First I just have to say a HUGE THANK YOU to Lori & Cliff for such an awesome trip! This was my very first visit (that I can remember) to the West side of Michigan.
FRIDAY
We were to leave Fenton at 11am on Friday the 3rd. By the time we got all our stuff ready and got on the road it was 4pm. We stopped just down the road to grab a quick bite to eat and hit the freeway for Ludington at 4:30pm. We luckily missed 98% of all “holiday” traffic by doing this.
We stopped once for gas where Lori’s nephew Mark (who is 10) had the pleasure of discovering $0.75 condoms in the restroom. This traumatized him pretty good, he talked about it the rest of the day thinking it was the grossest thing in the world…it gave us tons of laughs and jokes.
We arrived in Ludington around 8:30, as we passed through town I made a silly comment as went by the hospital along the lines of “at least we know where thats at” (this is important to remember for later in the story). We got to the campground which was slightly more “rustic” then it appeared online and proceeded to get settled into the site that would be our home for the next few days.
Cliff got a great fire going and we roasted hot dogs for dinner that night & Cliff made popcorn over the campfire for us.
SATURDAY
We got up on Saturday got ready and decided to bike into downtown Ludington to watch the 4th of July parade. The ride was just about 1.5 miles. It was a great ride, this was the first time I’ve been on a bike in 2 years!
After the parade we played a round of putt-putt golf which is basically right on the beach. We biked back to camp and had a late lunch. Cliff and Mark layed down for a little bit while Lori & I headed back into town to Wal-Mart for some forgotten supplies & to get my fishing license.
We got back to camp and started prepping dinner. Grilled some awesome turkey burgers and got ready to go back into downtown Ludington to Stearns Park to sit on the beach of Lake Michigan and watch the fireworks.
The fireworks were great, just being able to sit on the beach with your feet in the sand and watch them over the water and beach was great. I got some awesome sunset pictures! It was kind of late when we got back so we relaxed a little and headed to bed.
SUNDAY
Sunday morning after a great breakfast (Lori can do amazing things in the camper kitchen), Cliff & Mark headed down to the dock to fish in Lincoln Lake. Lori & I stayed behind to get ready to head into town for the Art & Craft Show. The guys called and said they got some good fish so Lori & I decided to bike down to the dock and check out their catch. Cliff had caught a pike and Mark caught 5 Perch. We took some pictures and headed back to the camper to drop off the bikes and head to the craft show.
I had a slight mishap on the way back…I stopped to pick up a little plastic box that someone had left on their campsite when they checked out and shortly after getting back on my bike and taking off the bike slipped in the dirt and it flew out from underneath me. I fell to the ground, my body went one direction and my left leg pretty much stayed exactly where it was. As I landed on the ground the handle bars slid across my left knee and I heard my hip pop, felt a large pop in my knee followed by lots of burning. Lori had been ahead of me on her bike and stopped to come running back to my rescue. In true Fearlessgal fashion I insisted on standing up myself and pushing my bike back to the camper, all the while insisting that i just needed some ice and to “rub some dirt on it” and we’d be on our way to the craft show. After the knee gave out on me about a million times between the spot of the accident and my car Lori convinced me to at least go to Rite-Aid and buy a knee brace. Well when I got out of the car at Rite-Aid my knee gave out and twisted really bad, this nearly took me to the ground. I looked at Lori and I think she knew I was in some serious pain…luckily the Memorial Medical Center Hospital was right across the street and ‘we knew where it was’. Off the the ER we went. Lori got me a wheel chair and shuffled me inside, this is after we remembered to grab the camera to document all my “fun”. I got signed in, and sent off to “Triage” for them to make my bracelet (free souvenir, lol) and shuffled off to the “Fast Track” section of the ER. I was then shuffled of to xray. Let me just say this was the best looking staff I’d ever seen in a hospital. They came back a short time later and said nothing was broken and that it was most likely a severe sprain they put me in a knee immobilizer gave me some crutches and sent me on my way, and said to follow up next week with my doctor if I’m still having problems…all said and done we were in and out in about an hour. BEST service and most friendly hospital staff EVER!
All the while I kept saying I wasn’t going to let this injury sideline or interrupt my fun. And I didn’t. We did miss the craft show, it was closing right as we were getting there. So Lori & I headed back to camp to meet up with the boys and headed down to the docks to do some fishing, knee immobilizer and the crutches didn’t hold me back. We fished for awhile, got more great sunset pictures and headed back to camp, roasted some more hot dogs on the fire and just hung out and relaxed.
MONDAY
This is the day we were supposed to be packing up and heading home but happily Lori & I were able to get another day off work and Mark wanted to stay too.
We got going early afternoon and drove down to Silver Lake. We checked out a couple Jeep rental places, but decided to go on the MAC WOODS Dune Rides instead. This was totally awesome! They lease a part of the Silver Lake Sand Dunes from the State of Michigan and access is restricted to their tours. I have NEVER seen anything like this in my life! The dunes were just phenomenal!
After the dune ride we drove down to Little Sable Point Lighthouse. I in “nothing is going to stop my fun” fashion, strapped on my knee brace (I have to take it off while driving) and hiked up the sand dune to the beach area. I did stop about half way between the parking lot and the beach to rest, but then continued on once Cliff & Mark decided to go swimming. I took the brace off and got in Lake Michigan a little. When we went to leave Cliff had two options for heading back to the car…1 being the longer route with the smaller dune or 2 being the shorter route with the bigger/steeper dune…I chose the shorter route. A little more then half way up I was struggling and had to take off the brace to be able to make it the rest of the way. But I did make it.
On our way back to Ludington we decided to stop at House of Flavors for ice cream (they make their own there). Well once there we chose to go ahead and eat dinner as it was getting late and we wanted to still make it up to Ludington State Park for a bit that night.
We got to Ludington State Park about 20 minutes before it closed and walked around Hamlin Lake and the river. We quickly decided that we had to go back there on Tuesday before we left to do some fishing and walking around.
We went back to camp, Cliff made another great fire, we made S’mores and Cliff roasted popcorn on the fire again. It was a great last night.
TUESDAY
Tuesday morning we started to pack up camp. Checkout was supposed to be 11am…well I think it was around 12:30/1pm when we finally pulled out of there. We went and got gas and headed up to Ludington State Park for the afternoon.
We had intended on leaving for home around 4:00, well like all our “times” we didn’t make that one either. We were having such a wonderful time fishing and just enjoying the beauty of the park it made it so hard to pack up and leave…but finally we did…at 6:30 that night!
We stopped in Grand Ledge on our way back home to get gas and grab a quick bite to eat. We finally made it back to Lori & Cliff’s around 10:30 that night. I tried to help as best I could to unload some stuff from the camper as Cliff got my bike out of his truck and into my car. I finally got on the road to my house around 11:30 that night and got home at 12:30am!
All in all it was a fantastic trip (even the part of hurting myself wasn’t so bad, it could have been so much worse). I definitely want to go back to Ludington as soon as possible, I think its going to be my new vacation spot. The beauty of the area just can’t be beat in my book.
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