Stanwood, Michigan

River Ridge Resort

July 14th through July 21st, 2010

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 - 84/55°, Cloudy

    Although we were packed and ready to leave shortly after 1:00pm today, we were forced to hang around a bit longer while waiting for a package to arrive. Before our camping trip to Bay City Tara got it into her head that we should attempt to buy a turkey fryer, but we weren’t very successful in finding one that we were happy with before we left, so we ordered one while we were camping last weekend that we had previously found online. We went ahead and sprung for the two day shipping, with the hope that the fryer would arrive on Tuesday. Of course that didn’t happen. I was pretty worried that it wasn’t going to be delivered before we left for this trip, as Amazon posted an expected arrival date of July 15th-July 16th. I would have been, ahem, pissed if we paid for the two day shipping and it took them 4 or 5 days to actually get it to us.

    Thankfully we did get the box before we left, around 3:45pm. We were all pretty much standing around waiting for the FedEx truck to get here, so once it did we all streamed out the door and climbed into the truck for the long drive north and west. The drive itself was fairly uneventful, especially considering the fact that the new truck doesn’t a TV to occupy the kids, leaving the radio as their only entertainment option. We made it almost all the way to the campground before we had to make a bathroom stop for Drew. We were only about 10 minutes away at that point, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

    We made it to the campground a little before 6:45pm, checking in at the front office and finding our site on the map. Our site, number 115, is fairly close to the office building, but is a fair way from the main road that runs beside the campground. We drove around to our site and were greeted by Dad, Mom, Donovan, and Marissa. The sites are very nice, with paved pads that even surround the fire pits. Unfortunately the roads are very narrow and are lined with trees (although they are fairly young trees, so they aren’t very big yet). Backing into the site was difficult to say the least, as there wasn’t much room to swing the truck around without getting into the site. Between the help of Dad and a security guard we were able to get the camper in position, although I think I only had inches of clearance between my truck and the vehicle across the street while doing so.

    In addition to being away from the road, our site is also a fair distance from the pool and the store, but we are pretty close to the playground, and the basketball and tennis courts. We had a clear view of these areas across the road through empty sites today, so the kids were able to roam about while Tara & I set up. I guess last weekend’s “practice run” really helped, because setup really didn’t take all that long today. Before we knew it we were working on dinner.

    Since Erica worked late today, she decided that she would postpone her drive up until tomorrow. That meant that Dad, Mom, Donovan, and Marissa would be joining our family for dinner today. We chose to have hot dogs and macaroni-and-cheese, along with an assortment of chips. After we finished eating we realized that the macaroni-and-cheese never even made it off of Mom’s stove! Oh well, so much for that one!

    We decided to lay low after dinner tonight. The kids rode around on their bikes while the adults finalized the campsite setups. Tara took advantage of the downtime to get herself showered and smelling pretty. Since we ate dinner late, our time outside was brief before we decided to call it a night. We put the kids to bed a little after 10:30pm, and we followed behind shortly thereafter. It had been a long day of work, driving, and setup!

Thursday, July 15th, 2010 - 82/66°, Mostly Cloudy

    ♪ “Woke up in the morning at tay-am…” ♪ (This is a line from a song that Samantha wrote during our trip to Sarasota last Christmas…)

    Ok, ok, we woke up in the morning at 10:00am, after a long night of hit and miss sleep thanks to some rain that fell and the occasional snoring (from both Tara and the dog). Since we did get up so late, we opted to have breakfast on our own (we knew not everyone was awake in Dad & Mom’s trailer since the blinds weren’t opened). The kids opted for Fruit-Loops, while I ate a couple of the chocolate chip muffins that Tara graciously made for me today.

    It was still raining off and on after we ate, but everyone was now awake in the other trailer. The kids rushed to get dressed and go play. This morning they started out watching movies (well, parts of them, anyway). The boys went to Dad & Mom’s camper to watch “Transformers” while the girls came to our camper to watch “Marley & Me”. In reality neither group of kids watched very much of their respective movies before finding something else to do. Tara & I watched the majority of “Marley” before deciding that it was time to get moving. I headed off to shower, while Tara got herself dressed.

    By now the rain had stopped, although the sky certainly still looked threatening. The kids were getting mighty antsy, so Mom decided to make lunch before anyone got too involved in anything. The kids took our bread over to the other trailer where Mom made everybody a grilled cheese sandwich.

    Tyler has been itching to go fishing since the moment we arrived at the campground, so once we finished eating Dad and I took Tyler, Donovan, Samantha, Marissa, and Drew down to the resort’s marina to try our luck. Tyler brought along three poles, including the new one he got as an early birthday present from Tara & I while we were camping with Jeff & Becky last weekend. He got a little bossy telling the kids how to fish, which when combined with the fact that we didn’t even see a fish in the water probably led to some boredom and frustration on their part. Dad ended up taking everyone but Tyler and Donovan back to the park while I stayed behind with the older two boys.

    While we were all still fishing, Tara and Erica took off to drive into Big Rapids to do some shopping to pick up some forgotten supplies (mainly groceries and that sort of thing). Mom stayed behind to hang out with Jayden, who is still a little too small to enjoy this kind of fishing.

    I finally convinced the boys that weren’t going to catch anything today, so we started to make our way back to the campsites. We ran into Dad & Mom sitting at the playground watching the other kids playing, so we stopped to join them for a while. The older kids played a cops and robbers/capture the thief type game. The younger ones were getting bored, so they hopped on their bikes and rode back to the camper with their Grandmother.

    When Tara and Erica returned from the store the grey sky had given way to sunshine, and the kids were begging to go swimming. The six kids all put on their swimsuits, as did Tara and Erica, and walked to the pool. Mom stayed behind to get a head start on dinner, and Dad and I worked on putting together the new turkey fryer. We also started a fire in the fire pit, with the intention of cooking steaks over it on the new grill Tara & I bought last weekend.

    By the time we finished the assembly of the fryer, the fire was ready for cooking the meat. Erica had also returned with her two kids and Jay about the same time. Mom had already started baking the potatoes, so Dad and I put the corn in the pot of water on the fryer and the steak on the grill. Tara came back with Tyler, Sam, and Drew shortly after we started cooking.

    We sat down to eat sometime between 6:30 and 7:00pm, and it was indeed a great meal. Well, the corn wasn’t that good from what I was told, but everything else was delicious. As usual on camping trips (or any big meal, for that matter) I ate way too much food.

    After cleaning up, I tried to make up for my gluttony by going out on a bike ride with Dad. We took a tour of the campground, including a walk down to the private docks in the back corner of the campground that seemed to be down about 500 steps – well, it seemed that way on the way back up, anyway. During our ride we kept our eyes opened for interesting features on some of the other campers, and we did manage to spot a couple. One was a camper with an outdoor kitchen area in one of the rear hatches. It had a fridge, a sink, and a bunch of cabinets. There was also a TV there, but it appeared to be added in at a later date. Behind us is a camper that Tara & I would like – a Sandpiper with dual bunk slides. This would give the kids lots of room to store their stuff, and it still had large belly storage hatches. It was 35’ long, which is a bit longer than ours, but you hardly notice the extra distance when it is behind you. The only time I think this would be an issue is when trying to get it parked at home. The camper we have is hard enough to park/turn around at times, so anything much longer would have to give me at least a moment of pause.

    The kids passed the time after dinner by riding bikes, drawing with chalk, and playing with the green army guys from the little toy barns. When I returned I was warned that Samantha had to stay inside for the remainder of the night. When I inquired as to why, I was told that she had attempted to smuggle some chocolate out of the trailer in her bra. Nice thought, but she isn’t quite developed enough to get away with that yet. Needless to say she was involved in a long conversation with her mother about the whole situation, and a lot of crying could be heard from outside of the camper.

    The fire was still going from dinner, and as the sun set the air began to cool off. We chose to keep the fire burning so that we could make s’mores later. The adults all relaxed in our chairs for a while as the kids continued playing with their toys and bikes. When the time came to roast marshmallows, only Tyler and Donovan had to be rounded up.

    We roasted the giant marshmallows tonight, and our previous experience with them (in Bay City) really seemed to pay off. There weren’t any wasted marshmallows this time around, and we were successful in making s’mores out of them without creating any huge messes. Donovan didn’t want to roast any of the marshmallows; asking to roast pepperoni instead. Luckily for him I had a partial stick left over from our last trip that we could use. All of the kids, except Sam and Jay, got to toast a couple of pieces of pepperoni – by the time Sam got around to asking I had ran out.

    When the kids finally got full it was nearing 11:00pm, so we cleaned them up and got them all ready for bed. Dad and I were the only two left outside to watch the fire die down. It was a little after 11:30pm by the time we headed in for the night ourselves.

Friday, July 16th, 2010 - 84/64°, Mostly Sunny

    It was close to 9:00am when we woke up this morning. The curtains weren’t opened up in Dad & Mom’s camper, so we chose to eat breakfast on our own once again this morning. We were able to choose between nutty donuts, glazed donut holes, and the chocolate chip muffins that Tara had made yesterday. We had something for everyone!

    We weren’t exactly what you would call highly motivated after eating our breakfast today, so we decided to hang around the campsite for a while. Usually when the adults choose to take a moment to relax the kids choose to hop on their bikes “and flop like a fish”… oops, sorry – SpongeBob is in heavy rotation on one of the only kids channels that we get here. I meant that they choose to ride their bikes around the loop that our sites are on. Today was no different, as the bikes were in heavy use while they waited for us to get reenergized.

    The kids were starting to beg to go swimming again, but we thought we should eat lunch before embarking on that activity. Today we chose to have sandwiches. The kids ended up eating peanut butter and jelly, while I had a sub sandwich. Tara went a different route altogether, having a salad. The only negative about today’s lunch was that we had to eat it in such extreme heat!

    Once we finished eating, Mom and Erica took all of the kids to the pool for an afternoon of enjoyment. Tara stayed behind to take a nap in an effort to get rid of her headache. I stayed behind to work on my journal, and dad chose to stay inside his camper to catch up on some reading.

    After I completed working on the journal Mom, who had brought Marissa back from the pool with a stomach ache, suggested that I coax Dad out of his camper to give me a hand cleaning the bottom side of our awning. It took us about an hour and a full Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but we managed to get the job done. It ended up looking very good, if I do say so myself…

    While we were cleaning Mom had walked back down to the pool, but came back once again with Drew and Jayden, who needed to take a nap themselves. It was about this time that Tara woke up, so she put the little two down in the bunks and joined us outside.

    Since it was getting close to dinner time, we knew that we needed to get the fire going soon or it wouldn’t be hot enough to cook on. We were supposed to be eating hobo dinners tonight, but that somehow morphed into being grilled hamburgers and French fries in the turkey fryer for everyone except Tara, who forged ahead with the hobo dinner idea. Tara & I forgot to bring our premade fries from home, so we ended up making them from scratch tonight. As usual, everything was delicious – better than it should be, as I once again ate way too much. We need to figure out a way to make things taste just a little worse!

    After dinner the kids convinced their mothers to take them back up to the pool. I picked up some of the toys around the camper before riding my bike up to the pool to check things out myself. The kids were really having a great time, and the pool is ideal for families with young kids. The vast majority of the pool is only 3 feet deep, and the deepest part is only 5 feet. After Tara had enough roughhousing with the kids, we gathered the kids up out of the pool and made our way back to the camper.

    We took a low-key approach to things once back at the campsite this evening. The kids were pretty tired from a full day of swimming, and the heat seemed to be catching up to them a little. We spent most of the remainder of our day outside around the campfire relaxing before heading in for the night between 10 and 11:00pm.

Saturday, July 17th, 2010 - 84/63°, Sunny

    We awoke this morning around 9:00am after a peaceful night of sleep. By the time I was actually up and moving the kids had already eaten their breakfast (which consisted of donuts and yogurt this morning) but all of us adults opted to make a “big breakfast” instead. We wound up making bacon and eggs, but since it was getting so late by the time we actually sat down to eat (11:00am) I opted to make myself a BLT instead. Everyone else took the more traditional breakfast approach of eggs in a variety of styles, along with their bacon and toast.

    The campground has a variety of activities on weekends, and we happened to be here during their water slide day, which was today. After we finished cleaning up the mess from breakfast, the kids were raring to try them out. Ok, maybe not Tyler, who thought that they were too small to be any fun. We made our way across the street to the large open grassy area where the water slides were set up to check things out. There were three inflatable’s set up, two of which had two slides apiece. The third inflatable had a single slide and two “squirt gun” style devices to keep the slide wet – most of the kids just used these to squirt each other! The kids definitely seemed to have one particular favorite – the inflatable that had dual slides and a slip-and-slide style thing on the side of it. The kids seemed to spend most of their time running to the slip-and-slide side and using this slide – because they could race side by side, I presume. Even Tyler managed to find this one quite enjoyable!

    There was also a balloon toss competition that each of the kids participated in. Tyler and Donovan teamed up for this event, as did Samantha and Marissa. I partnered with Drew and Jayden did so with Tara. Needless to say none of us won this event. In fact, each of our teams lost on the very first toss! Drew claimed that he did this on purpose because he would have rather been moving on to the swimming pool!

    After losing out on the balloon toss event and sliding down a couple more of the slides, Tara and Erica ended up going back to the swimming pool with the kids. I stayed behind to take a brief nap on the couch. Mom ended up going to the pool a little while later, but came back soon after that with Jay so that she could take a nap once again.

    Once I woke up I walked to the pool to join those who were still swimming. Once the kids got enough to eat, I jumped in the pool with them. After watching Tara take all kinds of abuse from them yesterday, I got firsthand experience with that today. I tossed some of the kids through the air (I crouch down and hold them in my hands, then fling them up and out of the pool through the air), and at various points I had a lot of kids hanging around my neck as well. Every once and a while I just had to do my best to get away from them for a moment or two. If someone was clinging to me, the best way to get rid of them was to duck under water for a moment or two, swimming away in the process. This usually gave me a head start and a brief moment of rest in the process.

    Once we all had our fill of swimming time, we decided to head back to the campers for dinner. Donovan had requested tacos for two days in a row, so today we chose to oblige him. We took care of the meat at our camper, and Mom and Erica took care of most of the sides at the other camper. Once all of the food was finished cooking we sat down at the picnic tables to eat. This is one meal that I am positive that I wasn’t the only person to overeat!

    After all of the dinner dishes and food had been put away, Tara, Erica, and myself climbed into my truck to make the drive into Big Rapids to purchase a few items that had accumulated on each of our grocery lists. Our first stop today was at Wal-Mart (not where Tara & I usually shop, but they had already been to Meijer and wanted to check this store out). We found a majority of the items that we were looking for (and probably a few extras too), but couldn’t quite find everything we needed. One thing about this store that we all noticed, aside from it being unusually empty in comparison to the crowded Wal-Mart’s near us, was that there was not one, not two, but three dedicated aisles for WIC. This really says something about this area and the sad state of affairs in Michigan in general. Since we were unable to buy everything we needed at Wally world, we also made a stop at the Meijer just down the road.

    Before we even knew it the time had neared 9:30pm, so we headed back to the campground one last time tonight. All six of the kids were hanging out at Dad & Mom’s camper, generally behaving but also doing their share of fighting as well. We rounded up our kids and their stuff and headed back to our camper for the night. We decided to watch some TV to help everyone unwind a bit. Tara and I watched a show about extreme resorts – we even managed to find a couple that we would love to check out! Someday… Before we could finish the show we began to nod off, so the TV’s went off and we called it a night.

Sunday, July 18th, 2010 - 83/59°, Mostly Sunny

    I was startled out of my sleep this morning at 5:45am by bright flashes of lightening and loud claps of thunder. Since the forecast called for rain I figured I should head outside to put things away (chairs, awnings, beach towels, etc.) before the big storm hit. I felt fortunate to have finished just as the first few sprinkles started to fall. I headed back inside to climb into bed and listen to the rain fall on the camper – for all of 10 minutes – before it stopped. After a few more minutes of relative silence I was able to fall back asleep.

    I woke up for good around 9:45am today, and not another drop of rain had fallen. After getting up so early to take care of the outside stuff, I wasn’t feeling the most motivated this morning. Apparently nobody else did either, as we spent the majority of the morning lazing about the camper, eating breakfast and taking turns showering.

    Before I even realized it, it was lunchtime. The kids had been outside playing, and somehow during that process they ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches inside Dad & Moms camper. Since the kids had already eaten, Tara & I made our own sandwiches in our camper.

    After lunch I dug out the kites that we had bought for our kids to use (we actually bought them a year or two ago – somehow we just never found the time to use them when camping, or if we do find the time the weather isn’t right). Drew had been begging to fly them since we got here, and today was a good day as the wind wasn’t too strong or too light. Drew and Jayden were the first to get their kites airborne, and once they realized what was going on Tyler and Samantha joined in on the fun. Donovan and Marissa also took turns, usually when somebody else tired of holding on to their string.

    Once the thrill of kite flying wore off, the kids passed the time by playing on the playground and riding their bikes. While they did this the adults worked on making dinner. Tonight’s menu was fried turkey, mashed potatoes, rice, and muffins. Dad and I fired up our new turkey fryer once again and took care of that part of the meal while Tara, Erica, and Mom made the rest.

    We experienced a couple of sprinkles while we fried the turkey, but thankfully they were fairly sparse and we were able to use an umbrella to keep the raindrops out of the hot oil. Unfortunately we weren’t quite so lucky when it came time to sit down and eat. I was in the middle of carving the turkey, and the other food items were being placed on the table, when the deluge came in. We rushed to move everything inside our little trailer, since we were already set up under our awning to eat. We started fixing plates inside, but getting all of the kids to sit and not make a mess was going to be an issue. Once again we lucked out though, as the shower we experienced was a brief one. We were able to wipe down the picnic tables and move back outside before the food got too cold. In the grand scheme of things, this rainfall may have dampened our dinner plans a bit, but it didn’t drown them out.

    After the dinner mess was cleaned up, we took turns going on bike rides around the park. Tyler convinced Mom and Donovan to go fishing with him. They had a little better luck than we did the first time we went out, as they actually caught a fish tonight. As darkness neared, those who were left behind walked down to the marina store (River Ridge Landing) to meet them for ice cream. We made it around 9:30pm, ordered our cones and bowls, and enjoyed them on our walk back. Since it was already 10:15pm by the time we returned, we headed inside for the evening. It wasn’t too much later that we decided to head to bed for the night as well.

Monday, July 19th, 2010 - 81/66°, Mostly Sunny

    Most mornings we were waking up between 9:00 and 10:00am. Today it was a little closer to the 9:00am side of that range. Despite a relatively early bedtime last night, we played lazy once again this morning. We passed the time after breakfast (once again going for cereal, donuts, yogurt, or muffins) hanging out around the campsite. The kids spent most of this time on their bikes, finding new things to explore.

    Even though Tara & I completely cleaned out the storage areas under our camper before this trip, the front section was already becoming increasingly disorganized. I undertook the task of rearranging this area in an attempt to get things a little more accessible, mainly so that once something came out of the hatch it would be able to go back in the same spot without a lot of hassle or complaint. Hopefully I managed to achieve this at least a little bit, but I’m sure it will be necessary to go through this whole process once again fairly soon.

    It seems that no matter where we are and how much is available for the kids to play with, they are always bored. Today was no exception. Somehow I managed to convince them to all go across the street and play with the Frisbees that we had in the camper. Since most of the other campsites across the road had emptied by now, I felt relatively sure that they could do this without breaking any windows or anything. While they held their Frisbee contest Dad, Tara, and I worked on making lunch.

    While we were in the process of pulling out the necessary items to make our world famous pie iron pizzas for lunch we realized that we were going to be short on crust. Mom and Erica drove off to Meijer to stock up, and returned just as the kids were finishing eating. We continued making lunch, providing an opportunity for the adults to eat.

    Since the kids finished first today, they filled in the time that we needed to eat by constantly asking to go to the pool. Tara and Erica obliged them after we all finished eating and cleaning up. I chose to stay behind so that I could have some quiet time to work on the Bay City journal from our camping trip last weekend. I joined them at the pool once I finished, carrying snacks along with me.

    After a couple of hours in the water I decided to head back to the camper, at around 5:15pm, with the intention of starting dinner. I was getting hungry, and I knew that by the time the fire was hot enough to cook on everyone else would be hungry too. Although I got the fire going, apparently the others weren’t as hungry as I thought that they would be. Tara, Erica, and the kids didn’t return from the pool until close to 6:30pm! After their return we finally started dinner – which was brats and hot dogs once again (this time without any forgotten macaroni-and-cheese).

    Since we ate dinner fairly late (although late meals have been an all too common thing this week so far…) we kept things low-key afterwards. We took turns taking bike rides with the kids until darkness began to set in (which happens very late this far north – many nights you could still see fairly clearly at 10:00pm), when we gathered around the campfire to sing a campfire song “C A M P F I R E S O N G song”. No wait a minute, that was another episode of SpongeBob. We actually gathered around the campfire to roast marshmallows and pepperoni again.

    The long days with lots of physical activity for the kids is really starting to wear them out. We wound up calling it a night shortly after 10:00pm, although Dad & I stayed outside a while longer to finish cleaning up. Storms were predicted for the night, so we wanted to make sure that all of our stuff was secured and would stay dry. As we were doing so flashes of lightening were becoming more frequent. Around 10:30pm it began to sprinkle, so we headed in for the night as well.

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 - 83/61°, Mostly Sunny

    The rain that was forecast didn’t really amount to much. After a relatively peaceful night of sleep we woke up around 9:30am today. Mom surprised us by bringing over a freshly baked pan of cinnamon rolls, which we quickly devoured (with the exception of Jayden – she apparently doesn’t like them and chose to eat yogurt instead).

    By the time we got moving and took our showers, it was time to make ourselves some lunch. The kids had PB&J at Dad & Mom’s trailer once again, so Tara & I ate sandwiches in our trailer as well. We didn’t make anything too fancy, just homemade subs.

    While Tara & I were eating Dad took Tyler, Donovan, Samantha, and Marissa fishing. Once again they managed to catch a couple of fish, including a couple of bluegills that Tyler deemed worthy of keeping. Even though we really have no clue how to scale or fillet a fish outside of what we have learned by watching Jeff and Great-Grandpa Hardy, we somehow managed to do our best and wound up with a few small pieces of meat to try the next time we have a fish fry. And to think, just last year Tyler wouldn’t even touch a dead walleye in Bay City while wearing rubber gloves and now, here is cleaning, gutting, and filleting a fish barehanded!

    Before they returned with the fish, however, Tara snuck off for a bike ride with Jayden. Jay has really taken off on the two wheeled bike this year – albeit with training wheels firmly in place (on a side note: she has ridden without training wheels at Dad & Mom’s house for short distances, but for whatever reason didn’t even want to try without them while we were camping).

    After the fish were cleaned, Mom, Tara, and Erica took all of the kids to the pool. While I was inside relaxing, working on the journal and trip photos, Dad went off to join them. Once I had finished what I had started, I rode my bike up to join them as well. Dad was the first to head back, followed by Mom and Jay. The rest of us swam for a while longer (and I took further physical abuse from kids hanging on me, choking me, splashing water on me, etc.) before heading back to the campers.

    Once we were changed into dry clothes we started working on dinner. Tonight’s menu consisted of pork chops, venison steaks (for me, although Donovan actually ate some as well), and fried sliced potatoes. We wound up making way too many pork chops, and the venison took longer to cook than I expected it too, but the dinner was enjoyable nonetheless.

    After eating Dad took Tyler and Donovan fishing once again, in an attempt to use up the few worms that Tyler had remaining before we packed up to head home in the morning. Once they had used up the last of the worms they gave us a call to let us know that they were done. We ended up walking down to join them for our last ice cream treat of the trip. I even took Tinkerbell with me – although her fear of stairs continues to confound me. The first set of steps we encountered she tried to avoid like the plague, choosing to walk down the flowerbeds instead (at least partway – there was a wall that she couldn’t avoid near the bottom of the flowerbed). The second set of stairs had grass down the side of it, so I thought I would walk down that with her. That was how it started anyway, as she kept trying to get back onto the steps. Erica ended up walking her down while I went down the steep grass embankment by myself. Thanks, girl!

    As opposed to walking while we ate, we chose to sit on the dock while finishing our ice cream tonight. Once we were done we headed back to the campsite for the final time. We decided to finish off the last few pieces of firewood so that we wouldn’t have to haul any back. Since we had the fire going, we got out the pepperoni stick and roasted some more of it as well. Before we knew it the time had approached 11:00pm. By the time we packed everything away, it was close to midnight by the time we got in bed.

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 - 82/61°, Mostly Sunny

    We woke up at 8:40am this morning to the sound of the kids watching TV, although I thought the clock read 9:40am. I could have used the extra hour of sleep, but I also knew we had a long day of packing and driving ahead of us.

    We ate a quick breakfast, and then got everyone dressed so that we could take a short drive to the nearby town of Rodney to check it out. I was hoping to get a picture standing next to the “Welcome to Rodney” sign, but it wasn’t meant to be. Apparently Rodney is such a small place that nobody is welcome. From what we could tell the “town” consists of a party store/gas station and possibly a bar (although it may not even be open any longer – it was hard to tell). There were green street signs that read “Rodney”, so we stopped to take my picture with one of those. Immediately after taking the picture we pulled to the side of the road to watch a plane dust the crops, which must have made the people whose house we were near a little nervous (they came out to “check the mail” once). While we were out we stopped at a gas station to top off the truck for the long drive home.

    We returned to the campground around 11:00am. We quickly made some sandwiches for lunch so that we wouldn’t have to stop on the way home. We then went to work on putting things away in the camper. We finally pulled out of campground at 1:09pm – a time I remember specifically because Samantha asked “weren’t we supposed to leave by 1:00?”

    Aside from a couple of bathroom breaks on the way home (one that was entirely unexpected by Jayden shortly after we left and one that was pretty much expected considering the fact that we ate before we left) and one missed exit by me thanks to some construction at I-96 and I-69, we had a pretty smooth drive. We returned home at 4:20pm, which would have been at least 20 minutes sooner if not for the previously missed exit and the resulting time it took us to get to the next exit to turn around.

    Once we were home we worked on unloading the necessary items from the camper before reality began to set in that it was back to work for Tara & I tomorrow. Bummer!

Trip Summary

    Without mincing words, this campground is absolutely beautiful! The grounds are all perfectly landscaped, the campsites paved (well, most of them were… some were grass sites) even around the fire pits, the pool is perfect for the kids, the marina is great for fishing, and the buildings are all pristine.

    The fact of the matter is that I only have three complaints about the campground itself: one is that our sites (ours was #115, Dad & Mom were on #117) were very difficult to back into due to a very narrow road and trees that are poorly located. If we ever choose to go back, I think that we would try to request a site located in the loop closest to the pool. This loop had wider roads, wider sites (they had a parking spot located on the street side of the camper), and the trees were located in a better spot (no camper interference). My second complaint is that it is located absolutely in the middle of nowhere! When I helped to choose this campground I mistakenly thought that Big Rapids was a much bigger town than it is. I also thought that Grand Rapids and Traverse City (or at least the dunes) were closer than they actually are. Any drive, aside from the five minutes north to Big Rapids, was close to an hour, if not more, to participate in any activity or to do any sightseeing. My final complaint is that although not advertised on their site, Mom called to inquire about internet access and was told that yes, they did have wireless internet. Unfortunately she wasn’t told until we arrived that there was a $3.oo fee for said access. When Tara went to the office inquire about it she was warned that access was very spotty, and you could easily be kicked off. Frankly, for the price of the campground and the intermittent success of connecting, it should have just been provided in the price. We did pay for 24 hours of access, and that is indeed what we got. And they were right – access was spotty.

    As far as the trip itself, it was a lot of fun. The kids had a blast swimming in the pool on an almost daily basis (for once we had great weather for one of our camping trips – it seems like so many times the temperature is too cold to spend time at a pool or beach). Tyler liked fishing, although I am sure he wished he would have been able to do it more often and that he would have caught more fish when he was able to go. They also like the paved roads to ride their bikes on, especially Drew and Jay, who took the most rides by far.

    I enjoyed being able to relax for the better part of a week, although I would have liked to have been close enough to some attractions that we could have gone outside of the resort once or twice (besides the trip to Rodney, of course!).

    I suppose that if we had the chance to do it all over again, I more than likely wouldn’t choose this campground again. Despite how attractive and family friendly it is it is just too far away from ‘civilization’ to make it really seem worthwhile to me. I am 99.9% sure that we could have found a campground closer to home that had a nice pool for us to spend our time in. Of course if the rest of the family wants to return at some point in the future I am certainly not opposed to doing so, especially now that I know what to expect.

    One more comment, although this one isn’t really trip related: The temperatures that you see in my journals come from weather.com, and I am not sure how accurate that they are. To me it seemed that the daytime temps were fairly close, but I don’t recall many nights that dipped that low into the 60’s!