CAMPING - Cedar River campground in the Escanaba State Forest

(THIS POST MADE BY A SOLAR POWERED LAPTOP) 

(because of limited connection on air card signal here - I can't post the pics to go with this blog.  Will post them tomorrow when I get a better connection) 

Ahhhh  on Friday, after Steveio got home from work, he hopped in the rig where I was waiting and we took off north.  Though it was raining, we kept on trekking north, over the border into Michigan and to the five campgrounds we know of up in that area.  Four are along the bay waters of Green Bay where it meets Lake Michigan.   But we opted to go inland once we reached the tiny harbor of Cedar River.  Taking a side road from there, back about 6 or 7 miles into the Escanaba State Forest.  There is the Cedar River Campground back there, rustic 18 sites in the boonies.   Only a pitcher pump and some outhouses.  And a narrow gravel road to get there.

On the road going out there is a house made of stones that I always thought was cool  It's across the road from the river, and now vacant and for sale.  Anyone wanna buy a cool house?  (will show photo tomorrow)

We turned off that dirt/gravel road to enter the park, to travel slowly on another mile on even narrower dirt/gravel.... only one lane wide.  You hope you don't meet anyone, because one of you gotta back up.  Cuz we iz bigger, dey gots ta do da backin' I tell ya!  LOL

A couple turns are really tight, and we barely make it clearing the nose of the 40ft long motorhome around one tree and the back end swinging around to just clear another tree on the other side.  But we have been in here before and know we will make it.

As we drove into the campground.. wheee heeee we see that our favorite site number 10 is vacant!   Actually, there are two other campsites that are occupied, by some tents and a popup in the lower loop.   So nice to have our site we like the best.  We back into our site, and it's raining a bit again, so we cuddle up inside and make some supper.   Spaghetti and garlic bread and we are all set for the night.   No tv stations and very limited internet connection, and not even a cell phone signal.   We popped in a DVD for a while and then headed to bed.  YAWN.....it was a long day when it starts at 5am for us.

We woke to cloudy skies, but not too cold out.  We didn't even fire up the heater overnight, and it was still 57 out there in the morning.  Got the coffee perking and Steveio made us his special breakfast of thin sliced potato american fries, (in olive and canola oil)   some scrambled egg substitute and a slab of turkey ham... hey.. trying to watch his cholesterol, so we have to behave ourselves.

After breakfast, we took the doggies for a nice walk around the campground.. we walked down on the peninsula to check out the other campsites...

On one site is a family with about 5 or 6 fourwheelers (ATVs  a.k.a. all terrain vehicles)   They even had a cute little pink one for the girl and she had her own helmet and she had matching clothes to wear that were all pink too.  I would guess her about 8 or 9 years old... then a bigger boy about 10-12 ish with a bit bigger orange one.  Then the parents and another couple all with big ones. They were just getting all bundled up and ready to head out for a long ride.  There are groomed ATV trails near here and they are allowed to ride out of the park to get to them.   How nice eh?

So then we walked past the last site down at the end of that loop and there were three rambunctious little boys!  They were goofing off in a tent and being just silly.  I would guess them ages 4-6ish. And outside standing there were two dads .... and no women along!    The one dad said that they do this every year, just them and the boys....  I bet those moms LOVE that !   They had a big tent and a popup trailer too.  The dads were fixing up camp stuff and the boys were rolling in and out of the tent, being goofoffs.  Two came out to pet the dogs, while the last one stayed inside, howling in glee that he had the tent to himself.   I bet the dads fed them sugar cereal for breakfast!  hahahah  It sure brings back memories of our kids, and our nephews Mikey, Matt, Darren and Christopher--  all full of the dickens! What fun!

We noticed when we walked by the single garbage can down there, it was piled all around with a bunch of big bags of trash. Way too much to be from just these two sites.  Some of it laying around was camping trash as we could see boxes from new air mattresses and new tents etc.  But about 5 or 6 bags were all matching dark garbage bags we think could have been from area cottage folks dumping them into the park instead of paying a dump fee for the township.  Why do people do that?  Now the park guys have to come and haul it all away before the bears get into it.

We left the lower loop and came back up to our quiet site and am thankful they are camping way down there where we cant hear them!   But we are glad they are having fun though, that is what memories are made of.

About 11 am a car pulled into the very next site to us, 10 other empty sites and they need to take the one right next to us?   They opened their car doors and out jumps two huge dogs!  A Great Pyrenese herding dog, and then a big Burmese Mountain Dog!   They sniffed around and did their thing, both off leash.  The dogs even came into our site and marked territory, both being males.   The two people kinda ignored their dogs, and walked up and down looking at that site, and into the next one up river.  Whew, we were glad to have them turn back to their car.  Guess they didn't want to camp here after all.

Then the fun began, they were trying to get these two huge dogs back INTO the car.  And the dogs had different ideas, they wanted to be camping, not riding anymore.  We watched from the privacy of our rig,  It was hilarious!  The dogs went on a Sit Down Strike... well really a Lay Down Strike.   Right on the ground next to the car.   The guy finally had to lift up the front of the first dog... then hoist the back end in.  Then turned to the next dog, and had to do the same to him!  These are BIG dogs, I bet over 100 pounds each.  LOL   It was so funny, but we were glad to see them head on down to the penninsula to where the other camp sites were, with the other people.  Ahhh we still have the upper loop all to ourselves!

After lunch, we looked at the map and decided to take a scooter ride.  Well well well, the South Fox "road"  really was a logging trail... we went past a logger who was doing some what is called "selective cutting"  where some trees are left standing.  Other areas had been what is called "clear cutting" where everything is ripped out.   We continued on and the logging road then became a Two Track (two paths with grass in the middle).   We continued on even further east and met up with some gates across the road, but room to get around the side.  Big "No Trespassing" signs were posted, but facing out from the direction we had already come.   After 2 sets of gates, we finally managed to reach the sought after main road M-35.   It was about 10 miles cross country on the scooter.   What a fun ride!

At M-35 we turned south and drove along the lakeshore a bit.  We turned in to see Fox Park, which was one of the places we had been thinking of camping.  Our favorite site there too was vacant, and only one site occupied in the whole park  It had 5 tents on it with a bunch of young adults.  So I am thinking we made a wise choice by coming to Cedar River instead of Fox Park.

On our way back into Cedar River, we met with the DNR truck heading out, with all the bags of garbage piled up in the truck.  Nice to see they were here and took care of it.

Time to start up some supper, so Steveio got the grill out..... but he also started a nice campfire.   I made the mashed potatoes and green beans, he took care of the chicken breasts and sweet corn.   We sipped some wine and I did a little knitting while supper cooked.  It was a relaxing evening ... good food... soft music... good wine....   ahhhhh

But then.... rain drops!   Oh oh.. time to get inside (where I am now typing this)  while the rain is getting louder and louder, coming down harder and harder.  Those poor folks in the tents.  Oh my!


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