Silver Lake (7/20-7/23)

Monday –
I know you won’t believe it, but I might have actually had us staying at the dumpiest campground in the Silver Lake area. I guess dumpy isn’t the right word, but it definitely wasn’t “nice”. Those Yogi Bear parks are a hit or miss, but usually when you book a “premium” site you expect something good. The look on Marc’s face when we pulled up to our site was that “you’ve got to be effin kidding me look”. It was a back-in site, which isn’t always a problem, but the sites were way too tight for our big rig. Luckily we had passed a really nice “RV Resort” so I made the suggestion of just going there. Thank God he took it…he is usually persistent about making things work which usually ends ugly.
So without even attempting the tight squeeze we made our departure. I was a little pissed at the park anyways. When I was checking in they said they couldn’t accept our discount card during the month of July. WTF? On the back of the card it says that it is good at all Jellystone Campgrounds for a 10% discount. When DO people camp….JULY, duh?
The Silver Creek Resort was probably one of the nicest RV parks we have ever stayed at. The sites were really big with nice paved and grassy areas. It was even the same price as the other one. That is where the fun began. We went back to Jellystone to inform them that we were NOT staying on their property. The girl was so annoyed with me. She was persistent on trying to persuade me into moving to a different site. She just wasn’t getting it… I wanted to just say to her, “Look, if we try to squeeze in and mess anything up on our RV “you” are going to deal with my husband for the evening instead of me.” Then she went on and on about how they are not supposed to give any refunds and how they would be losing A LOT of money (I just made the reservation last Monday?). I finally said to her, “If you don’t want to refund me that’s fine, but I am just going to call my credit card company and charge it back”. She shaped up and decided to give me all but $10 back, I felt that was fair.
Our next dilemma was deciding where to eat. The area is very small making the choices very slim. Wanting to make the evening go as smoothly as possible, I agreed to the thirty minute drive to Applebee’s. After thirty minutes had passed, starving, and still not knowing how much further to our destination I couldn’t help but regret the decision. At that point I wished we could be more like Mike and Trish and be more open to trying new places. Funny, we had just discussed this with them on Friday. But I do have to admit, all that was forgotten after we made it to our “safe” place and our soul food was fantastic.

Tuesday –
We have our own little routine on the RV. Everyone usually wakes up between 9:30-10. I make breakfast and we just hang out for a couple hours so Marc can get some work done. We usually don’t get going until 12 or 1PM. Then we go and do some area activities. Today we went on Mac Wood’s Dune Rides. It was a good time, but I don’t think we would ever do it again. The kids really enjoyed it. Aspen loved that she was able to sit like a big girl without a car seat. We also toured the Little Sable Point Lighthouse. I knew that Marc was afraid of heights, but I didn’t think he would start getting paranoid when we were half way up. None of the kids have inherited his fear of heights so the rest of us enjoyed the look out once we were on top. I didn’t bring the kids bathing suits with us (I didn’t know the lighthouse was right on a public beach area), but the kids enjoyed the water anyways…a little too much. We also went mini golfing later…that was a hoot. It deserves a blog all on its own ;)

Wednesday –
A new tradition this RV season has been going to a store and buying a few movies to watch during the trip. We sleep in so late because we don’t start watching a movie each night until after 10PM. They really came in handy today because a storm came through.
Our original plan for the day was to visit a dairy farm and go horseback riding. Not really knowing what the weather was going to do (you just never know with good ole Michigan), we headed to the dairy farm. About five minutes before we arrived it started pouring. There wasn’t a single parking space available so we were going to have to park a good distance from the entrance. Marc nor I were in the mood to get soaked (or be around soaked cows) so we opted to drive through the parking lot so the kids could look at the cows…Hi and Bye Cows :) Wouldn’t you know it, after driving for another five minutes the rain stopped. Oh well, it just gives us an excuse to come back.
After the rain cleared up we went on a jeep tour through the dunes….way more fun. The kids had a blast. In fact, we all want to go again, no guide next time. We took the kids to the lake afterwards to get some of their energy out. We spent a lot of time in the RV today watching movies since it was so crappy out. Sometimes it is nice just to stay in though and snuggle :) I would love to spend another day here, but back home we go tomorrow :)