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20050818 Ludington MI 69/89? Currently 71*.Cloudy, light rain at times.
Up at a reasonable hour, unhooked quickly and onto the road. I-43 all the way to Manitowoc, via Milwaukee.
There was nothing remarkable about the drive. Lots of trucks.
The SS Badger had just docked when we got to the boarding area in Manitowoc. We left the key in the truck and checked in. We boarded Badger and wandered around it for a bit. Dolores settled in the quiet room and I took up station on the stern to watch the rig come aboard.
Lots of cars were loaded, then two Class C's, a Class B, then our rig. This guy backed it into the ferry quite well; better than the last time two years ago. The roof of the trailer looks fine.
Then more cars were loaded, then an antique car set (MGB's, etc.) were loaded, then cars with pets in them driven by their owners. Three vehicles were left there - full boat. The Badger got underway with the stern gate up while the deckhands shuffled cars to let the last one get three feet farther down the deck. Then they could lower the stern gate.
The day was really hazy and humid. We lost sight of the Wisconsin coastline very quickly. We did see one bridge-aft self-unloading freighter going down-lake; it crossed astern.
There was a fair breeze out of the south resulting in occasional whitecaps (SS 2 or 3) and a little bit of a roll. The roll turned more to a pitch as we neared Ludington with the wind backing around to due east.
Dolores & I were still walking down the platforms to get off the boat when we saw our rig being driven off. We found it in the parking lot and quickly got out of the lot before we could be overcome by all the cars. We reached the campground after one wrong turn, checked in and set up. Then we went out to dinner at Scotty's. The food was good and the waitress was funny; we enjoyed it.
We returned to the little house and settled in. As I'm typing this (9:54pm), a good hard rain came along and chased all the people who were enjoying their campfires with their kids back into their campers and it put out the fires. Well, it was getting late anyway.
Wisconsin north of where we were is having a bad night with tornado and severe hailstorms. Glad we left.
Tomorrow is forecast to be warm/hot and humid here. We'll wander around and look at local things.
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20050819 Ludington MI ?/? Cloudy, some rain. Picture Link
Well, the storms in Wisconsin yesterday included a tornado in Stoughton. It killed one person and injured 23. E-mails I received during the day show that the Steven Fortney family is all right but shaken. Gene Simons son and daughter live there also, and are ok. The daughter's house was damaged, and all those around her were severely damaged.
The tornado hit around 6:23pm CDT. We left there in the morning about 9:00am. We don't know if the campground where we stayed was damaged. Glad we weren’t there.
We got out of the trailer with the idea of looking around the Ludington area. We took a ride along a couple of the routes shown in the local guide. Things we saw include Hamlin Lake just inland of Ludington, and the stored-water reservoir south of town that generates prime-time power and then is pumped full again using off-peak power.
We also saw White Pine Village, a reconstruction area with 20 or so old buildings. We saw the harbor from the south side and took pictures of the Spartan, the Badger's sister ship. It currently is a spare parts source if something on Badger breaks.
I got a haircut downtown while Dolores was buying yarn. We bought a couple of magazines at the book store, then a few jellied chocolates at the candy store.
Then we went to Meijers (the upper midwest’s answer to Walmart) to get groceries and health things. Back to the trailer to put them away.
We grilled a steak outside but ate inside due to bugs. Very good.
Then I did email, getting the good news noted above. The staff told me the Wifi had just been installed. I tried to connect with it, no success. I left them notes with my findings in case they could use them.
We watched TV news several times in the evening to get more news on the Stoughton tornado.
Tomorrow, down to Holland to my brother's house.
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