Over the 4th of July weekend we stayed home. We really don't want to subject our dog to the fireworks and we don't care for the noise and rowdiness that goes on in many campgrounds.
One of the exceptions to the rule is the cute little North Bayshore Oconto County campground just north of our home. It's 6.5 miles as the crow flies, but it's closer to 8 and 1/2 miles if we drive around on the road to get there.
They have been fully reserved of course for the holiday weekend right through until Tuesday the 4th of July. But I went online and took a peek and there had been a cancellation of one of our favorite sites for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights!
We took a ride out and drove through the campground in our Mustang convertible just to see how noisy or rowdy it was. They have a camp host present all of the while and they don't put up with any rowdiness whatsoever. There are no fireworks allowed, nor are there ATVs allowed in the park. The sheriff routinely makes loops through the park so there's never any mischief going on either.
We were happy to see that the campsite was vacant already early Tuesday morning. We immediately went online and reserved it and paid for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights.
The cost is $30 a night with electric and most of the sites have water.
NOTE: they have a special that goes on during the non-holiday weeks of Monday through Wednesday it's only $20 a night.
Each campsite is clearly marked with a little calendar right on a post at each of the sites for the entire month. Little X's appear on the specific nights that those sites are reserved. The camp host regularly updates the signs on each campsite. But it's still best to check online if you are planning to pick an empty site that is not X'd for the evening.
To avoid the reservation fee, if you are wanting to camp in the park on the same day, you can take a site that is not occupied or reserved. There is a pay kiosk that electronically takes credit cards over near the boat landing.
Another added plus is there are no vehicle fees required or stickers needed for your vehicles. There's a dump station on site as well as flush toilets and showers. There is a firewood kiosk that accepts credit cards. You put in your card and select your fee and it unlocks a little door in a row of doors like lockers to remove the firewood that you paid for. How cute is that?
The campground is very well kept up with neatly mowed lawns and clean fire pits. It also has dumpsters for trash and recycling over near the harbor. On the other side of the campground there is a boat ramp with two large parking areas. A lot of fishermen use this Harbor to get out into the bay. Many of the people camping also bring fishing boats and there's always plenty of room around your camper to park an additional vehicle and a boat trailer if needed. Some campers just park their boats along the shoreline on the side of the harbor, near the campsites, so they don't have to load and unload their boats each day.
On the other side of the parking areas far away from the campsite is a fish cleaning house. Beyond that is a large pavilion and group area that can be rented for a very reasonable fee with an additional playground and outhouses over there. See the website for more information.
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Okay, now back to our own camping:
So we zoomed back home and tossed some stuff into the motorhome... We didn't care if it's only a couple miles from home. We were going to go camping!
Here is one of our favorite sites. It's number 15. It happens to be one of the few ones with only grass, no pavement. Most of the other sites are paved. We like it because we can park sideways on it and position our rig to the best advantage. See, the sun comes up over the bay and it's absolutely pretty in the mornings. By afternoon during the hottest part of the day, the site is completely in the shade. It's further apart than some of the other sites. Here's a picture of it before we got parked on the spot.
The grasses and natural weeds along the shoreline change from year to year. This is the waters of the Bay of Green Bay which leads out into Lake Michigan. Depending on the lake levels of the Great Lakes, sometimes the shoreline is right up to the edge of that picnic table. Other times when the water is low, the area does fill in with natural habitat and weeds. It's something that cannot be avoided and they are not allowed to chop them down.
A VUE WITH A VIEW
Our Saturn Vue is all set up for towing. We used to tow it behind the Safari motorhome that we sold in April. We really didn't plan on towing behind this Winnebago View, although it's perfectly capable of towing 5,000 lbs. The Saturn Vue is only 3,400 lbs.
The Saturn is already set up with a Roadmaster base plate, an Even Brake automatic braking device, and an electric cut off switch so it doesn't drain the battery while towing. The tail lights have additional wiring inserted in them so they operate with the same braking motion that the Even Brake emits, as well as turn signals.
Since we wanted our Saturn along for the week at the campground in case we wanted to run back into town, we figured ----
Hey, let's hook it up!
Let's see how it works behind the Winnebago.
Let's see how our acceleration is.
Let's see how our braking is.
Let's just see how it feels.
Look at that, it looks so cute!
We fell into our same old routine of Steve doing the locking up and hitching up and attaching all of the cables and wire harnesses. Inside the Saturn I take care of shifting it from drive into neutral after idling it for 2 minutes, clamping a rag with a clip to the steering wheel top dead center, opening up the hood for Steve from the interior latch, and then getting the auxiliary braking device, Even Brake, into position.
Here is Steve's part done complete, and then I double check what he does
Inside here is my part complete. Then Steve comes and checks what I do.
Then we run the Even Brake through it's testing mode where it tested three times to make sure everything is working perfectly.
And then right before we take off, we flip this little switch which cuts the power. That way the steering wheel can be free to turn with the key in the on position. Otherwise you get somewhere and you have a dead battery!
We hopped in the rig and got ready to take off. We turn on the rear view camera and take a peek at it to make sure it's following behind correctly and that the wheels are turning. As we go around corners the white napkin clamped to the steering wheel at top dead center lets us see that the steering wheel is loose and freely turning correctly around the corners.
The temperature was rising, as well as the humidity. But we got on to our campsite early enough in the morning. It sure was nice looking out over the water.
We got the rig all set up and aimed in the right direction. Then we put out the awning which creates shade on the side of the rig facing to the sun. That is the side of refrigerator is on, so it helps to have it shaded from the awning.
Everything is so lush and green. It was quite relaxing in the shade under the trees as the temperatures crept up and up and up. We sat out on the lawn chairs for a while until it was time to make some lunch. And then we took a nice nap in the air conditioned coolness of the RV.
Our oldest daughter and son-in-law with three of the grandkids stopped by in the evening. They brought along fishing poles and tried their luck at the really nice fishing pier along the edge of the harbor.
While the older ones fished, the littlest one Claire decided to jump from rock to rock, dancing and singing and having her own little "Rock Concert" !
As we kept the grandchildren occupied, these two Honeymooners were relaxing on one of the park benches. Binney was making sure that no burglars were coming by to take the worms.
Grandpa was kept busy untangling fishing lines and getting snags loose. There were a few nibbles and they went through quite a few worms.
Chelsea was the successful fisherwoman with the first and only fish! Fishing runs in our genes all the way up to her great great grandmother on my dad's side! Olga Groop could tease a Brown Trout out of the tiniest brook alongside of the road.
She made Waylen give it a kiss for luck before they tossed it back---- to grow big and become a delicious perch dinner for a Friday fish fry someday.
(Geez this guy is kissing my daughter and then he's kissing fish?)
We took the kids for a nice long walk out on one of the breakwaters around the harbor. There's a long spit that goes out and curves to the left. And then there's another spit on the other side that goes straight out. It protects the area for launching boats and makes it a safe place for mooring up in a storm.
They sure had fun.
Here is a YouTube link:
Even though it was hot and muggy it still was a nice day to get out and enjoy the campground.
Collecting flowers, skipping rocks, finding pieces of moss, and every now and then spotting a fish that jumped or a pelican or seagull flying overhead.
Chelsea was able to lean way over and gather some of the "lotus flowers" from the lily pads.
Even though they always have bugs in them, they are so pretty. She picked them for her mom and they last quite a few days if you get them into water right away.
Little Claire did her own artful arrangement of wrapping this tiny clover flower around a piece of stick and carefully knotting it with another piece of stem from another flower. It was quite creative for a 6-year-old.
The kids headed on back home and we had a peaceful relaxing evening. It was still quite hot and humid so we stayed inside with the air conditioning and watched some TV instead of building a campfire.
The next morning I whipped up a little pack of blueberry muffin mix and we had steaming hot coffee. What a perfect way to start out the morning while camping.
The view out the window was still pretty good, even though there were rain storms and thunder and lightning forecast for the afternoon.
We hopped in the Saturn and headed up to Marinette, only 10 miles to the north. We had a couple things to pick up and decided we might as well do it before the storms rolled in. We left Binney behind in the motorhome in her "safe spot" up by the dash on the passenger side. This is the first time we left her alone in this new motorhome and went somewhere without her.
We dashed from store to store, completing the few items on our lists. As we headed on back to the campground, this is the site we could see on the horizon. Ugh!
Got back to the campsite just as it started to sprinkle. From there it went to a complete deluge. We were lucky though it was not windy and we didn't have any thunder or lightning. It was just rain.
We curled up inside with the cribbage board and played a few games. Steve won them all. I guess I have to brush up on my cribbage skills. We played Yahtzee too, and I won two games and he won two games.
Yesterday the weather was just beautiful and last night we were able to set out around the campfire. It was so peaceful and relaxing. We roasted a couple marshmallows and listened to the birds all around us. The campground was just about full, but it was very quiet. An amazingly, there were no mosquitoes at all!
Little Binney sat between our chairs as we sat around the campfire. It didn't matter if we were only six and a half miles from home. We were in a comfortable place and we were totally enjoying ourselves. We sat out until dark and we burned up the last of our firewood.
This morning we woke up again to beautiful skies and soft green grasses. The rain really helped brighten everything up. We needed it so bad. We perked the coffee and laid around without needing to be in a rush to pack up and go. Check out time was at 3:00 p.m. there was nobody waiting for our campsite so we didn't really need to rush.
We slowly packed up and headed on home after lunch. It was such a long long journey to get back home? LOL actually we didn't even bother to hook up the Saturn. Steve drove that home and I took my turn driving the Winnebago View after we were done at the dump station.
It was actually my first turn of driving it since we bought it in April. I just never got around to driving it although it was really no biggie to me. I used to drive a 27 ft Winnebago Chieftain on my own for many years. Then when we had the Safari I was able to drive it too, and that was a 40 ft Diesel Pusher. This little 25 ft Winnebago View is pretty darn easy. It's kind of like just driving a SUV or a pickup truck.
We got on home, parked, unloaded, and set about doing our normal tasks. Filled up all the bird feeders and made up a pot of chili for supper.
No camping for the next two weeks we have babysitting to do for the grand puppies...
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