Thousand Trails St. Clair MI

On Sunday we left Bowling Green and drove about 130 miles north, through the center of Detroit, to Thousand Trails, St. Clair MI. The park was less than 1/2 full, and we found a nice site in the shade. Actually, it turns out we didn't need to be in the shade. It has been unseasonably cool up here. Daytime temps have rarely exceeded the upper 70s. In the evenings it is in the low 60s with a few 50s thrown in. Our TV reception here is poor. Actually the only stations we can get consistently are three Canadian stations broadcasting an analog signal. The Canadians are talking about their lost summer; it's August and time for the the temps to start dropping and it never really got hot here this summer. Hey, I'll take it. Cellular reception here also sucks. We are down the hill and typically get less than 1 bar on our phones and air card, even though we are less that 1/2 mile from the interstate, where reception is usually acceptable. However, with our new Wilson Electronics amplifier/repeater we are seeing full strength. That purchase seems to be paying off. The real test for the amp may be when we get to Fall Lake outside Ely MN.

On Tuesday we visited Port Huron. Port Huron is at the southern end of Lake Huron on the St. Clair River. Every freighter coming from the upper Great Lakes (Superior, Michigan and Huron) passes Port Huron. The Great Lakes Maritime Center is located on the St Clair and boatnerd.com tracks all the freighters in the area. You can view their location on a big-screen monitor, and they make an announcement over the PA when it passes, giving its name and vitals. This is a great place to just hang out and watch the world go by. Later we boarded the Blue Water Trolley for a 60 minute tour of Port Huron. The trolley was nearly empty, so the driver let Matilda ride. The trolley is a great bargain: 10 cents each for a one-hour tour. Matilda rode for free. Finally we did some shopping. We bought some groceries at Wal-Mart, some cabinet hardware at The Home Depot, more hardware at Harbor Freight tools and just did some window shopping at Gander Mountain.

We plan to stay at Thousand Trails St. Clair until Tuesday and then travel diagonally north and west across Michigan to the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore area.