We arrived at Sleepy Hollow State Park in Laingsburg on May 31, 2012.  We had reserved a campsite for our stay, but when we tried to back the trailer into it we discovered that was not going to happen!  When we selected the site we thought it was good that there were no other campsites directly across the road, and we would enough room to maneuver the trailer.  Unfortunately the trees and brush came right up to the road and we just couldn’t make the turns to back the trailer into the site.  We abandoned our attempt and drove back to the camp office. The Ranger gave us a list of sites that were available, and we walked through the campground to pick one we could back in to.  The new site was perfect and we had no problems.  We plan to return to Sleepy Hollow when we come back to this part of Michigan again, so on the day before we left, we took a walk through the campground marking a map with sites that would be good for a rig our size.

The campsites at Sleepy Hollow are really nice in that there are plenty of trees and brush between most of the sites.  This gives you a lot of privacy, but still an opportunity to interact with other campers.

Our primary reason for staying in the Lansing, MI area was for appointments with our doctors and dentists, as well as visiting with family and friends.  We were able to spend time with our son, David, who still works and lives in Lansing, and have friends out to the trailer.

We invited Bob’s Uncle Norm and Aunt Joyce and Bob’s sister, Susan, and her husband, Gerry, for lunch.  Norm and Joyce knew we living in the trailer, but hadn’t had the chance to see it yet.  It was interesting to hear Susan and Gerry describe their recent trip to Europe, but fascinating to hear Uncle Norm talk about growing up with Bob’s father and their brother, Jack.  Of course after everyone had left, Bob said, “We never took a single picture!”

We thought we would spend a lot of time relaxing, but it was a rather busy couple of weeks.  All in all it was a great visit.  We took care of a lot of stuff, enjoyed seeing old friends, and had beautiful weather.

Next stop is Lake City to spend some time with our friends, Stan and Betsy.

When we started our new lifestyle as fulltime RVers, our first stop was the home of our friends, Stan & Betsy, in Lake City.  It’s probably appropriate that our next stop after a year on the road was Stan & Betsy’s place.  We arrived in Lake City on June 15th and were able to park our trailer next to Stan’s workshop.  He is so accommodating that he had installed an RV outlet on his 30 amp circuit for us to plug into.

Betsy invited our friends Roger and Darcy to join all of us on Saturday and we had a great time eating, spending time at the lake and just chatting with each other.  By the end of the day we had solved all of the world’s problems – if only everyone recognized our brilliance!

On Sunday, Bob took Stan’s nephew, BJ, out kayaking. Stan, Bob, and BJ went to a local trail for a trail run while Pat and Betsy relaxed by the lake.

We were on our own after the weekend and we spend a lot of time just relaxing.  We would exercise in the morning, and take it easy for the rest of the day.  Bob had been looking for a place that could make a sign in the shape of the State of Michigan with our names on it for the trailer. We took a drive over to Houghton Lake to see if there were any shops in that area that did this kind of work.  We didn’t have any luck there, but we had left our information at a shop in Lake City and the owner contacted us the next day and told us he could make our sign.  We picked it up on Thursday morning and it was just what we were looking for!  We hope that this will help us meet other RVers from Michigan in our travels.

On our last day we decided to drive to Traverse City.  We started the day by visiting wineries on the Mission Peninsula and spend the rest of the day shopping in downtown Traverse City.  The most unique stop was an insurance company.  Hagerty Insurance insures collector cars and classic boats.  Their office has a showroom with some of the cars on display and they support an antique car rally every year.

Friday, June 22nd, we were on our way to Canadian Lakes to visit Bob’s sister.

We stayed at the School Section Lake Veterans’ Park, one the Mecosta County parks.  This was a very nice campground with a pleasant beach.  Susan and Gerry and their daughter Kristin joined us for lunch on Saturday.  Later in the week the four of us drove us to Ludington where we wandered around the town and visited the graveyards where Bob’s ancestors are buried.  Bob’s Uncle Norm has been the historian in the family and has performed some obvious work to replace or preserve the old headstones.  Seeing the actual headstones and reviewing the genealogy made the history more personal.

Later in the week we went to Mt. Pleasant to visit the campus of Central Michigan University, do some shopping and run errands.  The city has certainly grown since we graduated from there in the early-70’s.

Wednesday we drove to the cottage on Rifle Lake to spend the Fourth of July with Pat’s family.