Monday August 26, 2013-Moving Day-Country Village RV Park

We had one more potluck dinner last night, consisting of all the leftovers from the rally for those of us that remained here in the park. It was a good meal and we enjoyed some good conversations with our new friends. 

It rained- hard -all night last night. The winds blew and the thunder and lightning made for a nervous night. It woke me, but when the weather lessened around 3 AM I was able to go back to sleep in my chair. 

I awoke about 6 and immediately went to my computer to check for any new bacon Munzees. This is a new game that started last night at 10. Random Munzees are shown with three strips of bacon beside them and the first person to capture these Munzees get 20 points, the second gets 15 and the third gets 10 points. I checked before I went to bed and found one at the Best Buy store near Marquette but because of the pouring rain, I didn't go out to get it. Not only was it still there, there were two more around here. I jumped up, put my Munzee capturing clothes on and took off in search of them! I found them in short order and returned home. Along the way, I stopped off to cap some others that were scattered around the area near the park. I walked around and spoke to the other Heartlanders that were getting ready to leave this morning and when I talked to Kim and Dottie, I learned that one of the Munzees that I had just captured had just been made a Bacon Munzee. I went to get the extra points but the system wouldn't let me. I guess that since I had just captured it, I couldn't get the points for capping it as a bacon Munzee. Bummer....!

I came on back home and Stella and I went to the office to verify that we had to change sites, which we do. Someone has requested this particular site, so we must move next door. As soon as our neighbors moved out, we moved in. It only took about 45 minutes to get things moved over and the trailer hooked up and moved, so instead of #101, we are now in 102. Big deal, it is just as level and doesn't have rain water standing in it as the old one does. It just cost me a little sweat, so that's not a bad deal. We can stay here for a couple of weeks if needed. 

All the rain last night made it very humid this morning, and with the "heat wave" that is going on right now, it made for some uncomfortable times until we got the a/c's back on and cooling the trailer off. 

After taking a break (nap), I decided to drive over to Marquette to cap a few more this afternoon. On the way, I stopped by the stop sign where the bacon Munzee was located to give it another shot at being captured. When I drove up, there was a man in a small SUV that stopped nearby, and both of us started to walk toward the same stop sign. I asked him if he was playing Munzee, but he said no, he was geocaching. Small world! We are playing similar games but in the same spot! Oh, and yes, I capped it this time. It cost me a few points but I got it! I went over to Marquette and captured several regular Munzees and a couple more bacons, plus one Mystery Munzee and rang up 40 points. My numbers are climbing! 

The best thing is, I am walking a LOT and am outside in fresh air, not sitting inside watching television. Maybe you'll notice if I've lost some weight or at least inches.

So long.

Sunday August 25, 2013-Country Roads RV Park

Well, the Michigan rally is over and boy, did we have a good time here! The weather was perfect and the only bad weather we have had was last night when it rained pretty hard. Of course, it started about 1:30 AM, so other than interrupting some sleep, it wasn't too bad. 

We had some good food, both at potlucks and in a restaurant nearby. There were several Munzers here, so we all got our fill of deploying and capturing Munzees, but there is a new event for extra points that starts tonight, so that should be of interest for us.

We attracted two new members for the club at the rally, Butch and his wife Danita and Dave and his wife Sharon. Both own Heartland trailers but had not heard of the club or the rallies, but joined up and enjoyed their time with us. 

There are about 7 of us that have stayed here, with everyone but us leaving tomorrow. We realized that I had forgotten to make a reservation in Granite Falls Minnesota for the time of the Labor Day holiday. Since we are retired, holidays mean nothing to us. Every day is a holiday for us... Stella called to see if we could get into the park but they are booked. They did offer us a no hookup site, but we are not interested in boondocking, even if it is in an RV park. We decided to just stay here, because we can just change sites to the next site over (someone has requested this site), so that is what we will do tomorrow. There are plenty of things to do in the area and who knows, some of our friends may decide to stay here or come back for a visit. We'll have to see how this works out. 

Next stop Minnesota!

So long.

Tuesday August 20, 2013-Country Village RV Park

Today I took Bernie along with our friends from Florida, Kim and Dottie, to the LakenLand junkyard art property on the other side of Marquette. I didn't take any more photos of this since we had just been here on August 5th and added to a blog post found HERE. Everyone was delighted with this property as we were when we saw it.

The photos below are of the Kellogg mansion property that is just outside of Gresham WI. Bernie and I were shopping in town and learned about this place from a shop owner.

This is a city-owned dam and waterfall that leads into the Wisconsin river. I am not sure what if anything, by the dam but the building below probably controls the flow of water.

Looking downriver from the headwaters of the river below the dam. It is very serene along the river and many fish can be seen in the clear water.

This view is from the upper stories of the old house. You can see the white water from a waterfall and some rapids.

Here is Bernie, doing his thing of placing a Munzee on an electrical box. This was the only one that he deployed on the property.

It was a pretty good hike up the road to the house. I saw a real estate sign that was on the property, so I assume that the agent keeps the property mowed.

We were told that the Kellogg family built this house for their daughter, but sadly, she passed away before moving into the house. I was unable to find out very much else. I did talk to someone with the real estate office but he said it had been a retreat for the Catholic church at one time. He estimated that the house is 70-80 years old.

A beautiful view of the river from the upper floors.

The old house is in pretty bad shape. The interior has been gutted and as you can see in the picture below, trees and bushes now grow on the balconies and the roof.

I still love the view of the river. Of course, I can see a beautiful RV park or a bed and breakfast in the old building, but it would take a fortune to do either. Anyone got some piles of money to invest?

Looking upriver, you can see some paddlers and canoeists in a small gathering area. Someone has piled up rocks to prevent anyone in a boat or kayak from going through the rapids or over the waterfall. We didn't explore any further downstream.

I have some more photos from yet another junkyard art place that we found. I will add them to tomorrow's entry along with an update of the rally that will be starting here in Michigan.

So long.

Monday August 19, 2013-Country Village RV Park

There was not much going on around here today so I decided to upload some photos from the Lake Delton area that we had seen. 

This was the site of a deployed Munzee that Bernie took me to. The Wisconsin river flows through the area and at this point there is a dam and park overlooking the waterfall. 

Bernie had already "christened" the area with one Munzee, but added another today. 

A family was fishing in the calm area below the falls. Of course we didn't see them catch anything but this seems to be a pretty popular place to fish.

I am always fascinated by vegetation growing out of rock walls and mountainsides. It seems that anyplace a plant or tree can find any amount of dirt, they seem to grow and flourish. 

An interesting area of this location is a grotto that was a saloon that was located in a cave. This place was operated as a bar until about 1967 when it closed.

Here is the front of the cave. You can see the wall that was the front of the saloon in the picture above. The front wall is completely gone now and the interior has been covered with graffiti (see below picture). 

We just hung out around here today and Stella and I went to the grocery store. the grocery prices are very high in town, so we drove down to the Wal Mart in Marquette. The rally will start on Wednesday, so we are looking forward to it.

So long.

Sunday August 18, 2013-Moving day, North Star Mohican Casino to Country Village RV park

We were up early, packing things up to make our move to the UP (upper peninsula) of Michigan this morning. We decided to go over to the casino for breakfast before leaving, so about 8:30, we drove over. The parking lot was full, so we expected a large crowd in the restaurant. When we got inside, there was almost nobody there! I guess a lot of people had come in and stayed in the hotel and then slept in this morning. 

After a delicious- and inexpensive- breakfast, we were soon back at the trailers and hooking up to leave a little before 10. We made good time down the road and since there were no rest stops along the way to stop at for Munzee checks, time flew by. It is only 180 miles to the park in Ishpeming but we did lose an hour because we are back in the eastern time zone. At least when we leave here we will go back to central time and stay on it for the rest of the year.

Upon arrival,we got our sites and were soon set up and taking it easy. We met Gerry and Debbie, the Michigan chapter leaders and had a nice chat with them. We came back home for a bit and later went back over to sit outside with our friends. 

It was an easy travel day and even though we only made one stop, we arrived feeling pretty well. It didn't take long to shake out the kinks from riding all day.

So long.

Saturday August 15, 2013, North Star Mohican Casino

I just want to bring everyone up to date on our stay at the North Star Mohican Casino RV park. I complained about the employees and their attitudes the day of our arrival and I haven't changed my mind. From the security guards to the wait staff in the restaurants, no one seems happy or welcoming. There is a serious lack of customer service here, but with all that said, I like this park. It is quiet and peaceful and best of all-CHEAP!! At $25 per night, a full hookup site is very reasonable, but when you subtract $10 a day that they give you to gamble with, the cost plummets! 

They also have some good food values. We ate hamburgers our first night for $2 each, .25 chicken wings the second night but ate in a nearby town the next two evenings which was higher in price but the food was delicious. 

Bernie and I did some Munzeeing in the area on Friday and were directed to a waterfall outside of Shawano WI by a store owner that we met there. He also told us about a mansion outside of town that had been built by the Kellogg family, owners of Kellogg cereal, for their daughter. Unfortunately their daughter died before the house was completed and it has deteriorated due to neglect. The house sits on the river with a beautiful view of a waterfall and some rapids. I took lots of pictures and will put them on a future post.

We are enjoying the delightful weather here. It has been in the upper 40's to low 50's at night and mid 70's during the day. It reminds me of Colorado with sweats or long pants in the morning, changing to shorts during the day. We haven't spent much time sitting out in the evening because of the skeeters. We have some neighbors that sit outside in the evenings but they also have campfires that smoke the critters away. 

We'll be moving on tomorrow, back to Michigan for the rally there. The rest of the summer will be rally after rally. We're looking forward to them and the fun we'll have.

So long.

Wednesday August 14, 2013-Moving Day-Country Roads RV Resort to Mohican North Star RV Park

We were up early this morning, getting ready to leave for Bowling Wisconsin for another stay at a casino RV park. We are traveling with our friends Bernie the Munzee king and his wife Judi today and are trying to get here to see some of our Heartland friends that are at the casino. We had made some preparations last night and didn't have any problems getting going this morning and we actually pulled out around 8:30.

We made good time down the road and only made one rest stop and of course, Bernie and I deployed some Munzees at the rest area. The casino RV park where we are going is way off in the boonies but we made it here around 2 o'clock. 

The casino is very nice but there is a lack in signs directing visitors to the RV park but we pulled over in a parking lot to figure out where to go when our friend Dave drove out of the park. He pulled over and told us where we needed to go to get checked in. We walked over to the casino and found the hotel check in desk but the lady there admitted that she didn't know anything about the RV area but she got us checked in. I noticed a serious lack of customer service throughout and have been unimpressed with this place so far, but we just arrived and will only be here for a few days.

We did get some good and cheap meals at the casino. They have a hamburger for only $2, so that was our supper. Two hamburgers with fixin's, chips and an order of onion rings was only $6.25, what a deal! We'll probably continue to use the low cost food while we're here. I can put up with the bad service to save some money. 

So long.

Monday August 12, 2013-Country Roads RV Resort

Well, the Wisconsin is over and it was a rousing success. We had another great time with the folks from the cheese-head state and met some new friends. The Wisconsin chapter leader is Tom Weber and he has done a fine job for several years, but he and his wife Gerry have decided to go full time in their new Bighorn and they want to step down. I met the new chapter leaders, Terry and Jackie Spencer at this rally and have been really impressed with them. I'm looking forward to working with them in the future.

As usual at a rally, there was plenty of good food. Tom and his daughter furnished a lot of sausage for a breakfast potluck breakfast on Friday morning. Dave (Cookie) and some other volunteers prepared the sausage and the rest of the group brought other fixin's for breakfast and we all had a good time. 

We had a pig roast on Saturday evening. Tom found a couple of guys that agreed to roast a pig (offsite) and bring it to the park for us to dine on. Again, the group supplied the side dishes and desserts and everyone had a great meal. 

Every evening we had a large campfire with firewood brought up from Michigan by Dan. There are at least two group campfire areas in the park and the weather was perfect for a fire in the evening. It warmed up nicely during the day and was cool at night. It certainly made for some good sleeping!

Almost everyone left yesterday but about eight rigs stayed until Monday to leave. The rest of us will be leaving in the next couple of days. This rally starts the second half of the rally season for us and we are looking forward to more fun times with friends.

So long.

Wednesday August 7, 2013-Moving day-Dan and Karen's house to Country Roads RV & Motorhome park

We were up early this morning to get an early start on the drive over to Lake Delton Wisconsin. I went over and had some coffee with Dan and came on back home about 7:30 to get started on my moving chores. Stella had stayed home to start her work, so she had a big head start on me. We made good time and were ready to go about 8:15. We had been shooting for 8:30, so that we could go to a neighbor's house to dump our waste water tanks. It's only a few miles to their house, which has an RV park in front, consisting of three spaces with electricity and a sewer dump, so we were soon there and completed. That's when the trouble started... Dan had told me to call him when we were finished and they would come by and we would leave. We all forgot that there is no cell service up here, so after pulling out to the street, I waited for a few minutes and went to their friend's house to get them to call on their land line and let them know that we were ready to leave. I went back to the truck to wait, and after about 30 minutes, Eileen came out and said that they were waiting for us at their house. Doh, we had misunderstood the route we are taking, so as soon as we discovered our mistake, off we were toward their house. We only wasted 35-40 minutes, and were on the road again.

The route was a beautiful drive along Lake Michigan and down along Green Bay. We made good time and only made a couple of stops for fuel and potty breaks. We did stop for a lunch break at a McDonald's that Dan was familiar with that has a huge parking area for the trucks and trailers and had lunch there. It IS a McDonald's, so we didn't expect very much in the food, but it filled our bellies and we and we weren't disappointed. 

Back on the road again and made one more rest stop, somewhere in Wisconsin. At least we're back in the Central Time Zone again and will be for the rest of our time up here. It's really not a big deal, but we have to keep in mind that it's an hour earlier back in Texas when we call friends and family.

We pulled into the park a little after 3 and were soon set up and ready to party! Man, there are lots of Heartland trailers here! They are expecting 28 trailers, and most of them are already here. We had a very nice get together this evening, which consisted of Wisconsin Brats with side dishes brought by the guests. It is good to get here after a long drive and to see so many friends, both old and new. We are going to have some fun here this week.

So long.

Sunday August 5, 2013-Dan and Karen's house

We had a very pleasant day today. Stella and Karen made a big breakfast for all of us and included Ron and Eileen, who are friends that live nearby. We had a very filling breakfast of pancakes, eggs, sausage and bacon with all the fixin's and had a nice visit with them before we left to visit the Junkyard Art near Marquette MI. I covered this location a couple of years ago when we visited. He has added a lot of new sculptures since then and I have added lots more pictures.

 He is still building this new fireplace near the entrance.

 This looks like a PT boat, peeking out of the bushes. Although you can't make it out in the picture, he used large bolts as ammunition on the make-believe machine gun on the front of the boat. 

 He is a very patriotic guy with several pieces with a US theme.

This is a tribute to 911, with the twin towers. 

 Slot machine

 In case you can't read it, it says that the bowling balls are always on the north side of the tree.

 As you can tell, he has a "thing" for corporate greed and his feelings about how workers are treated are well known.

 A motorcycle going up a ramp through a ring of fire. This man's imagination and skills are amazing. Remember, all of this is junk metal...

A snowmobile. 

 A tractor pulling a large log.

Some kind of mean looking animal in a cage. Again, he used large bolts in the food dish. 

 An animal trap.

 This is a UFO with some small animals or creatures coming down the ramp. Amazing stuff!

 I love these guys "sawing" this huge log.

A large logger, hiking down a trail. 

The last of the cool sculptures for this trip. We will come back again sometime to see what he has added. 

After finishing up at the Junkyard Art place, we went into Marquette to do some shopping at Wal Mart and Menard's. They shopped while I deployed some Munzees. Hey, I have to leave some sort of a mark in the world!

 We stopped at a KFC and picked up some chicken and took it to the Presque Isle Park where we had a picnic lupper. Food just tastes better when eaten outdoors. We had a great meal and after, I deployed some Munzees around the park.

We had a nice view of Lake Superior (Gitchee-Goomey) as a background. It was fun to watch the boats come back into the docks.

There is also a huge ore dock behind us and beside the boat docks. This area of town has had a huge increase in living areas due to some large warehouses and a train station that have been converted to apartments and condos, and the area seems to be thriving.

After taking some rest after eating, we headed back home. We stopped off at a McDonalds restaurant for some ice cream, and guess what I did! Yep, left a Munzee mark for someone to capture. It was a wonderful day and a great way to end our visit here. We will be leaving in a few days for Wisconsin.

So long.