The Camping Weekend

It was a getaway (8/7 – 8/10) that had been planned for some time. It’s a trip to Campit in Saugatuck, Michigan that I go on every year with friends from WSGA. It was a day that I was looking forward to – to get away from all the stress and drama of home. The drive was smooth and uneventful. After getting on to Interstate 196 in Michigan, just over the Indiana state line, all that could be seen for miles ahead were tall evergreens that lined the shoulders. It is so unlike Chicagoland and what they have been doing as of late – installing sound walls. What were once nice views along I-94/294 in Illinois have now been blocked by concrete monstrocities. The evergreens in Michigan had a great smell as I drove with the windows down and sunroof open. It got me excited to enjoy the outdoors on this camping trip.

It was nice to arrive at a place that has become so familiar and welcoming for me. A place where I could be me. One thing we were told before leaving Illinois was that the resort had us camping at the New Horseshoe. In years past, WSGA always set up camp at the Old Horseshoe. It had some upset at the arrangement. I wasn’t familiar yet with the New Horseshoe, so I didn’t know what we were getting into. The New Horseshoe was much larger and we did not have assigned lots as with the Old Horseshoe. We were told to just set up shop wherever we found a spot. At first it seemed like all the spots were already taken and only about one-third of the WSGA members had arrived. When I found this wide open spot under all the sunshine, I thought I found Heaven. Little did I realize a river would run under my tent.

The next morning, after a rain storm, I sat up in my air mattress and my feet stepped in about 3 inches of water. Thankfully, anything that I thought was of value was kept in a sealed garbage bag. We couldn’t keep our cars at our tent sites, so much of my stuff was kept in the tent. When I walked out of my tent, water surrounded me. Water that got into the tent entered by way of seeping through the floor or seeping throught the ceiling. Rather than taking the entire tent down and relocating to another site, a friend suggested that he round up about six other guys to pull my tent’s stakes out of the ground and just lift and move the tent while intact and set it in place with the stakes.

It was at this time that I vowed to go against common practice and NOT lay the tarp under the tent again. Basically the tarp created a problem where any rain water that settled under my tent did not seep into the ground, but just stayed on the tarp surface which was against the tent floor. And eventually that water seeped through the floor, particularly where I would step. So then I ended up putting the tarp over the top of the tent. Remember the “wide open spot under all the sunshine”? That’s the last place you want to be when in a tent and it’s raining outside. The overhead trees serve as great canopies and shelters against the falling rain, which I did not have. So all of Friday night’s rain also soaked the tent’s roof to the point where the rain began seeping through the roof as well.

The new location I was spotted at proved to be much drier and the rain stayed out of the tent thanks in part to the tarp that was now on the roof.

What I liked about the New Horseshoe we were at was that it gave us the opportunity to get to know other people who were not part of WSGA and came from other destinations. I see many of my friends from WSGA on a fairly regular basis so it was nice to get to meet others.

Friday night was the drag show that I went to with others from WSGA. We only stayed for about 15 minutes. It turned out to be VERY crowded which we attributed to the fact that it was a good shelter from all the rain we were getting. Not that it was raining as bad, but enough to make being in your tent not the most ideal place to be.

Saturday was a day filled with a lot of activities. After getting my tent cleaned up and showering, I drove into Fennville to join other WSGA members who went to a former WSGA member’s home where he provided lot of food, drink and cake. They also had this huge, almost life-like chess set outside. I was doing a lot of photo taking, including capturing a few shots of an interesting butterfly in the fields adjoining their property. On the way back to Campit, I made stops along the way to get some photos of the countryside, including some large rolls of hay. Upon our return, it was time to get ready for the Mardi Gras parade that was going to be parading throughout the entire campgrounds. At the end of the parade, the entire campground guests went to East Village, which is where people who own double-wides and large RV’s have a “street fair” of food, beverage and miscellany for us to sample.

Sunday was the first full day of sun, which is when many of us went into downtown Saugatuck to check out the shops, boutiques, and restaurants. I also managed to get a few shots of this beautiful garden of flowers. On the way back to the campsite, we stopped by downtown Douglas, Michigan. We only managed to get in about 15-20 before it started raining again. AARRGGHH!!! Luckily, that only last about 30 minutes. But the storm was brought in by an interesting frontal system. The sky was filled with areas of pitch black clouds, but just beyond those clouds were the whitest and brightest clouds you’ve ever seen. And then if it wasn’t so apropos, nice rainbows started appearing along the horizon. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture the most beautiful shots.

Monday morning was taking down, cleaning and packing everything in the car. After that, I spent the rest of the day at the pool to make up for all the sun we missed because of the rain. Only a handful of us actually stayed over Sunday night. Many of us just didn’t want to be part of the crazy traffic when people from all over are hitting the highways to get home before work on Monday. I remembered that I was going to be gaining an hour going back home traveling from EDT time to CDT time. So I stayed until about 3:00 PM.

When I hit the highway, it was only a matter of minutes before I found myself behind a red pickup truck that was weaving back and forth in the one lane that everyone heading south was restricted to thanks to all the road construction. My first thought that he may be drunk. But then he could have been tired, falling asleep at the wheel, or perhaps talking on a cell phone or texting. I was taking some photos of this driving before I called 9-1-1, but was eventually dropped after one operator tried to transfer me to the next county I was driving through. Thankfully, the truck exited the highway at Exit 18 and I didn’t have to worry any longer. By the time I was making it through Chicago, I was hitting rush hour traffic, which provided me great vistas of the Chicago skyline, which I managed to capture.

It was a getaway that I thought was going to be a downer due to all the rain, but I managed to have a good time. I only needed an additional 2 or 3 days.