The U.P. continued

This morning we left the campground at Brevoort Lake. We'll come back there again on the next trip. Four young women, their four children, all under two, and a dog, pulled in yesterday at the site next to us. They're having a family reunion. The "girls" are the advance party charged with getting three good campsites. We told them we would be leaving in the morning and save them our site.
The only plan for the day was to pick up the mail at Manistique. We came across a really nice grocery store, Jack's Fresh Market; lots of really nice salads. Right across the street from Jack's is a city park right on the lake and a paved trail. That's where we're staying tonight. After we picked up the mail, we did laundry. The mail was amazing. After almost three months of accumulation, there wasn't even one thing that required action.
There is a free flowing well in the park where we are camping. I filled up all our water bottles. Good tasting water. We took a nice walk on the trail down to the marina and the Manistique Lighthouse.
Headed on about 9:30. No special destination in mind. Instead of taking US 2 as planned, we took M35 instead. It will take us in Wisconsin via a WI Visitor Center. Stocked up at Wal-Mart in Escanaba then continued west. We came across a nice county campground just off M35; Fox Park, Cedarville Township, Cedar River,MI. Our luck is amazing at times. We got a prime lakefront site. Only $10/night. With this being the 4th of July weekend, we were guessing places would be full, or at best, we would get a site no one else wanted.
Gopher & I took lots of walks along the lake. In the early morning, we had the place to ourself. Carol & I enjoyed watching the sparrows around our site. The mother sparrow was gathering seeds and feeding them to the baby. The young bird was about 2/3 the size of the mother. Sometimes, when the baby approached to beg for food, the mother either flew away or chased the baby away. We're guessing, she's teaching the young bird to fend for itself. Very interesting.
A lot of the campers here are from Wisconsin. I suppose Lake Michigan, and the UP, is as interesting to them as it is to us.
Stopped at a state park to dump our tanks and fill up with water, then continued to Wisconsin. With the time change to Central Time, our internal clocks are off. I was up this morning at either 5:30 or 6:30.

Continuing north

Raining this morning. We left the campground about 9:30. The general plan was to spend the night of the P.H. Hoeft SP, north of Rogers City. Drove through Alpena & Rogers City. The coastal towns in MI remind us of Maine. Pretty communities with nice waterfront parks, marinas, shops, etc. Come winter, I suspect the towns mostly shut down. Rogers City has an extensive system of paved walkways. Worth a stop next time we're up here. Rogers City also has the worlds biggest limestone quarry. We saw some of it from the road; it's absolutely immense. Freighters pull up to the dock to take on loads of limestone.
Drove by the Presque Isle Lighthouse. Still raining so we just looked from the outside.
We went to the Hoeft SP campground but were not at all impressed. On the way to the campground, we passed a nice looking roadside park, so we went there to decide what to do next. The park was so nice, right on Lake Huron. There were no signs prohibiting overnight stops, so we decided to stay the night. What a great choice. About 7:30 another motorhome pulled into the park just to take a look. I started talking to the couple and they decided to stay the night as well.
On Monday, we drove to Cheboygan specifically to go to a used book store we found about in an advertisement. Carol got nine new,used books for $32. Went grocery shopping then crossed the Mackinac Bridge to St. Ignace; the first community on the Upper Peninsula. Drove around St. Ignace then went to the Straits State Park for the night. We have a site with a nice view of the straits. Cool, cloudy with a misty rain.
On Tuesday we continued west on Highway 2. A nice sunny, day. Saw lots of places advertising pasties. Going to pick some up one day. We stopped at the Hiawatha National Forest Service campground at Brevoort Lake. Got a great site right on the lake. We even have our own little private beach!!.