Pictured Rocks & Munising

We spent 5 days at a large $4 a night dispersed campsite ïn the middle of nowhere¨, 25 miles from Manistique.(Chicago Lake #4)  It was a great campsite though, with good swimming in the lake. When I arrived there were two forest service workers there wearing long sleeved shirts and headnets. Uh oh. Yeah…swarms of mosquitoes, deer and stable flies! That first day was a bit miserable but strangely enough, that was the only really bad day there. There were still some bugs but never a huge problem. Those stable flies are huge, about 1″long, and they have big sharp teeth! They like feet and ankles and the bites itch like crazy for about 3 days.

Then we moved to Hovey Lake Campground (FREE!) about 10 miles from Munising. There are just 4 campsites there and they even have picnic tables, a real luxury not often found at the free sites! Hovey Lake is very shallow though, and not good for swimmimg. We had two really hot days in a row and Deb swam the first day, said it was a little mucky. The next day I was so hot and sweaty, I couldn’t stand it. Ugh, I shudder just thinking about it!  My feet sank about 6″ into the muck. I waded out about 100′ and the muck got deeper but the water didn’t! Even that far out, it only came a little above my knees! I was floating on a piece of ensolite and if I put my arms down, I felt creepy weeds. Coming in, I went too far towards shore and then couldn’t get my feet under me. Deb waded over and gave me a hand and I nearly dragged her in with me, trying to get up! All the while wallowing around and stirring up nasty green and black bits of goo.  GROSS!  Deb said if someone had been taking a video of that, it would have gone viral for sure!  My clothes were full of nasty green goop. I don’t care how hot it gets, no more swimming in Hovey Lake!!

We both have Coleman Instant Screen Rooms and we’ve been putting them both up, one is for the dogs’ exercise pen and our chairs, and the other is the cook shack, with the bbq grill and my propane stove. So nice to have a picnic table to cook and eat on! Neither of our campers has space for 2 people to eat together!  

Our Asheville friends Cheryle & Jenni were camped at Otter Lake Resort, just a few miles from us so we all drove out H-58 to Grand Marais yesterday. We met at Superior Brewing Company and got flights of beer to sample. Jenni & Deb didn’t really like any of them, but I did! I liked the Puddingstone Wheat best. Granted I’m not very knowledgable about beer. When we arrived, the waitress told us they didn’t have any whitefish but they were cleaning a new batch and it would be available in about 30 minutes. It sure doesn’t get any fresher than that! Cheryle and Jenni had the whitefish and loved it. Deb and I shared a pizza and it was really good too. Then we all went to the agate beach and picked up pretty rocks. (As usual, didn’t find any agates). Jenni and I were going to go fishing at Otter Lake last night but it was too cold. In two days we went from being so hot we could hardly sleep, to last night’s low of 42 degrees!!  Welcome to Michigan weather.

Wifi and cell signals are nonexistent at both of these last places, so we have to drive a ways to get any kind of signals. We’re both getting a little frustrated with that situation! So we may not stay the full 14 days here.