Michigan - Day 3 - Montague and Muskegon

Muskegon KOA
Wednesday, 3 July 2019

today's route

While I was still in Indiana, I made an appointment for Gracie and Dexter to get groomed today - baths for both, haircut for Gracie.  I almost didn't call this place because their homepage is on Facebook, which won't let me on because I'm not a Facebook member.  But they were the most convenient to the campground who could take us soon after the 1st, so there we were.

An 8:00 appointment, we were there at 7:30 because I didn't know how long the drive would take, and they took the dogs early so Lily and I were back on the road much sooner than I'd expected.  The grooming place - Magnolia's Grooming - is in the small town of Whitehall, which includes Montague Township within it.  The two towns share lots of things - the 4th of July parade, for instance - but they regard themselves as separate.  They're separated by a bridge across the White River though, to a stranger, it looks like the same town.

My next stop was at Montague Foods, another local grocery store I'd found online, which turned out to be a good little store.  The head baker apologized for not having the croissants out of the oven yet.

Part of the parking lot includes the World's Tallest Weathervane, and I'm willing to believe it is.

info re: this weathervane

World's Tallest Weathervane

I was pleased to see that this isn't just an ornament.  It works.  I had a little trouble getting a good photo of it because it kept swinging around with the changing winds.

history of the vane's schooner

history of weathervanes, generally

The grocery store gave me a 10¢/gallon discount at the nearby gas station, and since the price of gas has gone sky-high in the last few days (probably for the holiday traffic) I decided to use it.  The guy in the station said I'd get an extra 3¢ discount for paying cash, so I paid $2.83 - somewhat higher than just a few days ago.  Anyway, he told me lots of the people in the area right now are folks from Chicago who have summer homes on the Michigan coast of Lake Michigan, which isn't something I'd have ever thought about (Illinois having its own Lake Michigan coast).

Next I headed for Muskogen, not having found evidence of a laundromat in either Whitehall or Montague that looked like I wanted to patronize it.

I made a quick (I thought) detour to the PetsMart in Muskogen to get a new tag for Gracie's collar.  I have no idea where her tag got to, but it's definitely not on her collar.  Turned out the engraving machine there wasn't functioning right, despite the technician having been out to fix it just the previous week, they told me.  So she still has no name tag.  Let's all hope she doesn't get lost before I get to another machine.  And of course it all took longer than I'd expected.

On the way to the laundromat, I passed a business called Lott & Big Weezy's Food for the Soul.  I noticed it as much because Weezy was my sister's nickname as anything else.  But I looked it up and it turns out to be an interesting place.  For one thing, this Weezy is a man named Tawayne.  For another, this is a restaurant that was turned down for financing by conventional lenders (owned by blacks?  one of them an ex-convict?  no thank you, was probably their attitude).  But it looks like a great place and it's too bad I passed before 9:30 - too early for lunch.   muskegontimes.com/with-a-whirlwind-of-fried-fish-chicken-and-waffles

I also passed a business called Diabetic Foot Management Clinic.  I know diabetics can have terrible problems with their limbs, especially when the diabetes is uncontrolled, and people can routinely lose toes, if not much more from it.  Still, to have a clinic that specializes so very narrowly seems odd to me.

The laundromat - Suds of West Michigan - turned out to be spotless and staffed, with efficient and reasonably priced machines.  Life can hold no more.

Back Lily and I went for the dogs.  When I dropped the dogs off, the groomers suggested not clipping Gracie (did you know black dogs can get sunburned? and that the coats of elderly dogs often don't grow back properly?), but instead just combing her really well to get out all the extra hair.  Which is what they did.  They probably got a trash can full of hair off her because she was noticeably thinner.  The dogs haven't been bathed since sometime last year, so I'm sure they'll be more comfortable, and I'm sure I'll enjoy petting them more.

Then back to the campground, where there were clearly many many more people than when we'd left this morning.

The staff told me they had 70 check-ins scheduled for today.  The 2 new batches of folks across from us have 2 dogs apiece.  One batch has yellow labs, and if my dogs so much as put a nose outside the RV those dogs start carrying on like crazy, which of course my dogs respond to, and it's a mess.  And today's just the beginning of the holiday time.

The staff also told me this KOA's having its own fireworks show on Friday night.  I really like fireworks, always have, but this isn't like when we had a house with multiple hiding places for the dogs, and I feel like I should stay with them to reassure them, rather than going outside to see the show.  We'll see.  I'm far enough north that they probably won't start until way after my bedtime.  Rain's forecast for Friday night anyway.

A lot of campgrounds absolutely ban fireworks of any kind; I would get stuck with one that encourages them.  Poor dogs.  Fortunately the AC drowns out a lot of the noise, making it more muted which must surely be a help to them.