The 2017 Harvest Festival weekend would mark our third trip to Sleepy Hollow State Park in Laingsburg, MI, just northeast of Lansing. Arriving in the dark, again, we used the two-way radios this time and had a much quicker, easier time parking. Really our only complaint about the park – even though it’s nice and woodsy, the sites are tight and very shallow. Smaller rig friendly. But we made it work. They weren’t kidding about the required 100 feet of power cord that you need. The pole was practically in another zip code. We had to use our extension and very luckily borrowed another one from the park. Not best practice though.
We woke to rain on the roof and I prayed it was just an early morning shower. We lucked out and it cleared up to be a gorgeous fall day. The park hosted a can raffle, pumpkin painting, a cornhole tournament along with other activities. We basked in the sun at our site, taking in one of the last fall camping weekends I dream of all winter.
Saturday afternoon as we were finishing with the decorations, a kid playing in the road from a neighboring site wandered over and said, “I like your campsite so far!” “Thanks!”, I replied. And thought to myself, “Good, because you’re basically looking at it!” Haha.. Our site was not nearly as decked out as some, but it would turn out pretty cool after dark. And my camp flag came in just in time!
5pm rolled around and the goblins began to descend upon our site. I was pleased that about 95% of the kids had manners, not forgetting their thank-yous. I found a cool bloody choker at Party City and had it on along with my black feathery witch hat. One kid actually asked me, “Is your neck okay??” Haha..
After trick or treating (during which I’m sure Bill traumatized more children with his creepy baby mask, even though we forgot the creepy lullabye music) came my favorite part of the weekend – the hayride..
We waited until it got a bit darker, then got in line. Two tractors pulling hay wagons were going through the park, taking crowds of people on a tour of all the decked out campsites. What fun. Such a gorgeous night to tour the campground and view all the sites lit up for Halloween. The stars were out and it was breezy, more reminiscent of a summer night than fall. Tonight was the Michigan vs. Michigan State game, and as the wagon pulled us through, people in the campsites would yell, “Go Green!” and everyone on the wagon would yell back “Go White!” With several scattered smaller voices yelling, “Go Blue!” Haha.. To live in Michigan.
We returned back to our site in total darkness and decided we’d hang out as the wagons went by and add to the creepiness.
At least the day was nice. We weren’t back from the hayride 20 minutes when it began to sprinkle. Bill had noticed several people while we were on the hayride that were putting up their awnings. We got ours rolled up just in time for the heavens to open up once more. We didn’t get to enjoy a fire, but I’m glad mother nature allowed the Halloween festivities to go on. We’ll be better prepared for Hayes Haunt in a few weeks!