June 1-5, 2012 – Buchanan, MI

 
We left Port Clinton Friday morning in the rain – we love breaking down camp and hooking up in the rain and drizzle!  It rained all day as we drove through Toledo and across southern Michigan.  We are staying at Bear Cave Resort in Buchanan, MI.


 

The park is on the St. Joseph River.

Our neighbor told us there was a Blue Grass Festival this weekend in Niles, the next town up the river.  We never pass up the opportunity to hear bluegrass music, so we spent Saturday afternoon enjoying some good bluegrass music in a park next to the river.  The weather was great with just enough cool breezes to keep it comfortable.

Sunday we took the Kayaks on the St. Joseph River – we put the kayaks in just outside of Buchanan and kayaked about 4 miles downriver to our campground.  The St. Joseph is the largest river we have kayaked on so far.

 

We saw some wildlife – a Redtail Hawk, a Blue Heron but what we saw the most was turtles.  We saw about 5 turtles sunning themselves on logs along the river.

It took us about 2 hours to float down to our campground where Rex used our new carrier to wheel the kayaks up the hill to our camp site. We are glad we got the carrier – it is a lot easier to move the kayaks.    

 We had a really nice and relaxing float down the St. Joseph.

 

On Monday we drove to Lake Michigan and stopped in a park in the town of St. Joseph to get our first view of the lake.

 

We also stopped at Silver Beach State Park in St. Joseph where the St. Joseph River enters Lake Michigan.  Walking down to the beach we passed by the Whirlpool Compass Fountain.  Water sprays across the circle from the black structures situated on the outside of the circle.  Unfortunately, the fountain was under maintenance while we were there and we didn’t get to see it working.

 

We saw an interesting round house across the street from the fountain.  We investigated further and found it was the Silver Beach Carousel house.  Inside was a carousel with 48 hand-carved figures.  The pictures around the top of the carousel tell the history of the area.  The kids were really enjoying riding this great carousel.

  

We walked on the beach and to the end of a pier across from this small lighthouse.

We enjoyed our visit to Lake Michigan and are looking forward to coming back sometime soon to see more of the lake.

We spent Tuesday hanging around our camp site and doing chores, like laundry, cleaning, etc.