North Country Redux: Family time

July 10 – 15

Well what do you know! Though I was the first there and all by my lonesome for a few hours, eventually other family members began rolling into the campground and claiming our little batch of camp sites, so I must be in the right place!

All told we took up 8 campsites. The Genesee County’s Wolverine Campground on the north shore of the Holloway Reservoir allows two camps per site as long as at least one of them is a tent and we took advantage of that with 6 tents, 3 travel trailers, 1 fifth-wheel, a pickup camper and 1 class B motorhome. We put 4 boats and 2 kayaks into the water and, between campers and day-trippers, had some 38 people there for the potluck dinner on Saturday.

Besides the potluck dinner, there were games and campfires and s’mores (Ever had a lemon-curd s’more?? I hadn’t. Tastes like key-lime pie.) and trips out on the boats, but mostly there was a lot of visiting. It’s been a lot of years since we had that many of the family together in one place.

Oh, and we also amused ourselves critiquing those launching or retrieving boats from the ramp just across the canal from our campsites. One poor man forgot to put the drain-plug in before launching and didn’t realize he was sinking until his buddy had driven off with the trailer. After a little shouting, OK, there might have been a little screeching involved too, the trailer was brought back, jackknifed sideways on the ramp the first hasty try, backed down straight the second, then backed down even farther, as in the bumper of the truck

This wasn't the sinking boat, no, these people made it look simple; boring!

is completely under water farther, as they tried to rope the sinking boat back onto the trailer far enough to lift it out of the water and let it drain, and drain, and drain. Man a lot of water can get in through that little drain-hole in a hurry! To make the poor guy’s day even worse, once all that was sorted out he couldn’t get the boat started. . .
But all our critiquing was OK because pretty much every one of us there has been there-done that!

The weather was good but we did get enough rain Saturday night to belly-down one of the Easy-Up awnings and wet down the tents just in time to make it messy packing them up.

But eventually Sunday rolled around and we had to pick up all our toys and go our separate ways once again. (It was our turn to be critiqued as we hauled 4 boats out

of the water.)

I tried something different this time. I’m usually not much of a people person but I got my camera out several times and shot a whole bunch of pictures of the relatives. Since I’m not sure all of them would appreciate having their faces plastered here I’m only including a few of the non-mug-shot style photos here.

It was Christmas in July at the campground but none of us knew that before hand so we didn't have any decorations to add to the ambiance. Santa went by in the golf-cart so fast I didn't have time to get a shot of him so this will have to do.

Condo camping. That's where, for a few days as I help with some of the to-do list, (Hey, it makes me feel like I'm doing my part from 1300 miles away!) I use Mom's driveway, her easy chair, her bathroom, her food, her shower, her patio, her view of the lake, then I go sleep in the van at night.