This 4th of July we had the pleasure of trying out a new campground, something I’m ALWAYS up for, even though I love the parks we’ve been to (well, some of them). We were able to get in at Algonac State Park, with just a few sites left for the holiday weekend. We were in what they call the Riverfront section, but we weren’t right on the St. Clair river, our site was a few streets over. I will for sure book six months in advance for 2018 and get a river site!
So here we were..
It’s a super nice park and our grass site was rather level. Some of our neighbors weren’t that lucky I guess, but they also didn’t make any efforts to level out their units, which we found kind of surprising. We affectionately referred to them as “listing” which we felt appropriate with our proximity to the water. Haha.
Saturday morning my alarm clock was a ship’s horn (and mostly the rest of our mornings!) and I had to have looked hilarious scrambling to get dressed and out the door to run to the river. Another reason a riverfront campsite is a must for this boatnerd – my bum hip was screaming by the end of the weekend constantly running from our site to the river to get pics. It wasn’t until MONDAY that Bill found for me the app FindShip. I hadn’t even thought of looking for an app to track their whereabouts. Duh. I missed so many go by. Sitting at the campsite, all of a sudden you’d see the top of these HUGE ships through the trees. Too late. But later, with the app, I knew who was coming.
I even used the app after we returned as I had a meeting at the Renaissance Center, right on the Detroit River. Knowing who was approaching, I got to see the Philip R. Clarke and the CLS Laurentien pass eachother. Happy girl.
We displayed our new camp flags, the South Dakota state flag being a surprise for Bill. It had a slight stain on it though, which I was not happy about, but he chose to keep it rather than have me return it. And, like the suede couch, I had to have the 1776 flag!
On Saturday a wicked storm blew through and I quickly grabbed my camera and headed for the river, hoping to get shots of the dark clouds over the water. It started to rain and I headed back, just in time to see Bill holding on to one awning pole. The rest was on the ground. Now it was pouring. After I had took off, he began to lower the awning and a huge gust of wind lifted the awning up and separated the two poles that slide together on one end. It took him a minute to assess what had actually happened, and I was SO glad to hear the awning had not been damaged, just taken apart by the wind, as I held on to one pole, water streaming down it. Once the rain let up a bit we were able to put it back together and test rolling it up and unrolling it. Literally soaked to the bone, but beyond happy we didn’t lose the awning, as we learned some others in the park had.
So, good news, we and our awning survived the storm and the torrential rain completely washed the stain out of our South Dakota flag! LOL Bonus. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I got of it!
Later that day, we visited some dear friends staying in the wagon wheel, another loop in the park. We got to see their beautiful new ALiner, a type of trailer we’d never been in. It’s a very cool unit with some really creative storage ideas! I love their awning! They have some awesome ideas to dress it up for Halloween – I can’t wait for pics!
On our last day with the FindShip app, we spent some time on the riverfront with my zoom lens. I was in heaven and can’t wait to come back.
They were having a pickerel fishing tournament so there were lots of boats on the river and fishing from the bank. I learned from Facebook later (we missed this commotion, must have been back in the wagon wheel) that a particular captain of a freighter expressed his frustration with 5 LONG blasts of his horn. 5 short blasts means immediate danger, or if they feel another boat is too close.
Camp Cooking was a success this weekend! I made Crescent Roll Hot Dogs and Campfire Quesadillas (coming soon)! Both turned out extremely well. Our weather improved and we had some really nice sunny days to finish out the holiday weekend. I broke out the star shower and lit up our neighbor’s tree. Hehehe. Except the red light stopped working. 🙁
Then we broke out the sparklers.
Fabulous weekend.. Our next adventure is Maumee Bay State Park!
[…] I’d mention how nice it was to have a short work week after spending a fantastic weekend camping over the 4th of July. Our next excursion won’t be until late August but we have other fun things going on. […]