Back Home For A Bit, Anniversary and Goodbye to Bob Senior

After our abbreviated camping trip last week (due to excessive heat) now our area is suffering from extreme smoke conditions due to the Canadian wildfires.

With my lung problems, it's probably a pretty good reason to stay home with our central air conditioning.

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We got home in time to attend our youngest grandchild's cheer recital. She has been taking a fun two-week course in summer school, learning how to do cheer routines. Here she is at her little Grand Finale Finish while she stands up on another little girl's leg, while a third little girl holds her from behind. How totally adorable!

Go Claire! 

They sure had a lot of fun at summer school this year. It's just a short two week session of fun classes. She had classes in swimming, gymnastics, and cheer. Also reading and math. Her older siblings took courses in bowling, fishing, and some creative cooking classes. What a great way to transition into summer vacation.

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As I mentioned, just like a lot of the northern part of the country, we are suffering with the haze left over from the Canadian wildfires. We can actually smell the smoke this week. Everything feels like it's foggy or cloudy.  The air quality is so poor that even right now we are under a very high hazardous warning on the local news.  This is supposed to be a blue sky, no clouds. 

It was so heavy yesterday we couldn't even see to our back tree line. Look way to the backyard on the photo. The trees far to the back look like they are in fog.  On top of it, it's going to be very hot and humid today. Up to about 90. Ugh! 

Actually, I'm glad we are not camping. Otherwise we would just be sitting inside the camper again, at some campsite with electrical hookups. That's not the type of camping we like to do. We like nice quiet rustic sites out in the woods with beautiful scenery. We enjoy outdoor walks, cooking outdoors, and just sitting in our lawn chairs with a beautiful view in front of us. See last week's blog at Blind Sucker #2 campsite. That's our kind of camping!

Since we were stuck at home for a while, it's fun to get out and take a spin in the Mustang. Tuesday evening there was a concert in the park here in town. We took the car out and sat there in the parking area for a little while listening to the music.  Then we then zoomed around along the shores of Green Bay. 

But then.... we had to go home and start prepping Steve for his Wednesday adventure. 

Prepping is the right word. He had his 10 year colonoscopy performed in Green Bay. Ahhhh the things we go through as we age. But it's important that he does this, especially with his father's history of colon cancer. 

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Thursday morning we sat out comfy and relaxed on our front porch. It was somewhat breezy so the haze was lifted for a while. We really enjoy sitting out on the porch and it is actually an extension of our living area during the spring, summer and fall.

A couple weeks ago I hung these beautiful ferns from the front porch. They are becoming so pot bound that I want to put them in larger hanging baskets with cocoa matts to help retain the moisture. I really love the look of these three big ferns hanging on the front porch. 

The only problem is, the cute little wrens in the area decided that they really like them too! So much so, that they built nests in two of them! Oh my, that means I cannot repot the ferns until the babies are all hatched, fed and raised, and flying out of the nest. 

I was perplexed on how I could water them because I did not want to drown little baby birds! A friend of mine suggested getting some of these glass ball watering globes. I slide them out carefully and fill them up with water each day, sometimes twice a day cuz it's very hot on the west side of the house. Then I slide them back into the fern on the side farthest away from the nests.

So far it's working, and mama or daddy bird fly away when I come out there. But then they fly back again. We have not pulled the baskets down to look at the progress of what's going on in the nests right now. When we first found them there was one egg in one basket and three eggs in the other. The third fern doesn't have any nests in it.

Sitting out on the front porch, you can see the haze up the road to the north. It wasn't so bad on Thursday. This morning they said we might get a little east/west breeze and blow more away.  I hope so.

In the morning hours, we enjoy this part of the front porch to relax.  It gets hot in the afternoon, because it faces to the west and is no longer in the shade. 

In our morning routine, we pull the cushions out of the tote for our chairs and I bring out my spinning wheel for a peaceful morning to relax and listen to the birds.  I have a little bluetooth speaker for playing soft music and Steve refills the coffee mugs as we enjoy our porch. There's a bird bath right in front of the porch, down in the flower bed, the birds have really been diving in and out to get its moisture. We haven't had rain again for a while so they are stopping by just to grab a drink or take a bath. Binney is "on duty" to warn us about any burglars who might be walking by or riding on a bike in front of the house. That is her job to protect us.  If they stop to chat, she HIDES behind our chairs. LOL

I try to go around and water all of the flowers and plants early in the morning. Yesterday morning I came upon this little surprise! The foremost hosta in the foreground here has been chewed down to almost nothing! Those sassy deer.

 

Usually one or two times a week I spray diluted Louisiana hot sauce with water in a garden pump sprayer....  and also sprinkle on cayenne pepper onto my hostas and some of my other more delicate desirable plants. But because we were supposed to get a thunderstorm, (which never happened), I didn't spritz them when I was going to. By the next morning those little buggers had chewed the hostas right down to the ground. Two of my other ones in the west and south flower beds also were chewed down. Guess I have to be more vigilant on my hot sauce patrol. 

Since we were home for a couple days, we decided to work on some Home Maintenance projects. Last year we put in this patio area near the side She Shed door leading out into the dog potty yard. Now that all of the big paving stones have settled and are reasonably level with a little bit of drainage slope, we need to address the cracks. Steve took out his air compressor with the blow nozzle and took care of blowing out any clumps of dirt, weeds, and little ant hills that keep appearing. 

The paving stones are actually large 16 in by 16 inch blocks with grooves cut into them to look like individual stones. But you can see the larger grid pattern of the 16x16 blocks. That's where all the weeds and the ant hills are sprouting up from. 

We already used a product called polymeric sand on the sidewalk leading from the driveway up to the pergola. This is the finished result. This is what we're planning to do on the patio grid of blocks as well. It makes them look like individual paving stones now, not just big blocks.  

Here is the polymeric sand. I guess it's a bag of sand mixed with some form of a concrete and polymer glue sticky stuff. The bag we grabbed happened to be tan. In retrospect, we should have maybe grabbed gray? But on the other hand, the look of the tan almost looks like sand between the blocks and is kind of cool too. I think I like the contrast. But at least, you know you can get different colors if you wish. 

It is swept gently into the cracks and try to keep the top surface of the blocks free and clear from excess sand. At first I tried using a little household broom about 10 inches wide. That didn't work so well--- it kept pulling the sand right back up out of the grooves. Instead I used a wide shop garage type floor sweeper broom. That kept things more level and helped guide it into the cracks and not pull it back up again.

Once it was as evenly distributed as I could get it, now it was time to lightly mist with a hose. You cannot spray any type of a blasting spray or large drops. That distorts the sand and moves it around too much. Just the lightest mist to get it moistened and activate the polymers. 

After the first misting, once it dried, I swept away any excess that really didn't need to be on top surface of the stones. Then I gave it its second misting, and this set it up more firmly. About an hour later, I gave it its third batch this time a little heavier. Now I know it's sinks down in between the cracks and activates everything down below. Soon it dries to almost a cement-like consistency.

On Wednesday, it was also another special day for us to celebrate. It is 26 years of wedded bliss to my dear darling Steve. It's hard to believe that 26 years ago we stood on this hot humid day and became husband and wife. We actually got married in a state park! We rented the Moravian chapel at the Heritage Hill State Park in Green Bay. Afterwards we had a beautiful reception on the shores of the Fox River on the grounds of my employer. He owned a beautiful office complex called Meadowbrook that had grounds with ponds and walkways and bridges and was absolutely a serene perfect place to hold a wedding reception. It was hot and humid, but at least it didn't rain!

Afterwards, we sped off in our little red Fiat Spider convertible to a unique bed and breakfast. We only spent one night there for our honeymoon, then we hopped in our camper and went north! For two weeks we circled Lake Superior around through Canada and enjoyed our honeymoon together doing what we both enjoyed best. Camping!

This year, to celebrate our anniversary we are staying home due to the heat and humidity and smoke. But we decided to celebrate and steam up some lovely Alaskan snow crab legs. It's one of our favorites and Steve cooks it outside on a propane burner unit meant for deep frying turkeys. He perfectly times them from frozen to tossed into a rolling boil for 14 minutes. They come out perfect every time. 

A romantic anniversary dinner with baked potatoes and salads alongside of our steamed crab legs. Couple glasses of wine and some candlelight rounded it off to a beautiful evening together. 

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As a final note, we would like to say goodbye to a dear camping friend of ours who passed away this week. 

Many many years ago, probably about 25 or so, my brother had a friend named Rick. 

Rick had a buddy named Bob. I think they worked together. 

Well... Bob happened to mention he had a father who was retiring from the postal service down in Lower Michigan. He was going to come up to the Upper Peninsula to retire. He enjoyed fishing, hunting and camping! But since he didn't know anybody he was looking for someone to go camping with.

So Bob mentioned to Rick, "Hey I know your friend Butch's family likes camping. Do they ever want to have an extra guy tag along? And he has his own camper. He's just looking for people to go camping with"?  

So Rick asked my brother Butch if this guy, who none of us even knew, could tag along with us. My brother replied:  "Sure! The more the merrier!"

Well, Bob Sr, fondly from then known as "Senior" became a constant camping companion with our family. Anytime any of us were headed out to a campground, any of the National Forest parks or anywhere nearby, we would give him a call or leave a message on Senior's voicemail of where we were going. Sure enough, within an hour or two he would show up and pull into a campsite near us. That was just enough time to throw in some things into his camper and hook up and head on out to join us. By the second year, it got to where we would save a campsite specifically for him and strategically park our campers so we could all be in one area of the campground.

Many, many, many nights were spent around the campfire with Senior, and all of the world's problems were solved. He became a part of the family and we shared in all of our meals, fishing excursions, and campfires. We helped him with things, and he helped us. He became part of our lives, and our children loved him and he was like a grandfather to our grandkids too.

This photo I took the last time we were together last year, of he and Steve enjoying an evening by the campfire---- after dinner with a couple beverages of their choice. 

He truly became a part of our camping group. When everybody else got woven lawn chairs that my sister and I make, we were sure to make one for Bob. We couldn't fit the whole word Senior on there, so we just did Bob and a fish. You can see the guys in this picture, solving more of the world's problems with their lawn chairs. 

Bob's daughter Laura, who lives in lower Michigan, told me yesterday how much that chair meant to him. And how much our family meant to him by taking him in under our wing. If he could have taken that chair to Heaven, I am sure he would have.

We will see you sitting around that

 Great Big Campfire in the Sky, Senior. 

This time you are first one to the campground, 

and YOU have to save a spot for US!!!  

CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Seney Township Campground in Seney MI - our 3rd night in Lake Superior area

Okay, this is the third day in our quest to find cooler weather by camping up around Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

We really aren't having a lot of luck! Especially when the weather reports show back home in Oconto Wisconsin the weather is 10 to 12° cooler. Ugh! 

We know if we were going to make it through the 90° weather we were going to need another campsite with an electrical hookup. We had to leave the one at Muskellonge State Park up near the shoreline. 

We knew that about 20 to 30 miles inland and 20 mi over around Seney Michigan there was a little township Campground located on the Fox River. We knew it had hookups, and we also knew it was the first come first serve type campground. Seeing as it was a thursday, we might have a good chance to get in there. 

So we headed out of Muskallonge and gladly drove on a paved road from there down to Newberry! After the past two days of doing 13 or 14 miles of gravel washboard road going from Grand Marais over to Blind Sucker #2, and then to Muskallonge, being back on paved road again was a wonderful blessing!

When we arrived in Newberry, we pulled off to a station to fuel up with diesel. The price was a little higher than we were used to, $3.99 a gallon. But we didn't mind because it was a well used station that had a reasonably fresh supply of fuel. Sometimes, when stopping at little out of the way places with diesel, you never know what type of fuel you're going to get or how long it was sitting in the tank underground. This was a pretty big busy station on the main drag so we knew we could get reasonably good fuel.

When I went inside to pay for our fuel, I saw these wonderful Sayklly's brand chocolate bars at the register. As a child, we would take orders and sell big boxes of Sayklly's fudge as a fundraiser for 4-h. We would sell them to all of our customers along our little paper route, so we had a built-in customer base to order fudge from us. I remember we would sell the chocolate fudge or the maple nut fudge. People would leave notes on their door of how many boxes they wanted of each, and they would buy them in November and save them for Christmas presents! Sayklly's is known all across the U.P. for it's wonderful chocolates and fudge. So when I saw the candy bar there, I just had to grab it. Step back in time for childhood memories. 

We drove west across from Newberry over to Seney and turned up on Fox River road towards the Seney Township Campground. It is located only a mile or so out of town. There's a nice little convenience store gas station right at the intersection if you need anything before you get to the park. 

They don't really have a website, because they are just a small township park. But this is the link from the Pure Michigan site with more information:

https://www.michigan.org/property/seney-township-campground

Our campground is located on the banks of the Fox River, famous for it's Trout Fishing and the true destination of Ernest Hemingway. Quiet area offering 15 modern campsites with electric and also 10 tent sites. 4 vault style toilets. Flowing Well. All amenities are nearby in the town of Seney. The Fox River Pathway, a 27 mile long hiking trail that follows the route taken by Earnest Hemingway when he visited the area, begins at the western edge of the campground. Parking is available at the trail head. All sites are on a first-come first-serve basis. No reservations.

Local: (906) 499-3491

The park is well marked with this beautiful sign in memory of Francis Morrison.

We love the hand-painted sign at the entrance to the park along with a box of regular plain postal white envelopes.  Also in the box are two piece carbon forms that when you filled out one layer the other one was your slip to hang on your post. Pay as you go honor system. I love it!

If you didn't look carefully at the sign, you could miss the senior discount! We saved $2! Not too bad for a site with electricity. 

We drove around the single loop of the campground. It's very neat and clean. All of the electrical posts are updated with new modern posts that contain a 50 amp, 30 amp, and a 20 amp outlet. Cellular signal is pretty good, and tv stations from Escanaba and Marquette come in pretty well.

There is a little picnic table near the open area by the river. We saw a number of fishermen stop in from time to time, tossing a line for a few minutes, perhaps on their way home from work? 

We chose the campsite closest to the river on the right side of the park. Over on the left side of the park there were two other sites occupied by people in a pop-up camper and a tent. They were in a shady area. We were hoping to find a little more shade but we happened to be in an area with some pretty direct afternoon sunlight on the driver's side of our motorhome. 

The park has two clean neat pit toilets that are located behind the campsites. I guess you have to walk through the campsites to get there? We don't really think about it because we use the toilet inside of our motorhome. 

There is a nice modern pavilion in the center of the loop as well as some playground equipment for the children. 

I think the center area also doubles as a picnic space in case people just want to come for the day. A variety of picnic tables and grills were scattered about. 

Over on the far end of the loop, was an artesian well! It's kind of rigged up so people can fill a water jug from it but then it directs the rest of the overflow down through the culvert and into a small stream. From there at winds its way down to the river. 

Here is an old sign located near the river that gives some more information on the location. So this is why we were seeing fisherman come and drop a line!

It was a pretty quiet and peaceful location next to the river. There were some large horse flies flying around that were kind of pesty but it wasn't too bad. The temperature was rising and things were getting a little hot. 

We retreated back inside of the motorhome and cranked up the air conditioning inside. We took out our roll of reflectix insulating barrier and stretched it across the windshield. We have cut away two little areas to make it form fit around the mirrors and we secure each side in the crease of the closed door jams on each side. It takes two people to put it up into place, but we found this to be the best solution for covering the front windshield in hot weather. 

It cools down the inside immediately after placing it across the windshield. We could order a $100 plus custom form fitted windshield cover, but for now, this works fine for us. 

We do have these really neat interior accordion folded pleated blinds. They are built in right into the cab frames around the front and side windows and doors. They retreat back and secure out of the way out of sight. They work good for privacy, but not for the heat that comes through the windshield. It's better to block it off on the outside before it even enters the rig. 

And boy oh boy did the temperatures ever rise! The hot sun shining down on the front of the rig registered 98°. I know that's a little hotter than the actual temp, but it just shows how hot it was out there during the afternoon. This is SO unusual for June in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan! 

Inside, the roof air conditioner did pretty well considering that we had hot sun blasting all the way down the driver's side of the motorhome. I wish that our site had more shade, the roof air could have been even more effective.

But even with 80° on the thermostat, the back bedroom area was only showing 77 on a thermometer. That wasn't too bad at all. We both curled up and took a nice long afternoon nap in the air conditioning. 

We stayed inside and played some games of cribbage. Our granddaughter Chelsea made us this cribbage board in her woodshop class. She learned how to use a drill press and also a laser engraving device and learned about choosing fonts and centering her lettering on the board. I think she did a great job!

As it got later in the evening, Steve pulled out the Blackstone griddle again. This time we decided to fry up a couple hamburgers. He set up in the shade out on the picnic table. We were right next to the river, which is nice, But..... the mosquitoes were starting to come out and they were getting a little "pesty".... 

We ate indoors because the mosquitoes seemed to start swarming as the evening came on. We stayed inside but noticed as darkness fell, the lights inside seem to be attracting the mosquitoes even more. They weren't this bad the previous two nights at the other two campgrounds. 

Those little buggers found a way up around our slide from down underneath somewhere. Steve went out and made sure that the seal was flapped the right way and they weren't getting in around the sidewalls. It was somewhere down below. From inside while setting on the love seat you could just see them buzz in about one every minute buzzing up into the interior of the motorhome! We finally gave up slapping the mosquitoes and decided to pull the slide in for the night. We can still use the love seat even with the slide in. 

Before we went to bed, we spent a couple hours still slapping mosquitoes here and there. When Steve dashed out to let Binney do her final call for the night, even coming back in we had a bunch of new ones to hunt down and eliminate. Every time we thought we got rid of them all, there would be one more annoying mosquito buzzing around our ears. 

Once we turned off all the lights, that seemed to help attract any new ones.

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I remember the days back when we had an old camper bus. Yes it was a converted school bus into a camper. We made it "cool" long before The Partridge Family ever did! This was in the 1960s. I remember my mom using Raid or Off or some kind of aerosol spray can that she would spray inside of the camper bus until it was a foggy mist--- to get rid of all the mosquitoes. Then she would shut the doors and we will wait outside and count for 15 minutes. 

Then we could all go in and sleep for the night because all the mosquitoes were dead. I really wonder about all the junk we were breathing into our lungs in the 1960s?

I wonder if they still make stuff like that today?

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We had a very quiet peaceful night. In the morning we checked the weather report. Yep, we were due for more hot hot hot weather in the Upper Peninsula! Winds out of the South were blowing up all the hot weather and there would not be any cool respite along the Lake Superior area. It was actually cooler back home in Oconto 200 miles away. 

So we decided we would just pack it up, and head on home. The next three days were due for on and off rain and thunderstorms all across the U. P. My sister was trying to camp at Ottawa Lake and had downpours on Saturday. 

So we just gave up, and headed on home.  

CAMPGROUND REVIEW - Muskallonge State Park by Lake Superior

We woke up in our peaceful little campsite at Blind Sucker # 2.  The golden sunshine was streaming in and we lazily perked a pot of coffee.  Our neighbors in the tent campsite were absolutely quiet --- they must have snuck off at first light with their boat to go fishing again. We didn't hear a peep.

Last week, we had set up our Weboost in the motorhome cabinet.  

We knew that using it with the included small car antenna would be less than ideal, especially in the northwoods. The cellular signal here was pretty weak and we are with a local carrier in Wisconsin called Cellcom. Thus we were "roaming" and only get low priority on the towers when other carriers let us on. 

We have ordered the larger antenna for this Weboost system but it hadn't come in yet. It operates off 12 volt and we set it up in the compartment behind the tv. The little desktop antenna in the foreground sets on the countertop when in used and creates a little area to set the phone too get a good signal. The small outside antenna we ran out through a window for now and stuck to a metal pizza pan as ground plane. But we can use the larger antenna  and mount it on the rooftop when it comes in next week. 

We barely had enough data signal to pull in the weather report for the area. It seems that those strong southerly winds kept blowing up more and more heat from the south. We were due for higher temperatures here in the Upper Peninsula that were higher than back home in Oconto! We're looking at close to 90° and hot southerly winds. Not fun. I have a hard time breathing when the temperature gets that hot and it's also not very comfortable for our elderly sheltie Binney. 

We were going to need air conditioning to get through the next couple days. We could either find an electric hook up campsite or stay here and run our generator. That would be a real shame to run a generator when it is so peaceful and our neighbors are obviously enjoying the quiet. We sure wouldn't want to be those kind of obnoxious RVs that run their generator all day and ignore their surroundings that are peaceful and serene. Although our on board Onan LP generator is pretty quiet, we still wouldn't want to impose that on anyone in such a peaceful place. 

We had just enough data signal coming in that we were able to pull up the listings for the nearby state campground called Muskellonge State Park. They had about 10 open electric sites to choose from on the website. I could not get enough cell coverage to even maintain the connection to add a credit card to reserve a site online, so we decided to just load up and head over there in person to choose a site. 

So we quickly packed up and in a matter of 15 minutes we were able to get ready to leave our peaceful campsite at Blind Sucker #2. But we will for sure go back again.

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We hit that same lumpy bumpy washboard gravel road to head over 8 miles to the Muskallonge state park. Otherwise we could have tried to go south and work our way around up through Newberry to finally hit the paved road. But it would have been many miles out of the way and not sure how much of it still would have been gravel roads. So we gritted our teeth and headed over on gravel washboards to get to Muskallonge state park.  We were SO happy to finally see the sign for the park entrance! 

https://www.michigandnr.com/parksandtrails/details.aspx?id=424&type=SPRK

Muskallonge Lake State Park is located 28 miles northwest of Newberry in Luce County. The 217-acre park is situated between the shores of Lake Superior and Muskallonge Lake and the area is well known for its forests, lakes and streams. Muskallonge Lake State Park was the former site of Deer Park, a lumbering town in the late 1880s, and prior to its lumbering history, an Indian encampment. Muskallonge Lake was a mill pond for millions of white pine logs that were brought to it by railroad lines. By 1900, the virgin stands of pines were depleted, the mill was closed and the lumbering operation moved away. All that remains as evidence of the lumbering community are piles of sawdust and a few partly submerged pine logs in the lake. The park was also the old site of a Coast Guard Life Saving Station.

The very helpful office staff gave us a campground map marked with each site that would be available for that one night. We had the choice of about 10 sites for one night. Some were very small and tilted, more suitable for tents. There were only two sites that were available for two nights in a row. Absolutely nothing was available for the upcoming weekend.  Out of 159 campsites, we were quite lucky to get a site. 

We chose one site along the edge of the very crowded park. Almost every campsite was occupied and the trailers were very close together. This is not our preferred way of camping but at least we got a campsite with electricity to get through the next 24 hours. Sites are $30 a night. 

We found the most level spot of our campsite by parking off to one side of the site. We were very lucky we did park that way, because right after we were set up the neighboring people came over. They pointed out a newly freshly dug up area of sand and said they were glad we hadn't driven over it with our tires. They had just observed a big snapping turtle the day before laying her eggs there. They had asked the rangers to safely mark it, but nobody ever came by to do it.

Steve found four sticks in the woods and I grabbed some yarn out of my knitting bag. I made up some little signs and covered them with wide strapping tape so they wouldn't fade off if it was going to rain.

 Now at least the area was safely marked so nobody would walk on it or heaven forbid, drive on it!

We will let the rangers know again to take care of this area or warn any future campers on it to not drive here. Perhaps they could use a large shovel and scoop them up and move them to another location out of the way?

The temperatures were rapidly rising. It was getting quite hot. By noon we were close to 90°. Our air conditioning was working flawlessly and inside the rig we were a nice cool 72°. Thank goodness for the air conditioning. For only $30 a night we were getting comfort. We weren't too happy about being crammed into a busy campground, but at least we could run the air conditioning.

Since we were going to be trapped inside for the rest of the afternoon, I hauled out my little Singer Featherweight sewing machine and my quilting supplies. I have a nice folding table for outside sewing, but it would take up a lot of room inside the motorhome. Instead I just used our regular table top that comes with the rv. I put it in the base up near the rotating cockpit seats. It swivels out of the way to get up and down out of the seats. We covered the front windshield with reflectix as well as the two bunk bed windows to keep out the bright hot sun.  I sewed for the afternoon in the coolness of the RV. As long as we had electricity, I might as well use it!

My plan for supper had been to cook some frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts over the campfire and then add some barbecue sauce to them at the end. I was going to wrap up potatoes and tin foil and toss them in the campfire as well.

The winds were coming up pretty strong from the south and the rangers were discouraging any campfire use in the campground. They said we could make a cooking fire if we wanted, but needed to supervise it and extinguish it when we were done.

Well, now that we had electricity I could use the convection oven in the rig to cook supper.  BUT.... Using the convection oven would cause quite a draw on the 30 amp hookup because of the constant use of the air conditioning. 

I really didn't want to shut off the air conditioning just to cook supper. That would also heat up the interior of the motorhome. 

Soooooo I thought of the next best thing was my Instapot! We could put that out at the power post on a picnic table and run it off the 20 amp outlet from the post. It would not bother the draw of the 30 amp going to the motorhome with the air conditioning. 

Here's my instapot set up out on the picnic table:

For one meal, I used the Instapot with optional air fryer lid three different ways:

1. In Crock-Pot mode with 2 frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts in soup broth slow cooking for 4 hours. I forgot to take a picture of that step. It works just like a crock pot.

2. Next, in pressure cooker mode, I sealed the lid and I turned it up for 25 minutes to cook and tenderize the chicken breasts. Again no picture because I was dashing out in the hot sun and then going back into the coolness of the motorhome and didn't take my phone camera with me. 

3. Adding the air fryer lid (sold separately) set in baking mode I did a couple baked potatoes. I rub them with a little olive oil and poke them with a fork. The skins come out lightly crispy just the way Steve loves them. 

When they were almost done I put the potatoes in the bottom portion of the air fryer bucket. There is a metal rack that goes on the bucket halfway down to set the chicken breasts on. 

So I set the chicken breasts back on that metal bracket with some barbecue sauce bushed on. Then I set the air fryer lid to broil mode.  The baked potatoes stayed warm underneath while the chicken and BBQ sauce crisped up under the broiler. 

So one appliance can be used three different ways and take up less storage in the motorhome. Plus I kept all of the heat outside of the RV while cooking dinner, and didn't overload the power needed for the air conditioner.  It is a quick clean up with the removable center stainless steel liner and the little air fryer bucket and grid. Easy peasy. 

We finished off the rest of the cucumber, tomato and onion salad at the same time. 

Yummmmmmm

The heat was unrelenting and the winds coming up from the south were pretty hot. We stayed inside the rig for most of the evening. We didn't get any cell phone signal at all unless we walked down to the lakeshore. We were able to pull in a faint TV signal from Escanaba. We could see the weather back home was cooler than it was up here along Lake Superior. Ugh!  

I did some more sewing in the evening and we popped in a DVD and watched some old episodes of Northern Exposure before bedtime. I love that quirky show. 

We did get out and walk Binney around but that was the extent of our adventuring outside. We had the shades pulled and the air conditioner going on full blast. So I guess it didn't matter if we were in a crowded park or in the middle of an industrial site just as long as we had an electric hook up to run the AC. But Steve was getting a little stir crazy and had some cabin fever. This wasn't like camping the night before at Blind Sucker #2, for sure! 

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The next morning we woke up and it was still in the low 70s. We decided if we were going to go walk along the shore of Lake Superior we better do it before breakfast!

The trail down to the lake was across the road from the state park. It was just a short distance down and was such a pretty little path through the cool green shady trees. 

We worked our way down the path, it is not wheelchair accessible or anything like that. Some areas were a little slippery. Then we had to cut through a big patch of wild raspberries that were just humming full of bumblebees! As long as you didn't bother them they didn't bother you. We emerged on the edge of the lake shore right by a big fallen birch tree. We made a mental note of where we came onto the shore so we would know where to go back. 

It was strangely calm! Almost to the point of being eerie! I have been to Lake Superior a lot of times in my life and it's always windy and there's always waves and it's always cold. But with these strong winds coming up from the south with the heat, there were really no waves out on the lake. It was so calm and smooth.

Walking up to the edge of the beach one can see the different layers of the gravel and stones that are washed ashore depending on the strength of the waves. Further out was a strip of bigger rocks, then was a strip of smaller rocks mixed with some sand. Then right near the edge of the water the small rocks were rinsed clean. Beyond that were tiny rocks that were pushed ahead onto the sand. Then of course was the hard packed layer of sand where it was much easier to walk. 

Every time I have gone to an ocean or the Gulf or any of the Great lakes I always take a picture of my foot in it. Then I email it to my youngest brother and tell him "sucks to be you!"... It's become a family tradition. LOL. 

Remember, this is the exact area where the famous Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald happened. You know those gales of November on Superior? Well this sure doesn't look like that wicked horrible Lake of the fabled song by Gordon Lightfoot. I was 15 years old when that happened. It was quite the event in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Yup it happened right out to the north of this campground. 

We strolled along the beach to the west, and there wasn't anyone around by us at all.  It was serenely peaceful and so softly quiet.  No crashing of waves or pounding of surf. 

There was one other couple further down the beach to the east, hunting for some rocks. Lake Superior agates are quite coveted and searched for by avid rock hounds. Another gentleman came down with his dog and had his handful of pooper scooper bags hanging out of his pocket. It's nice to see people being respectful with their pets so they are allowed on beaches. All it takes is one or two bad ones to ruin it for everyone else. 

We walked up and down the shore and sat for a while on a log to admire the scenery. The temperatures were rising and it was going to soon soar back up into the high 80s for the day. Ugh! 

We came back up to the campsite and saw this huge garter snake winding around near the front of the motorhome. We chased him off into the brush so he wouldn't go near the turtle eggs. 

I used to have a pet snake just like him called "Snakely Whiplash" when I was a kid.

Now we had to make a decision. Our campsite was reserved by someone else and we needed to get off of it by 1:00 p.m.  There was one other site that we could move to but it really wasn't that level and we really weren't all that fond about being in a crowded state park.

We knew of another small township campground near Seney, MI on the Fox River. It is about 45 miles to the south and west of here. It has about 10 or 12 campsites with electricity. We figured since it was only Thursday, we could probably get a campsite there. It is also first come first serve, no reservations.

So we packed it up, pulled in the slides, and unplugged that delicious air conditioning with the electricity from the power post. 

The Mercedes-Benz chassis has dash air conditioning in the cab of this motorhome. It is sufficient to keep the entire 25 ft interior cool while we drive. 

With our last Safari 40 ft motorhome we would have had to run the generator and both of the roof air conditioners in addition to the dash air while driving down the road. Sometimes we would block off the back half of the motorhome with the bathroom and bedroom doors. We are very fortunate with the new smaller rig and adequate dash air to be totally comfortable as we drove away in the 90° heat. 

Time to move on to Seney Township Campground in the next blog post.