Holiday Weekend

As all full-timer RVers know, it is important to plan ahead for holiday weekends, especially Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day.  These holidays are very popular with recreational RVers and campers, as well as those of us who live on the road.  We made reservations in March for the July 4 weekend.  I knew we would be in Ohio, where we are doing more genealogy research.  We decided on Delaware State Park north of Columbus, a park we had stayed in several years ago.

The park gave us access to the Columbus Public Library, which has a large genealogy and local history section.

They even have rental bicycles out front.  The cost is $6 an hour.  We didn’t take the time to bike around downtown Columbus, though it looked as interesting as Cincinnati.

On the 4th, we needed to do laundry.  We hadn’t been to a laundromat for 10 days, so the supply of clean clothes was about exhausted.  We found one in the nearby town of Delaware.  As we drove down the main street, it was lined with chairs.  Obviously, the town had a parade.  After washing and drying our clothes, we ended up in a line of cars stopped for the parade.

We saw a few parade entries, before making a u-turn and making our way out of town.

Surprisingly, we have heard absolutely no fireworks over the weekend.  We didn’t see any information about local fireworks shows and there wasn’t any here in the state park.  The campground is completely full, but it has been very quiet.

Yesterday, we visited two cemeteries.  On the way, we drove through the town of Mechanicsburg.  Since the local Chevrolet dealer was open, we had the truck serviced.  While the work was being done, we walked around the pretty small town.  There were lots of neat old houses.  Almost every one had a great front porch.

 

One impressive house didn’t have a front porch, but we enjoyed looking at it.

In the downtown area, we saw a small park with this nice gazebo.  The building next door had a pretty mural..

Each of the downtown buildings had interesting fronts and roof lines.

July 4 and Beyond

We did stay up late enough on Sunday to watch the fireworks. Actually, we could clearly see displays that were sent up from the south end of Mackinac Bridge and on Mackinac Island. We also had glimpses of those from the town of St. Ignace and some other place on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

This is a small part of the crowd sitting along the shoreline in our campground.



This little fellow had his baseball mitt full of popcorn. At least half of it ended up on the ground before he got settled on those rocks to watch the show.



Could you ask for a cuter (is that a word) front row?



Some of the campers shot off their own fireworks before the professional show began.



The "real" show was a little more impressive.



We left the next morning and drove north over the Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula. It was a foggy morning, so the view was very limited.



This was all we saw of Lake Huron. The fog continued as we drove along Lake Superior. We are glad we had seen that lake years ago when we lived in Wisconsin.



As we drove west, a black bear ran across the road. How exciting. The fog finally cleared and we did get to see this pretty scene as we headed west.



It was a long drive to Wakefield, MI, where we spent one night in a public park on pretty Sunday Lake.



Now we are spending three nights at the Gull Lake Corps of Engineers campground outside of Brainerd, MN. We are feeding our souls with the quiet and the wooded campsite. Isn't this a pretty entrance for a public facility?



This morning, while John took his three-mile run, I walked over to the lake to take some pictures. How's this for a gaggle of geese (and one duck)?



I walked the nearby nature trail. It is unusual to find a grassy trail.



I caught a glimpse of this White-Tailed deer before it bounded away.



The forest floor has lots of ferns.



Our campground has a vintage trailer and an unusual one.



We saw these different kind of trailers in a sales lot in town yesterday. I think they would be very hard to level. Once you take them off the truck, the wheels and hitch are raised, lowering the trailer to the ground.