Bug Smacker

On Saturday most of us gathered to take a trip down the Muskegon River. After all, that was the biggest reason for choosing the place we were camping at. In all, there were a total of 13 of us who chose to go. The day couldn’t have been any better. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.

According to the maps we were looking at prior to going the trip should have been around 2 hours long. How wrong we were. The entire trip from Church Bridge on Pine Road back to M-61 took almost 4 hours. We even picked up the pace a bit towards the end.

We did encounter a setback prior to entering the river when I realized that I had forgotten the paddles to both Terri and my kayaks. My bad!

Other than the length of our trip becoming a bit long, the river was just right. The current speed was good. The depth was ok as well, with only a couple of shallow spots where we had to drag bottom. The width was also good for the amount of people we had together.

If we look back and refer to last year’s 4^th of July as the year of the incident, then we are going to need to relate to this year’s 4^th of July as the year of the bad juju. The following events have occurred in the last few days as we have come together here at Wilson State Park to celebrate the 4^th of July. The following events have happened to several of us and have made us tread very cautiously.

• A ripped RV rubber roof
• Another Ripped RV rubber roof
• A near collision on the road
• A leaky tent
• Another leaky tent
• A broken entrance sign
• A canoe crash
• A lost canoe deposit *
• Another lost canoe deposit*
• RV awning damage
• A broken vent cover
• Went canoeing without paddles
• A lost teenager
• A person left behind at a restaurant

(*see my article on Duggans Canoe Livery for more on this.)

On top of all of this, we had another incident like last year with someone falling.  Only instead of falling out of a boat, they fell out of their RV. In fact it happened to be the same person involved in this mishap as well as last year’s.

As for the park, it was nice. It had plenty of shade. Everyone who required 30 amp electrical service was able to get it. The beach was nice, yet on the small side. It is located close to the main road, but the noise was not bothersome.

The roads however were narrow and the trees dangerously close to them. This was the reason for most of the damage listed above. We pleaded with the DNR ranger to do something about the problem. We will need to wait and see if our requests fell on deaf ears or not.

Sunday was our annual pot-luck dinner.  The food was delicious and plentiful.

On the last night before we left, there was a Demolition Derby at the fairgrounds across the street. This event was more of a race. The cars would flip and crash. This was a ton of fun.

Following the race they had a fireworks show. This became the pinnacle of our gathering. It was absolutely awesome. I believe everyone was left in awe by the size and duration of the display. For a small town, these fireworks were on a big city scale.

Following our weekend at Showboat Park, we decided to head over to the Outdoor Adventures Resort located in Davison, MI. We have not been here in almost 5 years now and have heard there have been many changes to the place.

We checked into the office to let them know what site we had chosen. I asked if it was safe to leave our kayaks at our site unattended during the day while we were at work. This is not a question I would even think of asking at any of the other parks. The answer I got did not surprise me; they said that my stuff would not be safe.

This park is located about an hour away from Terri’s job. We didn’t want be any further away since we will both be working during our stay here. The trip however proved to be more of a hassle than it was worth. It seems as if any route we chose, the speed limit was only 45 mph at some point and had several stop signs along the way. One evening we even found ourselves stuck in a local “Flag Day” parade.

One thing I did not understand is that you not only need to check-in every time you arrive, but you also need to check-out. I understand the need to monitor who get into the park. I however think it is quite unnecessary to let them know when you are leaving. None of the other Outdoor Adventure parks have this inconvenience.

The people here all seem to be quite nice. I am constantly getting a five finger wave from the security people as I drive by. My wife explained to me that they weren’t being friendly; they were letting me know I should keep my speed at 5 mph. My bad. Sometimes I even caught myself doing in excess of 8MPH!

The park is much larger than last time we were here. They have added a whole new section on the other side of the small lake. The sites here are much larger than the old side where you are packed in like a deck of playing cards. The road on the new side is a real rough and the trees are small so there is no shade to be found. The sites all have full hookups including electric, sewer, water and cable. The cable will set you back a dollar a day if you decide to use it.

Even as big as the place is, it still completely fills up. In fact as I am writing this at 7 am in the morning, the guy next to us packed up and left. Within 5 minutes someone new was moving back in. On the weekends more people come for day trips in addition to the hordes of people already camping here. There are even small pockets of ethnic neighborhoods. Of all the Outdoor Adventure parks this one is the closest one to the larger cities in Michigan.

The new section has Wi-Fi. We found that it was pretty much useless as the connection would regularly disconnect even though the signal was strong. I was reminded of this constantly by my wife who would become extremely frustrated.

This is really sad. Even though we have only been here a couple of hours each night so far and the weekend is now here for us to enjoy our say here, we are definitely now ready to go home. Unlike most places we visit, we will not be disappointed to leave. This park has become a real zoo.

After a long hot day with tempatures in the mid 90′s we decided to take a ride down the Shiawassee River. Since we are staying at the Showboat Park we knew we would eventually find ourselves on the river and this evening was the perfect time.

The river was a bit low with a few obsticles along the way. The pace was very relaxing. We saw plently of wildlife including: Blue Herron, Ducks, Baby Ducks, Turtles and Eagles. We even saw fish that would jump an easy 6 inches out of the water just in front of our boats. It was really cool to see! I am so mad at myself for forgetting my camera back at the RV.

This was one of the most enjoyable trips we have had on the Shiawasse.

I will have to admit that I didn’t expect much from this place. I did’t even think that anyone would be here when we arrived. To my surprise there were already a dozen or so campers at the Showboat Park Campground in Chesaning, Michigan when we pulled in to the place. After setting up camp and looking around I said to Terri ” this is a really nice little place to get away for the weekend.”

We originally decided to come to the Showboat because it is locaed directly on the Shiawassee River. This makes for a convenient place to pull the kayaks out of the river after a trip. There is a boat ramp for easy access to the river.

The park offers 70 sites with electricity. The campsites are quite close together, yet due to the number of visitors there are plenty of empty spaces between campers. We had a picnic table and a fire pit.

Showboat Park has bathrooms and showers. There is a dump station. It has a playground, volleyball court, basketball court, disc golf and picnic pavilions. There is also softball diamonds which were full of people when we arrived here.

I will enjoy coming back to the place.