Upper Peninsula: Ontonagon Township Campground

 August 2021

I had eyes on this specific campground when UP trip was planned.  As previous posts have mentioned, it is extremely difficult to find campsites on the the Great Lakes on weekends without reservations made far in advance.

Ontonagon Township is a weird exception.  There is a method available here to score a prime site on the lake, but it requires some luck and planning.  Technically, the campground is first come, first serve.  The web site suggests calling ahead and getting on the list for that day's openings. 

I guessed that on Monday, August 23rd, some of the weekenders would be leaving.  I tried calling, but the phone kept going to the answering machine.  So I took a chance, hitched up the Scamp and threw myself at the mercy of the staff, more or less.

The guy in charge asked if I was on the phone list, and I replied that I wasn't able to get through.  He noticed that I was wearing a Packers t-shirt, and he was a fan.  He told me that the switchover would be happening later that morning, and he was pretty sure that a site would be available for me if I stuck around.

Switchover happens at 11 a.m. The campground is typically full every night, but if anyone leaves, those sites are available as an upgrade to anyone with a current site looking for improvement.  People on the waiting list can then get into the less desirable campsites that were now open from people upgrading.  The key is getting into any site.  Once you are "in there", you can stay for at least 9 days. 

The prize here is a campsite directly on Lake Superior.  There are new premium 50 amp sites which are huge, modern concrete slabs that have 16 day limits.  There are smaller, more rustic, 30 amp sites on dirt/sand that have 9 day limits and cheaper rates.

At 11 a.m., about a half dozen people on the upgrade list gathered around to scoop up any newly open lakefront sites.  Four sites became available, and those campers scurried back to begin changing sites.  

Even though I wasn't on the phone list, I was physically there, so the guy in charge let me have my choice of the four sites.  It was nothing special.  I was on the other side of the road from the lake in a long narrow site with 30 amp electric.  But I was in the campground, could stay for the next 9 days and was on the upgrade list.

On the next morning, it was overcast and drizzling. Only a few of us were present wanting to upgrade, and four sites on the lake opened up.  I had a choice of a premium site or a rustic site.  From my perspective, there was only one choice.

Best campsite of the trip

Upper Peninsula: L'Anse

 From August 2021

I was at the L'Anse Township Park because it was the only place that I could get a last minute reservations for the weekend of August 20th.  I found many uncrowded places to hang out during the day in the L'Anse area.  

 

Blueberries were in season.  These were picked from a lady's backyard that morning and sold from her driveway.  The maple syrup had the finest provenance.

 

My campsite was not one of those uncrowded spaces.

 

I had a better plan for the next week at a campground that probably has the strangest system for securing a campsite that I've ever encountered.  In my case, it worked out rather well and was the highlight of this trip. Sometimes, good things do come to those who wait.

 

Upper Peninsula: Perkins Park to L'anse Park

 From August 2021

Before leaving Perkins Park, I checked my Google Maps multiple times to try to figure out the best way to get to my next destination:  L'anse, Michigan.

I couldn't figure out why Google Maps wanted me to go back east to Marquette to pick up Hwy 41 and make a big 93 mile circle to get to L'Anse.  As the crow flies, L'Anse was only 50 miles away from Perkins campground.  Sometimes, my laptop gives me more route options, so I checked there.  Sure enough, I found a direct route that was only 49.8 miles away.  And it would save 24 minutes of time.  Hmm, I can deal with lower speed limits and winding roads, right?  

The first 45 minutes went pretty well:  paved roads and then hard packed gravel through dense forest.  The gravel roads went up and down some steep hills.  Around the Eagle Mine, I lost my last bar of cell reception, and the road started getting worse: a mix of sand and gravel.  A few miles more, and I hit deep sand.  Optimistically thinking that the deep sand was temporary and that the road was still flat, I continued on until I was blocked by a big hill.

There was no place to turn around, and the sandy road was quite narrow.  I felt like if I could make it another three miles, the road would get better.  However, even with four wheel drive, I didn't feel good about towing the Scamp up the big hill in deep sand.  I backed up about a mile to where the sandy road flattened enough to attempt a turn around.  As backing goes, it wasn't very pretty and took a long time. 

Forest crowded the truck on both sides of the road, but the terrain was flat, and there was a small grassy fringe off one side of the sandy road.  I backed the Scamp off the road until I ran out of grassy fringe, and then started about a 100 point turnaround. I had the Scamp backed into the trees, and the truck scraping through branches on the other side of the road.  The good thing, I guess, is that there was no traffic on this road to obstruct.  I hadn't seen another vehicle since the pavement ended.  

Eventually, I was back on the road to Perkins campground again.  The shortcut was supposed to be 80 minutes to L'Anse.  The aborted shortcut and return to Perkins and route to L'Anse via Marquette took about 3 1/2 hours.  I was very relieved to pull into my slot. 

Just below my campsite marked the spot of an American Fur Company trading post in 1837.

Upper Peninsula: Perkins Park

I'm back at home, and the cabinet project is finished.  It all looks very nice, but I thought the old cabinets looked nice too.  We don't have any big trips planned until Peru in the late fall. My plan is to continue with the trips that I haven't blogged about and fill in as we take mini-trips in Wisconsin this spring/summer/fall.

From August 2021:

From Little Bay du Noc campground on Lake Michigan, I drove north on Hwy 41 until I reached Perkins Park on Lake Superior.  Because the Scamp can fit into the smallest spots, I was able to reserve an electric site on the weekend that no one else could fit into.

The campground got very busy with families and a packed campground.  Callie and I found some remote beaches to walk on Big Bay, but I spent most of the weekend reading.

Walking along the Great River Trail

 The Great River Bike Trail is a 62 mile paved trail from the Quad Cities to Savanna, Illinois.   I walked the portion from the Thomson Causeway campground to Mickelson's Landing and back.

During my stay at the campground, I did a lot of campground loop walking.  This is a good place for that because there are four separate loops, and one of the loops is over a mile from the other three loops.   But even though these walks took me through some beautiful river and backwater scenery, I wanted to stretch my legs when the weather turned nice.  The Great River Bike Trail, which runs right through the campground, provided that opportunity.

From the Potters North loop, I walked across the causeway and up the road towards River Birch loop.  Just past the campground check-in station, the bike path is accessed across the road.   The paved path crosses large stretches of dry prairie.  

 

How dry you ask?  Well, there's lots of cactus.  Yes, in Illinois.

Callie was not amused

We had  interesting company during the walk.  As the trail curved to run along the railroad tracks, we were joined by a long Burlington Northern & Santa Fe train.  At first, the train was moving just a little faster than we were.  We watched the entire 100+ car train roll past us.  Then it started to slow down, and eventually stopped.  So Callie and I were able to walk past the entire train again.  Apparently, they were stopped for a crew changeover.  A railroad-owned minivan was stopped along the access road to swap employees.

 

The other side of the trail (where the cactus were) was designated wildlife refuge and Illinois DNR land.  There was one piece of private property with "no trespassing"  and "under video surveillance" signs posted all along the property line.  But that wasn't the sign that caught my eye.

The sign on the far right below nailed to the pine tree says, "Rough Road Ahead.  Remove Dentures and Tighten Bra Straps."  

 

We continued on to Mickelson's Landing, which is another nice place to watch the migratory birds.  

 

Turning around, we retraced our steps and then headed out another mile or so past the campground, where I saw a large solar array that turned out to be the front yard of a maximum security federal prison at Thomson, Illinois.

I've been in a few prisons when I was a lawyer taking depositions.  No need to get any closer.  That concluded our 10 mile walk.  It was time to head back to the campsite for a relaxing beer.
 

 

 

 

Thomson Causeway

 

Just about every place has its pros and cons.  Staying at the Thomson Causeway campground on opening day means that the weather can be unpredictable.

 

It also means that not all of the kinks have been worked out yet.  How many COE employees does it take to replace a hot water heater?  I'm not sure because there still wasn't any hot water in the shower after three days.  I know there were at least two hot water heaters unloaded from pickup trucks and what seemed like half a dozen employees working on the problem.  When I left after four days, there was still a sign up indicating no hot water yet.  The dumpsters weren't there when I arrived, but they did arrive later in my stay. 

But I wasn't camping here for the campground services.  The draw here is the Mississippi River and its backwaters, where wildlife is abundant.

nesting

hunting

avoiding Callie

pelicans on a Sunday stroll

 

Sometimes the federal government gets it right.

Made it safely across