Wisconsin to Michigan - False Starts and Lake Rocks

Well, when we got ready to leave the RV park in Lake Delton on Sunday we discovered the chassis battery was dead. The only thing we could think of that might have pulled it down is that the clock display had been on for a couple days. Surely that doesn't pull much juice?  Anyway, we had trouble with this once before, when we were on Vancouver Island, and so now we were really skittish as to whether we could rely on the battery.

One of our fellow campers tried to give us a jump-start but it was no-go so I called Triple A and they put me in touch with a roadside service company.  I spoke to their dispatcher and explained to her that the battery might be kaput and they should just go ahead and bring a replacement with them.  And so we now have a new chassis battery in the Trek.

By the time we got the battery replaced, it was well after check-out time and we decided to just stay one more night. Schedule-wise, it was really not a big deal because we were at a "meandering" stage of our trip... essentially just hanging out until our next major stop in Ontario, Canada.

And so it was Monday before we left the Country Roads RV Park in Lake Delton and began to make our way to Michigan.

We drove right through downtown Chicago, which actually wasn't too bad - it was Labor Day weekend and so even though it was Monday, the traffic in the city was light. However, the traffic in the suburbs going into and then out of Chicago was very heavy, and so it took us quite some time to get through the greater Chicago area.

We stopped for the night around 7 PM at a Wal-Mart in La Porte, Indiana.  This is a very attractive area - it seemed quiet and quaint, despite being so close to the craziness of Chicago, which is the third largest city in the USA.

After our overnight stop in La Porte, we resumed our journey eastward and rolled into Lakeport State Park Campground Tuesday afternoon. Check-in was a breeze, and the young man working the registration desk dropped the $6 daily use fee when we told him we did not plan on leaving the campground during our stay.

This is a nice campground with large sites and oak trees everywhere for shade  The only hook-up is power, and so we've been using the campground showers and we'll use the dump station on our way out when we leave tomorrow.

The only criticism I have of this place is that there are no garbage cans in the campground, just trashcans in the bathrooms. The host told us this is because people were stealing the garbage cans. Hey, how about a 500-lb dumpster? ... it would be tough to steal that! So campers either hoard their garbage and trash, which is not good, put it in the bathroom (not good either), or drive/walk about a mile to the dumpsters at the entrance. We only made that walk once, but we don't produce much waste anyway. We'll drop off some more trash tomorrow, as we leave the campground.

Lakeport State Campground in situated on Lake Huron and so we decided to learn more about this Great Lake. Here are some interesting factoids: Lake Huron is the second largest of the Great Lakes, with a surface area of 23,010 square mile which makes it the third largest fresh water lake in the world.  The lake holds 850 cubic miles of water and has 3,827 miles of shoreline. Lake Huron's average depth is 195 feet, with a maximum depth of 750 feet. At it's extremities, Lake Huron is 206 mi long and 183 mile wide

Lynda and I walked on the beach along Lake Huron, which is very long and quite wide and a great place to hang out.  I really enjoyed looking at the lake rocks washed up on the beach... they are all different colors and very polished by the water and sand.

Lynda was the first to notice that the squirrels running around the campground are black, unlike the Eastern Gray squirrels we're used to seeing. The dogs also found these little guys pretty interesting.

After a relaxing little sojourn here at Lakeport, we'll be leaving tomorrow for Ontario, Canada where we're getting together with cousins from my Mother's side of the family. I'm also trying to coordinate a visit with some old family friends (the Mosbaughs) I haven't seen in 30+ years... hopefully it will all work out.

Click here for some photos of Lakeport State Park campground.  And stay tuned for more adventures!