Michigan - Days 5 & 6 - Montague

Muskegon KOA
Friday, 5 and Saturday, 6 July 2019

It worked out pretty well on the 4th to be out of the campground all day, even though we got really hot, and even though I find it irritating that I'm paying good money for a campsite I can't use as I choose.  What I'd really like to be doing is sitting in air conditioning most of the day, and taking the dogs out occasionally for exercise and bathroom breaks.  And that's what I can't do.

As an added irritant, I'm starting to see more ants in the cabin - more with each passing day.  I'm certain the power cord isn't touching the ground, and I don't see ants in the storage cubbyhole for the power cord like I did when I got infected the first time around.  But they're definitely still here, or here again, and I'm afraid I'll have to deal with them somehow.  But we'll spend both days finding somewhere else to light for the day.

On Friday I stopped first in the parking lot of Michigan's Adventure, billed as Michigan's largest amusement park.  Online it looked like there might be shade and some room to walk, and I thought we might be able to stay there a while before people started coming and we'd have to move to somewhere that wasn't open.  Turned out not like that at all.

For one thing, as soon as I turned in I saw signs saying there was a $15 parking fee - $25 for oversize vehicles, so I figured if I got challenged I'd just leave.  But then it also turned out there wasn't any shade, so I didn't want to stay anyway.  But the dogs needed walking so we went out for a bit and were nearly attacked by a Red-winged Blackbird who was clearly part of a nesting pair in the area.  For a few minutes he was hovering right over us and I got a little worried.  But I guess our route took us out of the danger zone, because he backed off and perched on a cattail and kept watching us until we got back in the RV.

Later I looked up that Michigan's Adventure thing and decided you'd have to have a lot of extra money for it to be worth the cost: $36 one day admission if you buy online.  But the parking lot is huge so I guess they pull folks in.

Michigan's Adventure

I spent all day in the parking lot of the Montague High School, having run into some maintenance guys as soon as we pulled in and gotten their permission to stay there.  In fact, they came back to where we were parked to tell me about an area with much better shade than where we were.  Nice guys.  They've got a big campus with a big parking area, so we had plenty of room to walk around.

On Saturday I was so fed up with the ant population that I actually patronized a Walmart, figuring they'd have the ant traps that seemed to work before (the local grocery store has only a fogging spray, which I can't use because we're all living in the RV).  The Walmart did have them, and after we parked for the day, I spent an hour or so figuring out where to put them that I hadn't before and doing a more thorough job of enclosing opened packages of food in the Hefty version of zip-lock bags (the kind with actual zippers).  So far I'd found ants only in the raisins, but I wanted those raisins and hated having to throw them out.  And I definitely didn't want to open up the pet food sometime and find it crawling with critters.  So now we're more ant-proofed and I hope to see a difference quickly.

Saturday I spent all day in the parking lot of White Lake Baptist Church.  See, I spent a fair amount of time online using Google aerial maps to try to find a semi-public parking area that looked like it had trees that might shade us, and this church was one of the possibles.  I'd already checked out several other spots this morning, but either a lot of people were parking there (I'd have thought a church parking lot would be empty on a Saturday, but 2 of them weren't) or there wasn't enough shade or there wasn't enough space for us to walk.  But I can tell you that the Lebanon Lutheran Church is having a Swedish Smorgasbord this Thursday, and a family law/criminal law firm in town - Shon Cook Law - has the nickname The Good Witch of the Law.

Fortunately, the Baptist parking lot worked pretty well.  There were 2 cars in the lot, so I decided to look for an unlocked door to ask permission, and the first one I tried was open, and there was a man doing something with computer graphics in the sanctuary, so I figured he was official enough, and he right away said sure, park anywhere no problem.

Nancy Fleming

When we were walking one time today, I noticed a sign that I guess marked the entrance to Montague, and it said they were the home of Nancy Fleming, Miss America 1961.  I was curious so I looked her up and sure enough, she was born and raised in Montague.

She was an unusual contestant in that her skill was sewing, and her pageant presentation was on dress design.  She remains the only Miss America whose talent was sewing.

She was only 18 and had just graduated from high school so was completely unprepared for what being Miss America involved - she was just looking for college scholarship money when she applied.  She said later that the good part of it all was that she learned not to let fear stop her from trying new things.  Good lesson to learn.

Both days were really hot, just like the 4th was, and we were all feeling the heat by around 1:00.  But I wanted to stay gone from the campground long enough to walk the dogs and have it be late enough for them (the dogs) not to insist on another walk until bedtime, so I turned on the generator to use the fan again.  On Saturday, I checked the weather online and saw it was up to 90° + humidity.  No wonder it feels hot.

Friday I spent the whole day trying to find other campgrounds to move to in the areas where I wanted to see things.  Much harder than I'd expected because they were mostly nearly full, and I didn't want a campsite buried in the middle of the campground.  And I didn't want a seriously Christian campground.  And one of them doesn't accept pets any more.  Like that.  But I've got reservations for Sunday and Monday at one place near Grand Rapids, and at another place for Tuesday in Zeeland.  And we'll go from there.

I stopped at Montague Foods again on the way back to buy more fresh fruit (they had super-sweet cantaloupe and watermelon before) and croissants (which were out of the oven today).  The parking lot was nearly full, so I guess the rest of the town likes that store as much as I do.

Both days I couldn't help but notice how high the level of White River is,  because the access road to a nearby park was seriously underwater, and a gazebo near the marina was several feet deep in water.  It couldn't have been that rain we had the other day because it just didn't include that much water.  Maybe a dam upriver was breached or something?

I passed a business self-explanatorily called Shampoochie.

I've been passing a fruit stand going to and from town, so this time I stopped and they had a lot of fresh-picked corn and pints of fresh strawberries and jars of pickled asparagus.  They usually have fresh asparagus too, but I guess they sold out.  It was a pay-on-the-honor-system, and I'll bet most people do.  I couldn't pass up the corn and strawberries.

When we passed Michigan's Adventure again, I saw the place was packed - clearly a very popular destination.

I leave tomorrow for the Grand Rapids area and hope I don't have to keep leaving campgrounds during the day just to be able to walk my dogs in peace.

This KOA has water slides I've never seen before.  They seem to be inflatable and, as you can see, can be configured to be higher or lower, depending on the age of the kids using them I guess.  I've noticed they're very popular with the kids.