The Official Start of Summer!

We are up in Traverse City for a Memorial Day weekend of running, biking and beer drinking.

Herself, Amy, and Carrie are all on the bus heading out to the start of the Bayshore Half Marathon on Mission Point. Its quite a production to get this race going. A full marathon starts at the Traverse City Central High School and goes out onto the Peninsula and does a loop back to the High School stadium. The Half Marathon starts out at the half way point of the full version, thus the buses. The finish is quite cool in the football track stadium of the school.

The weather is perfect for running as the skies are a bit cloudy and the temperature is about 52 degrees F. Their start is at 7am so I am anticipating a 9am or thereabouts finish. So I have a little time to get caffeined up and then head over there to see the finish.

We drove up north on Friday taking a leisurely cruise. Our accommodations are at the lovely Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore Platte River camp ground. We reserved a walk in site several weeks ago. The camp sites in the walk in area are great. They are quite spread out with only minimal views of the other campsites from each site.

The tough part of the day is that the race starts at 7am so we had to get up at 4:30am to get to the race venue and get the girls on the bus out to their start. Out drive over from the campground was on M72. Until we were about 5 miles out from TC the only movement seen was several deer. These were "honked" at so they would clear the way for the Subaru.

Our camping experiences over the last several years have lead us to this area and we continue to return. It seems, to us, the Michigan State parks are overcrowded, under staffed, noisy and not maintained well. Our last two trips, one to Orchard Beach State Park north of Manistee and to Muskegon State Park have ended badly. Orchard Beach is a lovely site perched up on top of a high bluff right on Lake Michigan. The Park is an old orchard that is now owned by the State. We have spent many nights there with beach and bike activities available. Muskegon State Park is on the north side of Muskegon Lake on the point formed by the small lake and Lake Michigan.

Out trip to Orchard Beach ended bad because of a camping neighbor's fire and dog. It would seem the campers were accompanied by friends that had another site several places down from them. They arrived, set up their tent, started a roaring fire, tied their dog to the tree at the back of our two sites and proceeded down the road to their friends place. It was quite windy and the sparks from the fire were flying all over. The fire was left completely unattended. The worst part was the dog could see where they were. Not with him! It began to produce the most annoying high pitched howl I have heard from an animal that was not mortally wounded. It probably thought it had been abandoned.

The owner came back to the site to fetch a round of beers and started to leave again. Herself mentioned very politely to the woman that their dog was missing them. She stated quite flatly that the dog was alright. Herself mentioned that the dog was howling quite loudly while they were away. She also mentioned their fire was not attended and was blowing around. Their response was to turn and walk away. We contemplated speaking with a ranger but thought why should we pursue that avenue. These people just don't get it. It is go camping and do exactly as you please regardless of what affect you have on others. The final outcome was at about 11pm we packed up and left.

We have not returned.

The Muskegon Sate Park trip was quite delightful, with several of Herself's co-workers spending some time camping, eating and "wineing". The problem arose when the State, our awesome senators and representatives decided to not come to an agreement on the State budget. So, on the last day of the fiscal year, the State claimed it was out of money and forced everyone out of the park early. All State facilities had to be vacated. Stupid!

But on to better things.

Craig, the Younger, and I are going for a ride around Torch Lake later today. After the girls have been collected and cheered to the finish, they will be brought over to Amy's parent's house on Elk Lake. There they will hot tub, nap and relax while the two Craigs ride.

Then it is on to Pearl's for dinner.

I am excited for the weekend as there should be more biking on Sunday, then the cruise back on Monday. We are to be at my sister's for awesome ribs to celebrate our nephew Mac's birthday.

Its three minutes until the starting gun goes off for the girls and I am about out of coffee, so I better head back to the Traverse City High School.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Memorial Day Weekend. Celebrate those that have suffered the ultimate sacrifice for us to provide this country and many others around the world with the Freedoms we enjoy today. Contemplate peace!