Sunday, July 9th

We reluctantly broke camp at Bay Furnace on the south shore of Lake Superior and drove 230 miles to Traverse City, MI.

About half way enroute, we crossed the magnificant Mackinac Bridge (pronounced "Machinaw"). Traffic advisory signs stated that RV's, trailers & loaded trucks speed limit was 20 mph. You didn't have to tell me twice! Driving 200 feet above the water, looking DOWN at the guard rails from my driver's seat and buffeting winds gusting to 50 mph, it was white knuckle time for me. Of course, we made it, sweaty palms and all.

Drove thru the really cute towns of Petrosky and Charlevoix, Michigan. We arrived at our destination, Traverse City State Park. The campground is quite large, lotta trees and fairly full. The office ranger said to drive the coach thru the campground and pick an available site and come back to sign in and pay. Let me tell you, driving thru with a 40' coach was REALLY interesting and problematic. Several times we had to stop while someone else backed their trailer of 5th wheel into their site. We dodged trees and trucks. We finally selected several possible sites and I proceeded to block other campers. After several futile attempts to back into the sites, missing trees by a fraction of inch and putting our "home" in great peril, I cried "uncle" and said that this was absurd...I was going to Wal-Mart's parking lot.

SO...we are in for the night at the Traverse City Wal-Mart.