Michigan - Day 8 - Wyoming

Woodchip Campground
Monday, 8 July 2019

Though I'd tried hard to figure out what the campground would look like from online aerial views and campground photos, the reality didn't pan out as I'd hoped.

Many of the campsites, including mine, are close together and, once again, there are many dogs here.  I'm in a situation where I can walk the dogs before bed fairly easily, and of course I can walk them at 4:00 and 5:30, before everyone wakes up and starts walking their dogs.  But I could see there was no chance of being able to walk them during the day.

I came up with a list of several places in Wyoming, a few miles nearer Grand Rapids, where I might be able to spend the day, though there seemed very few churches and schools and hospitals that had any shade in their parking lots.

When I first saw the Baptist church I was looking for today, I passed it by because it wasn't labeled Oriole Baptist Church, as it was shown online.  Instead, it said Iglesia Bautista, and I wasn't expecting a Spanish-speaking Baptist church.  But it was in the right place, and it had some shade in its lot, and there seemed to be nobody around and it was in a residential neighborhood with sidewalks, so we perched there.  Turned out fine.

A few people did come during the day.  Two pickups went to the lower level parking lot, and I learned later they were gaining access to the lower level of the back yard next door to do landscaping work.  The mailman made a delivery.  And about 2:00, a man came who didn't seem to be Hispanic at all, but instead seemed more Asian.  But he was very friendly, very welcoming, told me to come back every day, and gave me a large print edition of "Call to Glory," a devotional guide.  He urged me to call if I had any questions at all.  Very nice.

I spent the day, in between dog walks, updating the blog and trying to figure out where I can go next.  Private campgrounds in Michigan are mostly spendy - $40+.  And the public campgrounds are in the $30 range, so not much better.  Many of the public campgrounds are very small, and I figure there's no point in even bothering to call - as full as most of them seem to be, these less expensive ones are bound to be continually packed.

I'm trying to find at least one moderately affordable campground I can use near Lansing, one in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek area, and one near Detroit.  They're there, but not as many as I'd have hoped.  I've got a reservation in Zeeland tomorrow, and I'm hoping it'll be a place I can spend a day in without dog problems.  I need some rest, and it seems like I'm always driving somewhere.  Hope on, hope ever.

This campground has the most bizarre shower set-up I've seen so far.  First off, the women's shower room isn't a room, it's a hallway between the toilet area and the campground swimming pool.  Second, there are only three shower stalls for all the campground's women.  Third, each shower area is just a stall; no dressing area.  The only place to hang your clothes and towels to keep them dry is outside the stall in the hallway.  Fourth, there are only 2 clothes hooks for the 3 showers.  Fifth, there's no door for the shower stall, just a curtain.  I spent the whole time patting myself on the back for my habit of taking showers in the middle of the afternoon, because this way I could use the center shower stall and the clothes hooks on either side without bothering anybody else.  But I had to undress behind the curtain, open it enough to hang up my clothes, take a shower while hearing people walk by all the time, reach out again to get towels to dry myself off, and reach out again for my clothes.  When I was packing my stuff back up, I had to keep moving out of the hall and back into the shower stall to let people go by because the hallway is a narrow one.  And oh yeah, the hot water is on the cold side and the cold water is on the hot side.  I stood there for several minutes waiting for the water to get warm before I decided to turn the knob the wrong way and, sure enough, there was the hot water.  Too weird.