Glad to be in Gladstone

Boy, did I ever sleep good last night; didn't stir once until a little after 5am and then fell asleep again until almost 8am. Low dew points, cool overnight temperatures, no RV park security lights shining in through the open window next to my head, no mechanical drone of a fan or air conditioner -- it all came together and I was apparently ready for it.

By the time I finally got up for good Dar had the bus-house ready for travel. Today is moving day, and today we start our westward trek across the country on US Highway 2. The ultimate goal of this leg of our journey is a couple of grandkids that we can't wait to see... way out there in Washington State. But there's a lot of ground to cover and a lot of new areas to explore between here and there. We're also going to pause for a couple weeks at Camp Soldner, a little further down the road here in the UP of Michigan.

We left Straits State Park about 10:30am this morning and pulled into Gladstone Bay Campground in the City of Gladstone MI. about 1:30pm. This campground is owned and operated by the City of Gladstone, and is right on the shores of Little Bay de Noc, a bay of Lake Michigan. We selected this camp for tonight because of the full hookups. There's a bunch of laundry we need to do before getting to Camp Soldner and the $24 camping fee isn't much more than what it'd cost at a laundromat.

Water quality is another reason we look for laundry camps like this one. If the camp is on a treated city water supply, the quality of the water is typically much better than you'd likely find at a rural camp with well water. Good water cleans clothes better and is better on the wash machine.

We'll be here for just one night. Tomorrow, Friday, we're heading up to Dar's brother Dennis's place (Camp Soldner) near Michigamme. The last time we stayed there, two years ago, a couple readers of the Journal asked for information and directions to this great camp. Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately??), this is a small family place that's not open to the public. I probably shouldn't keep referring to it like I do, but it's become a thing I do.
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By the way, a couple other notes: first, if you haven't checked lately, Dar is once again uploading photos to our online photo gallery (Click here). Since there's a lot of catching up to do, she's starting with the current photos and working backward as she has time to fill the gap. She does a good job adding captions and telling a story of the day's explorations, so check it out for another, more visual way, of reading our story.

A few days ago I mentioned that Dar's laptop bombed out. It didn't look good... the dreaded "blue screen of death". I'm happy to report that I was able to revive it. At least it looks promising so far. It's amazing what resources are out there on the internet to help a hobby-tech'r like me give cyber-CPR to a non-responsive computer. A few google queries, a little reading, researching, and vetting, a little luck and a dance to the silicon-gods... well, it seems to have worked out. The laptop is functioning again.

I wish I could report the same on Margaret, our GPS. It seems nothing can help her now. She'll be interred in the next few days up at Camp Soldner.