Lower Peninsula Michigan: Saturday, June 18, 2022 | |
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Moving day. Today we move to our second Boondockers Welcome (BW) site, near Oscoda, Michigan, on Lake Huron, right where the AuSable River enters Lake Huron. Our first ever BW site with Dan of daDesign will be a tough act to follow. BW has a messaging section on their app that we only recently discovered, and it is quite handy. I sent the new host a heads-up that we will be arriving sometime around 2 pm. They asked if we needed electricity and/or water. Hmm, electricity and water? These new guys sound promising.
Before leaving Hartwick Pines State Park, we wanted to hike the 4-mile AuSable River Trail. After packing up, we drove to the trailhead. Expecting the trail to follow along the scenic AuSable, we were surprised when the trail only crossed a tiny side-fork of the river. I thought that was false advertising, but the trail, even lacking a bank-side view of the real AuSable, was charming.
Here is where I need to talk about the bugs. With rare exception, we haven’t had any. Here we were, on a four-mile hike, deep in a thick woods, in the heart of black fly season, and nothing. No mosquitos, no deer flies, no black flies, no honkin’ big horse flies, and barely any ticks. I saw two ticks on this trip and we have been in the woods a lot. We ran across one swarm of biting flies at a sand dune beach at Sleeping Bear Dunes and that’s it. I am not complaining. I am flabbergasted.
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We hiked the shorter Mertz Trail yesterday. This morning we will tackle the more ambitious AuSable River Trail. | |
I believe this is a Lady Slipper plant. | |
It turns out that this is the smaller East Branch of the AuSable River. | |
This 4-mile long AuSable Trail crosses the creek twice. These were the only two times that we saw the creek. | |
Hartwick Pines invented this interesting swamp walkway. they laid down parallel logs and filled the middle with a gravel, sand, and log mixture. It was almost like cement. | |
Another way to pave a path through a wetlands is called a corduroy road - logs laid down in such a manner. | |
Near the trailhead, a large log building was being refurbished. I am not sure what it will be used for, but it will be a grand building. | |
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I had expected the Traverse City area on the western, Lake Michigan side of the northern LP, to be touristy. It was, but in a pleasant nonchalant sort of way. It was a casual level of touristy, if there is such a thing. Well, there is. It can be found in a large swath of territory between Mackinaw City and Sleepy Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
What about the eastern, Lake Huron side? It was much less touristy. In fact, the entire coastline is kind of “regular” that just happens to be on one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world. How can you not like that?
We checked in at our new BW host site around 2 pm. Becky met us and showed us where to set up off to the side in their driveway. Our rig fit perfectly in the space available. We hooked up the provided electrical cord. We didn’t need water. We had plenty in our onboard tank. All-in-all, it was terrific. Becky blew us away with her story of living on a sailboat for 5 years, mostly in the Caribbean. Just when we get a bit smug about our travels, you meet someone that has had even cooler adventures. She even had a blog to back her up.
This was only our second BW host, and she also had an incredibly interesting story. Jeez, I love this world. There are so many fascinating people out there.
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We had access to this private beach as a guest of our BW host. | |
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We loved the whitefish sausage that we sampled from Leland’s Fishermans District. Wellman’s, of Oscoda, is locally known for their whitefish handcrafted artisan brats. They were out of the brats when we showed up. They did have a bunch of their cheese and jalapeño sausages, which looked a lot like brats. We bought a couple and drove off to Footesite Park to picnic on our purchase.
On its way to Lake Huron, the AuSable River flows through the Huron National Forest. There are five dams along the way that produce five exquisite reservoirs. Normally, I am not a big fan of dams on rivers. Often dams only spawn ugly weed-choked mud holes. Fortunately, these lakes are clear-water beauties. The combination of the AuSable River Reservoirs flowing through the Huron National Forest forms the spectacular Nation Recreational Area that features hiking, canoeing, boating, fishing, camping, OHV trail riding, and scenic drives.
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Footesite Park was on the shore of Foote Dam Pond. Don't let the word "pond" fool you. It is a first-class reservoir lake. | |
Check out the all the cheese and bits of jalapeño in the sausage. | |
The "pond" even had its own River Queen paddle-wheel boat. | |
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After eating our delicious Wellman’s whitefish sausage, we checked out boat landings and hiking trails along the river. In between the reservoirs, the river runs fast, deep, and wide. It has grown a lot since passing through Grayling.
Near Grayling, the river was too shallow for our motors. We would have just paddled downriver, requiring a shuttle. Here, the river is plenty deep for the motors. Theoretically, all we have to do is motor up the river and drift back.
Tomorrow, we hope to see if our little ekayaks can handle the AuSable's stiff current. We pushed the limit of the little electric motors on the Colorado River last year. It took an hour to get a couple miles up the Colorado and only minutes to zoom back. I think the same would apply here on the AuSable.
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We scouted several put-in landings and settled on the Whirlpool Landing for tomorrow. Then we drove off to Tawas Point State Park occupying a comma-shaped peninsula jutting out into Lake Huron. There is a lighthouse and hiking trail at the park that was calling out to us.
The towns of Oscoda and Tawas City were nice little lake towns. Again, they didn’t have that tourist vibe, which was much in their favor. Still, like the Traverse City area, there are many large inland lakes next to Lake Huron providing incredible boating opportunities. If you didn’t own a boat in this area you were deprived.
The sandy shoreline of Tawas Point begged to be strolled on. The day was waning, the breeze was a perfect temperature, and the lighting was warm and yellow. It was a wonderful evening walk to end the day on. The western Lake Huron side of Michigan is lookin’ pretty good.
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Yikes, is that lighthouse leaning that badly? No, it's just that camera lens parallax thing. | |
Wanda spotted these interesting striations in the side of a sand bank. Let's see - in the year 1258 BC a volcano left a layer of ash around the world. There was a drought in the year 622. And............ | |
Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum. | | | | |
