The Legend of Old Scratch is Born (June 2018)
First summer weekend at Hamlin Lake! Overall, a successful camping experience and fun weekend. We arrived very late, around 11pm, on Thursday night due to a traffic detour on 31. Tent setup is pretty quick, especially the second time around. Our sleep, however, was terrible due to a leak in the air mattress. Thankful for a Meijer store only 10 minutes away! Between the Upper Hamlin Grocery (tiny, but all the camping and food essentials!), Meijer and Home Depot, we can always find what we need.
Rain on Friday and thunderstorms later on in the night, but we persevered. The tent held up pretty well, with only a very small amount of water on the floor. The weather finally cleared on Saturday afternoon and made for a beautiful evening and Sunday! It was hard to leave such good weather. A little hot on Sunday, but breezy and lovely down by the water. Great food, of course, always makes camping feel more like home. Brats with baked beans, pasta with meatballs and homemade sourdough bread - not too shabby! Breakfast is always my favorite. A warm and cozy way to start the day with lots of proteins and carbs - usually no need for lunch! A celebratory 11-year old Mephistopheles (an imperial stout by Avery Brewing Co) was a great end to our Lake Michigan hike. No hops left in that one! All chocolate and raisins. Delicious.
Lake Michigan.
Annie and Cooper love water and lake Michigan! They are becoming excellent hikers and love the woods too. We had a beautiful hike in the Manistee National Forest that opens up to the national seashore and public beaches at Lake Michigan. But they especially loved Lake Michigan and the beaches! They ran in and out of the water and laid in the warm sand. Success.
We are starting to make our little 3.25 acres our home in the woods! We have created a small campsite and fire pit, with the cutest little deer head bottle opener now screwed into one of our campsite trees. Rub his nose for good camping weather! All of our tents and shelters are becoming a great little compound (thank you, Dale!).
The “point” is the perfect spot for the Adirondack chairs! It’s too bad that the property belongs to Victory Township, because it’s not large enough for any meaningful public use, but it was granted to the Township as public recreational lands in the early twentieth century. It will make the perfect place for our first dock, hopefully being replaced with a large dock in the “cove” down the road.
Lots and lots and lots of downed trees. We met our neighbors, Tom and Kathy, who have been coming to the lake for 40 years. Kathy casually mentioned to us that they had a friend visit their property about a month ago…Old Scratch. She had video of Old Scratch who likes getting into the bird feeder that is full of corn. Apparently, Old Scratch was a reference to a ghost story that Tom and Kathy used to tell their kids. In the story, he was a bear who lived in the old mill house on the Huron Manestee National Forest. Hopefully, today’s Old Scratch is friendly because he looked quite large for a black bear and we are staying in his home!
We haven’t met the others neighbors yet, but hope to soon. The nearby property sounds like lots of laughter, 4 wheelers and good times.
Annie and Cooper do not like bugs! We may need to toughen them up, especially our little city boy, Cooper. Poor things were swarmed by what looks like biting flies, and Cooper did not like it one bit. The tent, and the crate inside, were clearly their safe spot and where they were the most comfortable. They’ll come around!
Biercamp Market, a Ludington gem. Shop for wonderful local foods, grab a beer and hangout on the front patio.
A quick stop through Ludington on the way home revealed a gem, Biercamp Market! Very nice, small, well-curated grocery store and deli with a full bar inside! Tom was impressed by the beer selection (it is Michigan, you know!) and the wines were very nice too. No need to pack much food - this place is great! Kirwin’s, an old fashioned fudge, candy and ice cream shop, will likely quickly become a favorite stop on the way out of town. Pup cups of ice cream were a treat for the kiddos!
Lots of planning for the next trip up (chainsaws, yes!), and much dreaming for the future! But for now, baby steps. This will take some blood, sweat, tears and hard work, but every bit of it will be worth it.
“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”
