This morning, I had the chance to meed Howard and Linda, full-timers who have created one of the most honest and informative websites regarding full-timing I've seen - www.rv-dreams.com. I admire their openness in discussing what it really takes and what it really costs to pursue the dream of living full-time in an RV while traveling the country. They're off to Hillman, Michigan, for a golf resort where they will work a couple of days a week in exchange for their site and all the golf they can play.
After lunching in Pentwater, we decided to head to the ORV - Off-Road Vehicle - area of the Silver Lake Sand Dunes State Park. Apparently one of the big draws of this area is the 400-acre portion of the 1200-acre state park that has been set aside for off-road vehicles to traverse the dunes. While the ORV area, like almost everything else around here, is quiet for now, it's easy to see how the area could quickly turn into a recipe for disaster. After watching people on the course, combined with watching a first-timer get a five-minute lesson on how to handle a quad, plus the ever-changing nature of the dunes, it's easy to see how the dunes rarely get through a year without at least one fatality. I'm all for fun, but riding a large, relatively stable, 650 CC quad at home purely for work purposes, such as dragging the riding arena and spraying weed killer, has made me extremely respectful of the dangers of these things, and handing the keys to hundreds of newbies and turning them loose in a relatively confined area full of changeable, steep grades...count me out.
We returned to the campground, and Dad loaded his fancy metal detector into his truck and headed for the beach at the Little Sable Point lighthouse. I walked the dogs and decided to ride my bike to the lighthouse, which made for a pleasant five-mile or so ride each way. Dad was still hard at work with his detector and shovel when I arrived, and his hour-long search netted...(drumroll)...thirty-two cents.
The beach was entirely empty, and for the first time on the trip, I was able to revel in nothing more than sitting on the sand, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves. For all its grandeur, size, and, at times, stormy violence, Lake Michigan is still a lake where the water laps upon the shore rather than rolling onto it in waves.
I couldn't resist the smooth, flat pebbles washed upon the beach. While I have no plans of turning into Lucille Ball's character in The Long, Long, Long Trailer, who lugs home a rock from every place she's visited, these pebbles nonetheless fascinated me. Were they part of larger rocks that fell from the rocky cliffs in Wisconsin? How long have they tumbled about in the lake, finally to wash ashore as smooth, flat pebbles? Have they been adrift for years?
We had to call the ball tonight regarding the duration of our visit here. While my plan had been to depart early tomorrow morning, the prediction of heavy rain here and severe weather along my route home throughout the day tomorrow prompted the decision to wait things out another day, which will make for a long drive on Friday. But the idea of driving through heavy rain, thunderstorms, high winds, and hail wasn't appealing.
