a link to their new music video....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el_wvc3X7p4. They nailed it. This song gets stuck in my head so bad and ironically, everything that they mention in music video happened this weekend.

We....

... "woke up with the sunshine on my face"

.... "had no troubles anymore"

... "laughed until we cried"

... "light up the summer skies"

...."had the time of our lives"

We were on site 132 and we couldn't get over how much room we had. We didn't have much shade and it did get pretty warm in the afternoon, but we survived. We have camped at this park once before and thought it was nice, but this time we walked away with a new appreciation. There's something here for everyone from nice sandy beaches, to walking trails, to a paved bike path, activities from ice cream socials to movies on the big screen at the outdoor amphitheater and we even enjoyed a professional fireworks display over Lake Erie on Saturday night.

We camped with three other couples and had such a great time together. We got a few hands of euchre in, plenty of hillbilly golf and a newer lawn game called "Can Jam." We cooked an outstanding dinner over a charcoal fire on Saturday night. We also spent a few hours at the beach working on our tans. Once again it was another stellar weather weekend in Northwest Ohio. We woke up to rain on Sunday morning but its getting pretty dry around here, so it is much needed. 

Site 132 at Maumee Bay State Park

The back of our site lead right to a little pond.
We didn't even think about bringing our kayaks, but we will next time.

A beautiful sunny day at the beach.
The top of my feet will never be the same.

Our next camping trip isn't until the middle of July to the thumb area of Michigan with all of my cousins. I know we have to stay put for the next couple of weekends for family and work commitments, but something tells me that we will have a couple of spur of the moment trips pop up before the middle of July. In the meantime, the Pod got a good cleaning yesterday once we got home. We will be ready to roll in a moments notice.

Until our next podding adventure...

Holy Mosquitos - Pokagon State Park

Site 452 at Pokagon State Park in Angola, IN

Our next weekend (May 30, 31, and June 1) adventure took us to Pokagon State Park in Angola, Indiana. We planned this weekend back in January with some of our oldest friends. This trip is the third time we have camped at this park and we were able to get our favorite spot again. Site 452 is located in campground #4 on its own half circle with just a half dozen sites on the entire loop. The site itself is located on a small hill that overlooks the rest of the sites and has good morning sun, but plenty of afternoon shade.

There are several activities at this park. We spent Saturday at the beach on Lake St. James which is located within the state park. The weather was beautiful and even warm enough for a little swimming. I wasn't really planning on swimming but the water was really nice. We took our bikes but didn't take them out

Lake St. James at Pokagon State Park

of the truck. The park does have a nice paved bike path but we never tried it out.

On Saturday evening, we headed to Clay's Family Restaurant in Fremont, Indiana. We had eaten here the last time we camped at Pokagon. It is only a couple miles from the park and the food is really good. What's even better is that on any given day they have at least 10 homemade pies on hand for dessert. I had the best peanut pie EVER! I had ordered it to go as I was pretty full from their fish fry but as soon as I saw it I had to at least try one bite. Well, one bite turned into several more that just melted in my mouth. It was delicious!

My only issue the whole weekend were those pesky mosquitos, but I guess that goes right along with camping. They must grow them big in Indiana because these mosquitos could carry a small person away. They were huge. My ankles have never had so many bites. I applied and reapplied bug spray at least a dozen times each night, but that didn't seem to slow them down. I finally just held a citronella candle and that seemed to do the trick. Mosquitos have always loved me and I think they always will.

Pure Michigan #1

Jim and I had a week off of work and I had planned a trip to up state New York. We had a couple of things come up that forced us to cancel that trip. We were really looking forward to going, but life happens. We hope to reschedule for some time later this year. We were still able to get away later in the week and we headed up north to Tawas Point State Park. We had been to Tawas a few times but never had the opportunity to camp there.

The state park was beautiful. Our site (#44) looked right out of the bay. There wasn't many people there during the week but as we got closer to the Memorial Day weekend it started filling up. The weather was outstanding while we were there but the wind was crazy!! We needed to use the heater at night to take the chill out of the Pod. The park has a really cool lighthouse and a bike path that goes all the way through town. We rode 12 miles of it on Thursday. That was a long way considering it was only the second time we had been on our bikes all year. 

We could only get reservations through Friday as it was the beginning of Memorial Day Weekend. We moved across the state to my cousins place in Kalkaska. My brother and sister-in-law also joined us for the weekend. It was nice to catch up with our cousins over good food and some serious card playing. 

We loaded up the kayaks and took them with us hoping to break them out for the first time this year but it didn't happen. Once we got home we were able to take some time and kayak for a few hours on Lake Hudson which isn't too far from our house. Its a real nice lake that isn't too busy. I'm still not real comfortable in my 'yak but the more I do it, the more comfortable I get. My exit strategy still needs some work, but I think it will get there too. 

Here's some pictures from our trip....

Campsite #44 at Tawas Point State Park

The boardwalk to Lake Huron

The beautiful sunset over Tawas Bay.

Tawas Point Lighthouse

This is from our weekend in Kalkaska. I'm calling it Camp Latham.