Michigan!!!

So We arrived in Michigan on Thursday June 13th, around 6:30pm.  I was so excited to see my Mom!!
Here is a video Shane took showing our set up here, don't mind his last words, he had originally made the video for someone else.

 

We haven't been doing any traveling since we got here, just hanging out with my family.  My niece is here from Florida for 3 weeks, so it has been nice spending time with her here, where she can spend time with all of us together.

 

We have Jemma, my brother has a Great Dane named Roxy, and my Mom has 2 dogs, Max and Diva, so we kind of have our own pack of dogs here.  So we have been taking them for walks, and to the parks, I especially like Lincoln Brick Park, there is a quarry where the dogs can run around and swim, and some nature trails.  Had to stay off the nature trails though after the first trip Jemma scratched her eye, the trails are kinda over grown, but they still have a blast swimming.

 

That's my brother, Dan, and his daughter (my niece) Taylor.

 

We have also been hanging out at my Uncle Steve's house, they have lots of land and a pond, so the dogs love it there too, and my brother can do some fishing there

 And of course we can ride the 4 wheelers there, they have a trail through the woods, that has a steep creek to ride through, it's a lot of fun, especially when there is alcohol involved!! :)

 

And I have been catching up with my girlfriends from high school, it was SOOO nice to see them!!  They invited me to the beer tent for Yankee Doodle Days, and I decided to go and to drag Shane along with me.  He hates beer, and doesn't really care for the bar scene (neither do I) but I wanted to go to see if there was anyone I grew up with there.  Shane actually ended up having a good time with all of us girls!!  How could you not!!  We are a fun crowd when we are all together!

The next day after the beer tent there was a parade through town, and I had told another friend of mine that I would walk with her in it.  She has a program called G.L.A.D. (Great Lakes Assistance Dogs), they train service dogs for kids with disabilities, diabetes, autism, and other things, along with basic obedience training and boarding.  I was happy to help, I Love what they do, I think it is a great program, and they work mostly off of donations, so I donated my time, and we snuck Jemma in and pretended she was in training!! 

It was fun, and I plan on helping her out for the rest of the summer.  Shane has been checking items off his "Sonny do list" that my Mom created for him, and for the most part staying pretty busy doing those things.  Now he his making some training boxes for the service dogs, and has a few other things that need to be done to help with the dogs also, so hopefully we will keep him busy too.

And that's pretty much all there is to tell at this time.  I will update after the 4th of July because we are supposed to be going up north, so I am sure we will have some stories to tell after that!!  :)

 

 

Indiana

Tuesday June 11th

We arrived at Mounds State Park in Anderson Indiana around 7:00pm, and of course it was raining!!  Drove over a pretty cool bridge along the way, I forget where it was exactly but I'm pretty sure it was as we were getting into Indiana.

We are still just following this rain all the way.  This park is actually huge!!
We are only staying one night here so we really didn't even un-hook, but here we are

After looking over the trail maps I was excited to do some trail hikes in the morning, they had tons of trails.  We took Jemma for a short walk to stretch her legs, had dinner, and called it a night.

The next morning we had breakfast and headed out to the trails!!  They call this park "Mounds" because of the man made mounds that the archaeologist found way long ago, they believe that some tribes used them as either burial grounds or as like stages for religious ceremonies.  I, however, was skeptical that they were even man made, they were nothing really special to see, but I used my imagination and I suppose they could have been made by Indians.

These were very nice trails, well maintained, some had boardwalks, some were along the White river.  We hiked 3.5 miles, and headed back to pack up and head out to Elkhart.

Wednesday June 12th

We arrived at the campground in Elkhart a few hours later, and this campground was nothing special, basically an open field, but we were only staying one night so it wasn't to bad.  We have an appointment at 9am tomorrow to take the camper in and get some warranty work done.  That's the only reason we stayed here in Elkhart.
Got a pretty bad rain storm while there, with a tornado warning in the next county, needless to say, that kind of freaked me out, so i went online and bought us a weather alert radio.  I think every full timer should have one!!

Thursday June 13th
We got up and packed up, and headed out to drop off the camper, and had a long boring wait until they were finished doing the work, but they finished around 3:30 so we decided to make the 2.5 hour hike to my Mom's house in Michigan!

Leaving Georgia

 

Sunday June 9th

We arrived at Bald Ridge creek campground in Cumming Georgia on Friday June 7th.  We came here so that we could meet up with one of Shane's old buddies that is living in the area.  We got set up on our nice spot with a view of Lake Lanier, which was a very clean, very large lake.

There was a little trail from our site that led down to our own little private beach area.

After having dinner we had a small campfire, then retired to bed.

The next day (Saturday) we headed out to the only small trail the park had, it basically just looped around the lake, took about 15 minutes, but had some nice lake views.

Then we just relaxed for awhile, I read a book from my hammock, and Shane planned out our next spot.  Then I had to get ready for company.  Our guest were scheduled to arrive around 4:00, and I had some cooking to do.  We had BBQ chicken on the grill, onion baked potatoes, green beans, and a pasta salad.  Our friends arrived, we had a great meal, and spent the evening chatting and catching up.

After they left, Shane and I made a discussion on the fly... To leave at the crack of dawn to try to get 5.5 hour hike in before the NASCAR race started so we could try to get satellite signal to watch it. 

So we got up at 6am, packed up and were on the road by 7:30ish.  By the time we got to Tennessee we hit a terrible rain storm, like 20 mph kinda rain storm. It was horrible!!!  And it continued to rain the entire rest of the drive, but we made it eventually to Baileys Point campground, in Glasgow Kentucky, on Barren River lake.

 

We got the satellite set up just in time to watch the second have of the race, after the race it started to rain again, so we retired to inside to catch up on some recorded shows, then went to bed, i was super tired!  On Monday we took a long walk around the campground, this place is huge!!  215 camp sites, and 2 sections were closed during the week so we let Jemma run around off leash, she had a blast.

We had a nice view of the lake, watching the boats cruise by, and we saw some Canadian Geese with 4 babies.

After our walk we relaxed, had dinner, and a very nice fire, thanks to Shane's resourcefulness, of scavenging firewood from empty camp sites!!
We are headed out tomorrow (Tuesday) headed to Indiana, we have a 4.5 hour drive, so we will be trying to get packed up by noon or so.

 

Rainy day

Thursday June 6th

Today started out with rain, and pretty much rained ALL day, not hard but on and off and spitting in between.  after hanging around catching up on computer stuff in the morning, we decided to run into town to the Walmart to grab a few things we needed.
Then back to camp where we continued to do the same as above :)  it was a relaxing day, and we a few walks around the campground in, even if it was drizzling.

Headed out tomorrow too... somewhere else in Georgia, not sure where, Shane planned it, but it is only an hour and a half drive so should be a breeze.
Talk to you tomorrow!! :)

High Falls

Wednesday June 5th

after our morning routine, we headed out to the trails, I was excited to see the falls and the river.  We started on the short trail (1.5 miles) that jogged along the river, it was a slightly rough trail, with hills and slopes and roots, and rocks, but the views were AWESOME!!

The water starts from High Falls Lake, and goes over the above dam, and onto the rocks for quite a ways and ends up in Towaliga river.

now please don't judge Shane for using the pink bag, it was all we had at the time that worked like a backpack :)

So off to the nature trails we go!!  They had look outs every so often, and a couple times the trails led us right down to the water.  there were signs every where that said "KEEP OFF THE ROCKS" yet the trails lead you right to them, hmmm....

If you look closely at the other side of the river, you will see some red stairs, we were there also :)

And here is where were walking out onto the rocks that were dry, you could walk way out if you wanted to, but we tried to stay close to the side so we didn't get into trouble.

Further on down the trail we came to an old building that used to be a Powerhouse, they say that this small town of High Falls used to be booming back in the 1800's.

 

And then on to the other side of the river

And there is the other stairs that we were just on, this time from the other side of the river.

Jemma got hot, so she needed a "pool break".  If you look to the left of the picture you can see how the water looks like it just disappears, that's one of the falls, pretty cool.  i felt the water, it was surprisingly warm, I guess I thought it was gonna be super cold, then I reminded myself we are only in Georgia, not so far north YET!!

And here is my handsome husband enjoying the views!!

On hiking we go, along the river, tons of nice views!! Water falls, huge rocks, and nature at its finest.  After a little while Jemma needed another pool break, Daddy took her this time.

After the river walk, we ventured off onto the nature trail, and then back to camp for lunch.  After lunch we headed off for the other trail, which was just a trail through the woods, nothing really exciting there, but it was a 2.5 mile hike, so overall today we hiked about 5 miles, pretty good for beginners i thought.
Then dinner, and a fire, but our wood was wet so it wasn't a great fire but we enjoyed it still.

Headed to Georgia

Tuesday June 4th

Today we are headed to our next destination in Jackson Georgia, called High Falls State Park, and it is a 4 hour hike... OUCH!!  Not to bad though once we got into Georgia

 

We arrived at the campground around 4:00pm, and started setting up, nice spot again!!

So we will just hang out tonight, have dinner, take showers, and so on, and tomorrow we will hit the trails!!

The next day

Monday June 3rd

We had a great nights sleep, not a noise around, not even that Red bird that had been tapping on our window for months at our home camp!!  We got up, had a light breakfast, I drank my coffee, Shane drank his sprite, and we headed out to check out the park, and the trails, but unfortunately i forgot my camera!!  So all i can give you is what Shane took with his phone.

O'leno Park is located on the Santa Fe river, and at this location the river does a "sink and rise" where the river all of the sudden disappears underground, and then comes back up at a different location,  although I thought the sink was disappointing, it simply looked like a pond at the end.  I guess I had thought it would be a giant cave leading underground and the water was rushing in it (my imagination I guess).  It was a nice little hike though!!

 And they had a suspended bridge, which was a little eerie walking across

But exciting at the same time!!

After our hike we headed back to camp to get some lunch, and after lunch we just chilled for awhile, relaxing, reading, you know the stuff we NEVER had time to do before.
We took another short walk later in the evening, nothing exciting though, we just walked down to the youth camping area.

After dinner we were going to have another fire but it started raining so we just called it a night.