I had some more photos I wanted to share with you in the post yesterday from our recent camping trip to the "thumb" of Michigan, but I felt it was getting a little to long. Instead, I'm going to share them with you today. If you missed the post yesterday, you can check it out here.
The last night of our trip we decided to have fajitas. I've really come to love the small 22" Blackstone griddle that we bought last year. It is quite versatile and if we wanted to we could probably cook most every meal on it. We don't though.
I still like that special something that grilling over a charcoal gives you, so we still bring our little Weber grill with us when we travel. I'm also interested in picking up one of those grates that swings over the firepit sometime so I can start perfecting my technique at open fire cooking.
We also need to try and get a little more use out of the cast iron dutch oven we bought several years ago. I feel like we only bust it out about once a year and that is truly a shame.
Breakfast is pretty much a given on the Blackstone. It just handles that really well. The biggest issue I have is the fact that it is never quite level. That means @mrsbozz's scramble eggs go all over the place before I can wrangle them together into something cohesive.
It's actually pretty funny these days, you see a Blackstone sitting at pretty much every campsite when you walk around the campground. Some people leave theirs out all the time. Personally, I pull mine in the trailer each night because I don't want someone walking off with it. No small feat since it's a rolled steel cook top and it weighs about 50 pounds. It's just awkward to move in and out, but I manage.
What I really like is the fact that I can hook it up to the propane on the trailer so I don't have to worry about juggling dozens of those little gas canisters that you see around.
After visiting the beach on our walk, which again you can see in my post yesterday, we decided to take a bit more of a stroll through the other half of the park. Sleeper State Park in Caseville is split up into two different sections. There is an east loop and a west loop. We were camping in the west loop, so we took a quick hike through the east loop.
The photo above falls into the camping etiquette category that I mentioned in the preview to this post. Can you see that white truck on the right hand side of the road in the photo above? Notice how close the front of the truck is to the road? It's actually sitting a couple of inches over the road when you get right up close to it.
That's an accident waiting to happen. If I remember correctly, my trailer is something like 9 feet wide. This single lane road through the campground isn't much wider than that. When people don't pay attention to how they are parking, it's just asking for your fancy new truck or trailer to get damaged.
I think this is one of those cases where people are so self absorbed in their own world that they don't realize what they do impacts others. I've been to several campgrounds where tow vehicles and trailers have been clipped causing major damage from people parking like idiots.
In addition to not parking like a dick, another piece of camping etiquette I'd like to share with you applies to campsites. I was sitting under our awning on Sunday afternoon and I can't tell you the number of people who walked through our site to get to the bathhouse that was right across the street.
There are designated paths all over the place connecting the different roads in each loop, but people think the rules don't apply to them and instead of being courteous, they choose the easy route and cut through occupied camping sites.
There was a point that @mrsbozz actually yelled at some of them. It makes me think of the post @ericvancewalton just made the other day about staying off people's lawns. While the state parks do technically belong to all of us, when you are camping, you are renting that little slice of land and by default it becomes your space.
When I was camping as a kid, I never would have thought it was okay to walk through someone else's site. These days, people do it right in front of you and when you say something or give them a look they act like you are the one who is out of line.
It's crazy!
The last piece of etiquette has to do with quiet hours, but honestly, I can't give you much help on that one. They usually start around 10 PM in most parks, but there have been several occasions that the park rangers have found their way to our site asking us to quiet down. I'm usually the one trying to keep the rest of our group in order (big surprise), but sometimes I get a little loud too.
Oddly enough, ever since Covid happened, the number of workers at many of the parks has steeply declined. Additionally, people (even those who are supposed to be in authority) shy away from confrontation these days, so it's pretty rare we see workers driving around policing the grounds like we used to.
In fact, at some State Parks they don't even have staff available to check you in anymore. When you get there you pick up a yellow phone and you contact some call center elsewhere in the state to check in.
It was raining when we pulled into home on Monday morning. Due to that fact, one of the lines was hanging a little lower than usual. I clipped it with the trailer and ended up bringing it down. YOu can see them if you look really closely in the photo above.
I knew the three lines were old phone lines, so I moved them out of the way which was probably dumb in hindsight. Even though I knew they were low voltage, they still could have been touching something that wasn't.
I called the non emergency phone number for the county and after the fire department came out to check the lines and make sure they weren't dangerous, I had them cut them. As I expected, neither us or our neighbors suffered any lack of service.
Who knows how long it will take the company to come out and remediate the wires given the fact that no one was actually using them in the first place. I was kind of an annoying end to what was otherwise a really great trip.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
I fucking hate that. I've taken a shine to an app called 'HipCamp' that allows me to find much more secluded sites. Give it a look when you have time.
!PIMP !PIZZA !WINE
You must be killin' it out here!
@enginewitty just slapped you with 10.000 PIMP, @bozz.
You earned 10.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 3/4 possible people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
I'll have to check it out. The problem is my wife prefers electricity and modern bath houses. That's the trade off you get for camping in a State Park. State Forest campgrounds on the other hand are much more secluded. I've also seen a program where people who own farmland allow you to come camp on their property.
This brought back so many memories of camping when I was younger. That's insane that people just waltz right through your campsite. It's not just us then, peoples' behavior really have changed. It's like peoples' minds are just disconnected sometimes, completely elsewhere. Maybe it's a little of that coupled with people being more self-absorbed/entitled in general.
How long did it take you to get used to pulling that huge camper? We're on the brink of moving out of the condo and buying a house and once we do we'll probably get some kind of a camper too. I'm on the fence about whether to get a pull-behind or a motorhome. We have to really think about how we're going to use it. We had originally thought we'd get a motorhome and use it to drive down to Sedona and live in the winter but the even the Class B's get horrendous gas mileage (8-10mpg). I'm thinking a trailer might be best for just local/regional camping.
Yeah, I think self absorbed and entitled definitely fits the bill on this one. It's absolutely mind numbing. I guess I shouldn't be surprised as courtesy and decorum seem to have left the norm a long time ago. That's a bit of a loaded question on the trailer, so settle in! :) My old truck had a towing capacity of 7700 pounds, it was a 1500 half ton. The trailer unloaded weighs about 6600 pounds, so by the time you add all your gear, plus all the stuff in the back of the truck plus ourselves, we were really pushing the limits of that 7700 pounds and you could feel it. It was a white knuckle experience towing with the old truck. My newer 2500 truck has a tow capacity of like 14,000 pounds, so it's a whole different experience. I still only get about 10 miles per gallon and the truck is an absolute tank which makes it a bit difficult to drive around busy tourist towns when you are traveling. A motor home isn't going to get you much better gas mileage, but you can also tow something fun behind it like a Jeep or another smaller vehicle. That makes going out on excursions easier, plus you don't have to pack up your motorhome and then re park it everytime you want to go out. Also take into account the maintenance. RV's require a lot of it whether it is tow behind or a motor home. Sitting out on the sun can lead to cracks in the caulk and cause water damage. I've already had to have a portion of my roof replaced. I now climb up and check the roof two to three times a season. I'd plan a couple thousand each year for maintenance alone. What you don't use you can bank for when you have a major issue like a leak or a engine problem or whatever.
Thanks for the advice. This actually changed my perspective a bit. I think a smaller Class B might be the way to go for us. I've been looking at the Ford Transit chasis with a gasoline engine and the Mercedes Sprinter with a diesel. It seems the Ford is the better of the two from a maintenance perspective. I'm hearing it's next to impossible to find mechanics who can work on the Sprinters and the diesel motors can be very finicky if they aren't tuned perfectly. I think my mind is made up. : )
Oh, that's right, I forgot you were looking for a Class B. If my wife and I ever went that route, we would probably go with a small class A, but I think there are some really nice Class C's that still allow you to have a "toad" (vehicle towed behind).
Greetings @bozz ,
Thank you for this adventurous post...anything could have happened..right...we had obstructing vehicles, trespassers, outdoor-cooking, eletrical encounters...^__^
You are correct...common sense would be a good addition to how one manages when out and about.
Appreciate hearing about the Blackstone....thank you. Cheers!
Kind Regards,
Bleujay
People are so self absorbed these days. They have zero situational awareness or common sense. It is sad!
I love flat tops.
Oops, at least you called.
Yeah, it was a bit of a mess. I was going to just cut it myself, but then I figured I might get in trouble.
!pimp
You must be killin' it out here!
@silverd510 just slapped you with 1.000 PIMP, @bozz.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/3 possible people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
Great to see you getting the Blackstone in action Bozz! Do you fry with some butter or oil those eggs?
That sounds bad about parking and camping Etiquette (had to grab that word from dictionary - lol), people seem to generally be so less considerate of others these days, with parking and what not. As I have gotten older, I have really come to apprecation good common sense rules so people can live more harmonious together like quiet times and not using loud machines on holidays.
I use avocado oil on the flat top. It works really well. I agree, a lot of the stuff feels like it should be common sense!
I’m also planning to get an iron Dutch for my cooking vlog which will be happening very soon
Mine is small, but I really like it. It only takes a few coals to keep it steady at 350 degrees.
You review is now featured on Sleeper State Park page on Hive!
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$PIZZA slices delivered:
@enginewitty(2/15) tipped @bozz