July 29, 2012

We got up at 5:00 am, took showers, hooked up the Casita, and dumped.  We drove to the Platte River Campground at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  This park fills up every day very quickly.  Some people sleep overnight in line to get one of the camping spots that open up.  The office opens at 8:00 am and we arrived there at 7:45.  There were 31 available sites because of people leaving.  They passed out numbers to the people in line and we were number 24.  We knew we would have a space but didn’t know if it would be electric.  Turns out we got the last electric spot, a handicapped site directly across from the restrooms and showers.  The other campers were still in the site and they had until noon to leave.

We dropped the Casita at a parking area and then drove to where the Platt River runs into Lake Michigan and took a few pictures.  At 10:00 am we drove back by our campsite and the people were still there and they hadn’t even started to pack up.  We drove to the nearby town of Honor and got a few groceries.  We drove by the campsite again at 11:00 and they still hadn’t started packing.  We unloaded groceries and waited until 11:45 to hook up and try to get the site.  A park ranger came by and said he would go check on them.  It was 12:05 and they were sill there, but they had packed and were just leaving.  The Ranger was talking to them and we saw him point to his watch.  He must have been telling them they were late leaving.  We finally got in our site and unhooked.  They had left us two shower tokens and some firewood along with a note saying they hoped we enjoyed our camping.

We drove to the visitor’s center at Empire and watched a movie about the park.  Then we drove to Sleeping Bear Dunes Climb.  Jim and I climbed up some dunes and walked until we could see Lake Michigan.  My knees sure did hurt while climbing. I found out if I walked in Jim’s footsteps it was much easier -- the sand didn’t slide under my feet because he already made an indention.  Going down was fun.  We did this barefooted.

Then we drove to Glen Haven Historic Village.  The old store is a museum and we talked to the guy who worked there.  He asked what kind of RV we had and it turned out he had just traded his big rig for a Casita Freedom Deluxe.  We told him about Larry and his Little House Customs website because he had a hard time locating wheel bearings.  We also told him about Arizona Eileen’s CD book on Casitas.   He said Casita wasn’t much help with locating wheel bearings.  We went to the Coast Guard Station Museum and then back to the Casita.  We sat outside and read the Sunday paper and had a beer.  I fixed dinner and we ate out at the picnic table.  Then we drove back to the mouth of the Platte River to see the sunset.