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I call this I Dream of Jeanieing the tent out.
One thing to note if you are going to go camping in Michigan is that hosts in the state camp grounds do not sell firewood. According to the camp host at Vanetten Lake, they are not allowed to sell firewood, which seemed strange even to her, but she said that you could buy firewood "Anywhere. Anywhere along the road will have it. Any store. The party store has it.”
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Can you see the mitten? Michiganders describe where
they live buy pointing to the corresponding map
location on their hand. Can you find the Mackinac Bridge
on your hand? |
The party store is where you buy lotto tickets, soda, hostess donettes, adult beverages, and sometimes firewood. In California we call this a liquor store. If you want invitations and streamers you need to find a party paper place, and if you want a piñata, you still need to find a carniceria, just like anywhere else in America.
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| Technically this is a market. |
The truth is that you don’t even need to go to the party store in order to buy firewood for your campsite because people sell firewood from their driveways.
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| You'll find a coffee can nailed to a post with a slit cut out of the plastic lid. Pay here. |
As you can see, I paid $7 for an eighth of a cord of solid oak, which is an incredible bargain by anyone's standards, so the firewood issue may not be the most difficult aspect of camping in Michigan.
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| Dan thinks that this is 1/12 of a cord of wood. I think it's 1/8. You can vote to the right. |
Bug spray, however, is a serious item. Biting insects abound. The State of Michigan website says that you are never more than six miles from a lake or stream. The mosquito netting that you will see in neighboring campsites will make sense, but you may find yourself baffled by the proliferation of sun shades.
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| Change your latitude, eh. |
The sun is actually kind of pleasant here, and should you wish to avoid it, there are a variety of trees nearby. I am not even that worried about sunscreen, but you really want to hit all exposed parts of your epidermis with bug spray. If you don’t want to spray your face, which you are not supposed to do, I recommend closing your eyes and spraying the rest of your head down like you would with a 1987 can of Aqua Net. I also recommend getting it on your fingers and dabbing a dose behind your ears for that extra repulsion (like you may have done with a bottle of Drakkar Noir circa the same period), and should any amorous activities ensue between you and your traveling companion later, keep ear nibbling to a minimum.
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| Wagner Lake. |
For now, take advantage of the late afternoon light. The temperature tends to peak here around 4:00 PM. We found a gem of a lake in the Huron National Forest that is too small for power boats but big enough to fish. It is quiet. The water is crystal clear, and the sand hardly makes a cloud when you scamper through it. Monarch butterflies float, frogs leap. We walked through a field of quasi-dried marsh where the ground kind of gave way under the crust like a giant toasted marshmallow. After nightfall, while we were grilling burgers over the oak fire, the rain came. That's when it occurred to me that those weren't sun shades.
