Big Ol' Bug Smacker

Two years ago I canoed down Thunder Bay River for the first time, so I was excited to return and give it a try with my kayak. We started out at the Thunder Bay Canoe & Kayak Livery in Atlanta, Michigan. This time around we arrived with 11 other people. The group consisted of Jason, Becky, Gary, Ted, Dani, Ashley, Sam, Jerry, Ellen, Terri and I. In all we had 7 kayaks and 2 canoes.

The Thunder Bay River was quite narrow and shallow in most spots along the way. Because we launched from a livery, the river was clear of any obstacles. It was the 4^th of July weekend so the river was quite busy. I was even attacked by a couple of water cannons thanks to my brother-in-law, Jerry.

The last half hour or so of our trip the river became extremely shallow and rocky. We arrived at the Eichorn Bridge about 3 hours later. This area only has road side parking.

We kayaked the Black River from Clark Bridge to Crocket Bridge near Atlanta, Michigan. At Clark Bridge there is off road parking for a few vehicles. There were four of us that went; Jerry, Ted, Gary and myself.

For the most part the river was somewhat slow and about 15 to 20 feet wide. There were just a few rocks and stumps along the way. Three trees totally blocked the river. Two of them we could get over with a bit of extra speed but that left us with one portage due to the size of the obstacle.

As we floated down the river we spotted an eagle soaring above us and saw raccoons along the river bank. We followed a dozen baby wood ducks and their mother down the river for over an hour. They finally got tired of our company and ducked into a low hanging tree until we passed by them. The ducklings were unable to fly yet so they just flapped their wings as they ran across the surface of the water for as long as we could hear them until they finally disappeared in the opposite direction.

It took us about 3 1/2 hours to reach Crocket Bridge. At the bridge there is plenty of off road parking spots. After loading the vehicles we headed north on S Black River Road then east on Milligan Road to get back to M33.

This is our 5^th year now coming to Clear Lake State Park for our annual 4^th of July camping trip. I counted 22 people for our cookout. That was a few more than we had last year. As usual the food was excellent. There was BBQ Chicken, BBQ Ribs, Venison, and plenty of salads.

Chuck and Rande made an encore appearance as the Host Campers. It was nice to see them back again this year at Clear Lake. They didn’t think they were going to be allowed to return to the same park again two years in a row.

We had to relocate a bit from our usual campsite. The one we normally reserved had already been taken. The spot we ended up with was just about as nice. It was large and had room for a couple of tents as well.

The big story this year was the power problem. Clear Lake State Park has a real problem with the power when they get near capacity. We shared our electrical post with three other RVs. Out of the four outlets only two are 30 amps, the other two are 20 amps.

This year unlike the last year or two, they were filled to the max. We had 5 RVs and 4 tents in our group alone. The power for our group went out several times during the day and night. Every time it went out we had to hike down to Chuck’s site so that he could flag a park ranger down and have the power reset.

Another problem this year was the weather. When we arrived on Wednesday the temperature got down to 50 degrees that night. By the time the weekend rolled around the heat had climbed to the mid 90’s with high humidity. With heat like that you really need to be able to run your AC in the RV.

One Ranger came by and informed us that we were going to need to turn off our air-conditioning. He also stated that if we continued to run the AC in our RVs that he would not restore the power next time it went off.

Before we left, I spoke with a Park Ranger by the name of Greg Kinser. He informed me that this has been a problem for quite some time. Greg said that Clear Lake State Park is an older park and was never designed to support today’s modern RVs. He informed me that the larger rigs demand more power and overload the circuits in the park.

 I find this somewhat hard to believe since the power always went out at the main, not the electrical post. You would think that if your rig were to demand to much current that it would cause only your breaker to blow. Not take out everyone else. This means that there simply was not enough power for the outlets throughout the park.

Greg stated that he hoped the new Recreation Passport which will take effect on Oct. 1, 2010 will help offset the revenue loss the Parks have been realizing the past few years. The Recreation Passport will be available to Michigan residents for $10 per registered vehicle, or $5 per registered motorcycle. This will replace the resident state park and boating access site stickers. Vehicles registered outside the State of Michigan will still be required to display a Michigan State park permit.

Our son, Jason and daughter-in-law, Becky called us today and invited us to join them to go kayaking down the Shiawassee River.

We launched from the Ditch Road Bridge near Parshallburg, MI. The water was not very fast with one spot of very mild rapids. A few spots were shallow enough to get hung up on. There are very few obstacles to maneuver around. It was a very relaxing ride down the river. It took us about 2 1/2 hours. We exited the river at the boat launch in Showboat Park located in Chesaning, Michigan.

We returned to the lake to spend some more time on the water in our new kayaks. We get a little better at this each time we put them into the water. We are now experimenting with some new maneuvers we have recently acquired. Things get a whole lot easier when you figure out how to do them correctly.

All I ask for is a campground where I can get online. Is that to much to ask? Guess so, I have spent hours trying to find such a park here in Michigan. I don’t care if I get to use the park’s WiFi or if I need to whip out the mobile broadband router. I just want to be able to get online while camping.

The forecast is rain, rain and more rain. So I figured it would be a good time to catch up on these blog entries. I just need to be able to access the world wide web. I researched the cell phone coverage maps and did several searches for RV parks with WiFi and came to the conclusion that what Michigan needs is more broadband coverage.

I know most people go camping to get away from all the grief that the wired world forces on them at work, but I on the other hand don’t have the time I need to keep up on these blog postings unless I do it while I am away from it all.

So I took a chance and headed up to OAI Wilderness Resort with the hopes of getting a mobile broadband signal and to my astonishment I am right now receiving 4-bars of 3G service. Not bad! Not to long ago I needed to stand on a picnic table here to talk on the phone. Must be a new cell tower or some kind of cosmic thing. At least I am able to tell you about it, that’s all that really matters.

We met Paul, who is the Resort Manager here at the Wilderness Resort. We got to chatting about kayaking. I brought it up since my wife and I recently got into the sport. Paul was kind enough to give us several pointers on kayaking down the Rifle River. I do have to say that all the people at this resort are very kind and will go out of their way to help you.

We put our kayaks into the water for the first time today. The sun has been out all day today, but now the clouds are rolling in. There are only a couple of boats on the lake and the waves are quite calm. We both spent a couple of hours in the water just getting use to our new toys. I can see this is going to be the begining of a whole lot of fun.