No Room at the Inn (continued)... The Resort From Hell

When last we saw our intrepid adventurers, Myron and Dorcas, they were being evicted from their happy home. It was Friday morning, the beginning of the weekend, at one of the most popular summer vacation areas in Michigan. They were shut out of their next intended destination, Platte River Campground, in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Where would they go? What would they do? Would they perish in Michigan's upper lower peninsula and never be seen again?

The ranger at Sleeping Bear Dunes gave all the losers a sheet listing other campgrounds in the area. I guess it was like a consolation prize. We were familiar with several campgrounds on the list. One was the place we were having to leave. Another was D.H. Day CG, the other federal CG in the park, which we knew filled up even before Platte River. Several were state forest campgrounds, but they were primitive and few had sites that would fit our rig. Also, they had no phone and we couldn't call them to check availability. I didn't feel like going on a wild goose chase. We recognized one campground that was pretty close to Platte River because we had seen it on our list of campgrounds that honored Passport America, a discount camping club we belong to. Passport America card holders pay half the normal rate at participating campgrounds. It looked like a good choice given our limited options, so we called Sunny Woods Resort. The lady said she had one site left, and she would save it for us if we got there quickly. She said the site did not have a sewer connection because another camper had run over it, and her husband had buried the connection instead of repairing it. I guess that should have tipped us off to something, but we really weren't watching for the signs. We were just grateful we had a place to go, and it was very close to where we wanted to be.

There were more ominous signs during check-in. The lady was having a hard time entering our registration data. It turns out the space bar on her keyboard didn't work. She tried pounding on it repeatedly and apparently that eventually worked. I told her keyboards were cheap, and she should get a new one. She said she couldn't replace the keyboard without replacing the PC and printer. That didn't make sense to me, but I didn't argue. Then she couldn't find the reservation she had just made for us while on the phone, so she made a new one. Next she couldn't get the system to accept a motor home over 25'. Finally she registered us as a motor home less than 25' and gave us that rate. I should have run away screaming, but I was morbidly fascinated. The nominal rate for our site was $48/night, but after the Passport America discount and the idiot discount, we paid $19/night (including taxes) for 4 nights. I asked if we could get additional credit for having no working sewer, but she didn't appreciate my humor. Then she began to tell me her troubles: each month she doesn't know if she can make the payments on the property; she no longer advertises her park since the motorcycle gang camping here beat her up; she screens dogs camping in the park since she was attacked by a camper's dog; Good Sam Club won't return her calls about joining their program (go figure). At that point I began backing up towards the door, trying to make a clean escape.

Her directions to the campground had us going down the road behind the store and turning left at the bath house. We couldn't find the bath house, only a run down shanty; oh wait, that's it! We were assigned site #8. We found sites #7 and #9. It was clear where they were. #8 should be between #7 and #9. There was an "8" on the back of the power pedestal for #9, but no obvious site #8. There was no sewer fixture (oh, wait, it was buried), but there was no power pedestal either. About that time a park employee came by, but she could not tell us where #8 was. Finally we decided to just pull into the grassy space between #7 and #9. Before pulling in we had to clear some overhead limbs, including a large dead hanging widow maker. We plugged into the power pedestal for #9. The folks on #9 were tenting and using the 20A receptacle, so we used the 30A receptacle. I won't go on except to say that by Monday night they had not picked up the trash from the weekend and the flies were getting pretty bad. Also, the toilet paper in the the men's "shanty" was out for two days, even after we 1) called the office and 2) mentioned it to an employee cleaning the "shanty". We probably should have left. Our standards are not terribly high, but this was a new low for us. Thankfully we had some activities planned and would not be spending much time at Sunny Woods Resort.

Over the next few days we continued to explore the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. We paddled on the lower Platte River. The Platte is a very busy river, perhaps as busy as the Crystal River was, where we paddled a few days earlier. Even though we put on late in the afternoon, there were still a large number of tubers on the river. The lower Platte flows from M-22 about 4.5 miles and empties into Lake Michigan. We paddled out into the big pond for a little ways before turning back to the landing. That evening we attended a ranger program on area ship wrecks. Taking the Manitou Straits shaves 15 miles off the trip from Chicago to the lower great lakes, so many pilots take this trecherous short cut. After the program Matilda met Mitze a red merle Australian shepherd. The next day we climbed Sleeping Bear Dune, hiked to Pyramid Point and watched the sunset from Empire Bluff. On Saturday night we went to Cherry Bowl Drive-in Theatre, which is the only drive-in in northern Michigan and only about three miles from our camp. We saw a double feature and enjoyed 50's music and memorabilia. The on-screen snack bar commercials were campy and great. At the Cherry Bowl diner they were giving away samples of cherry pizza; different, but not bad! We had the boat on the car, so we had to park on the back row. We carried our recliners down to the front and watched the movie from there. The next day at the Empire town beach a group of horse riders arrived and rode their horses into Lake Michigan. They had just completed an annual shore-to-shore ride and had left Lake Huron 5 days ago. And to think that dogs are not allowed on the beach. Tonight we had a craving for pizza. The first two pizza joints we tried were closed so we went to the Lumberjack Bar and Grill in Honor. I am normally leary of bar room food, but we took a gamble on a 16" Lumberjack Special and a pitcher of Molson's. The pizza was excellent and the beer, as always, was good. On the big screen TV we watched the Boston Red Sox whip the Tigers, after which most of the patrons in the bar, including us, left. They roll up the sidewalks pretty early on a Monday night in Honor, MI.

By the way, Dorcas' ankle continues to improve. I don't think I'll have to shoot her. On Tuesday we will move about 85 miles north and east up Lake Michigan to a real RV resort near Petoskey.