Oh Boy!!!! Were in trouble now!

Well, for the first time I'm (Shane) writing in this blog.  Were in trouble now :)

I'll give a brief overview of what we've been up to for now and try to add some pictures later. 

     Once we left Franca's property we crossed over the Mackinaw bridge, now for those that don't know that bridge is very high and long.  Of course it was very windy the day we were to travel across the bridge and they had warnings (Tractor trailers and Campers 20MPH)!!!!  Oh boy, my knuckles were turning white before we even got on the bridge.  All went well and it was smooth sailing from there to a campground just down the road from the Tahquamenon Falls in the U.P.  It was cold and spitting rain so we didn't do much at the camp ground.  We did drive to the upper and lower section of the falls.  These falls are not very big, but very pretty.
     Then we were off to our next campground to view the pictured rocks. Pictured Rocks, Upper Peninsula of Michigan  That was really cool.  You take about a 90 min boat ride that takes you out and along the rock cliffs.  Pictures don't do it any justice.  The best time to view the cliffs is during the early evening while the sun is beginning to set. 
     Now we were off to Escanaba U.P. to the Newmar motor home Rally for RVSEF where we will be weighing RV's and I have to give 3 seminars on RV weight and tire safety.  This is the first Rally Jami and I have done completely by ourselves with no supervision.  I must say we did great!  Everything went as planned and we weighed 40 or so RV's.  The entire 2 weeks we were in the U.P. we never once were able to wear shorts :)  Just not hot enough and was always windy.
     When we left Escanaba we decided to split the return trip back to Jami's Moms house in half which put us around Mackinaw City.  We stayed at the same campground we stayed at last year when we went to Mackinac Island. Of course we had to cross over that darn bridge again, but this time the weather was good and there was no wind warnings so the bridge crossing was much less stressful. For the first time in 2 weeks it was HOT!  We were able to finally put on shorts.  Once we had our camper parked and set up we headed out for 2 things, 1st was some food and 2nd was for some free fire wood.  Ya see, there is a sign before crossing the bridge into the U.P. that says that you are not allowed to take wood across the bridge into the U.P., so there is a dumpster for people to get ride of the wood.  Well, that's good wood and to buy fire wood cost you $5 for about 5 pieces, so yes I've resorted to dumpster diving :)  So we had a fire, drank a few glasses of wine and gazed at the bridge all lit up with lights.  Beautiful.
     Once back at Jami's Mom's and Ken's (step Dad) house we didn't do much in the following few days, but Jami did finished all the paperwork from the Rally.  Oh I forgot to mention, we did have a direct TV satellite installed on our camper roof.  It is awesome! With the touch of a button it raises up and finds the satellite's.  The next couple of weeks was a mixture of helping Jami's folks around the house with little things that needed done, cleaning of our camper, hanging with the folks and friends and other fun stuff.
     We had to leave Jami's Moms places for a week to travel to the Elkhart 4-H fairgrounds to be at a Forest River Rally where again we were to weigh RV's and give 2 seminars.  Its about a 2 1/2 hour drive away.  We weighed 42 RV's which we thought was pretty good.  Were not sure if we could have weighed to many more in the time we had.  So once that was done we headed back to Jami's Moms house for the next 3 weeks till Sept 2nd when we were planning to leave again for good this time to begin a trek south for 3 more Rally's and eventually ending up in Florida for the winter. 
     Sept 2nd arrived and at the last minute we decided to skip going to our planned 1st stop/campground and suck it up for the 6 1/2 hour drive to Hardin Ridge Campground.  Hardin Ridge Recreation Area  What a great choice, this place is beautiful!  This is fairly a large campground with just over 200 campsites.  But it is very wooded and the campsites are very spread out so everyone has great privacy.  Were in site 144 which is a 50amp & water site plus we were lucky enough to actually get satellite signal through a small hole in the trees.  Perfect!