July 27, 2012

It rained most of the day today.  We left the casino campground and drove south over the Mackinaw Bridge.  Lake Michigan is on one side of the bridge and Lake Huron is on the other side.  The casino didn’t have a dump site so we drove to Petoskey State Park and used the dump there.  We bought a year pass to the Michigan state parks and it enables you to use the dump at any park even if you did not camp there.  We drove through Traverse City to the south a few miles and got a campsite at the Northwestern Michigan Fairgrounds and Campground.  There are 150 camping sites here with electricity and water and a shower house and dump station.  There are only 11 sites including us occupied.

After unhooking we drove to a nearby RV parts store and bought a couple of replacement parts for the Casita.  We  drove downtown to Mackinaw Brewing and had a beer.  Then we walked over to the visitor’s center and found two geocaches.  One of them was sneakily hidden in the top cap of a fence post.  As we were having a beer at Mackinaw Brewing Front Street was being closed to vehicle traffic.  They had music, booths, food and dancing – they do this every Friday.  After looking at everything we walked a couple of blocks down to North Peak Brewing and had a beer.  Then back through the Friday night street festival.  Jim bought a nice yellow rain jacket at one of the stores and then we went back to the Casita and I cooked dinner and we watched the opening ceremony of the Olympics.