Miss Terry has wanted to use her Orion smoker for months now, but we just never seemed to have the time. That all ended yesterday when she smoked up three huge racks of ribs for a cookout with Rocky and Berni Frees.

We got the smoker at Lowes about a year ago, but this was only the second time we used it. We need to do that more often!

Unlike conventional smokers, with this one the charcoal goes into a ring around the outside and into a small holder on the top, while the meat is inside, along with, in this case, some apple juice and some mesquite wood chips for extra flavor. The smoker works on a convection effect.

It took about two hours from the time she lit the fire until Terry took the ribs out of the smoker, and they were just perfect! So tender they fell off the bone and mouth watering delicious. Don’t they look yummy?

And you can tell by the satisfied looks on everybody’s faces that they sure enjoyed their meal. Besides the ribs, Terry also smoked up a pork loin, made beans, her special pico de gallo sauce, and there were some other goodies that nobody had room for. We love coming here to Muskegon to visit with Rocky and Berni, but every time we do, I gain five or ten pounds! Now how in the world does that happen?

We had planned to go kayaking on the Muskegon River after dinner, but we were all so stuffed that we were afraid we’d exceed the boats’ weight ratings, so instead we went back to their house for yet another game of Mexican Train. This was a special game, because we probably won’t have a chance to play with Rocky and Berni again for at least a year, and Berni marked the occasion by winning by a tremendous margin. I’m not sure the rest of us were even in the game by the fourth or fifth round. 

On another subject, I guess some RV dealers haven’t been reading the newspaper, or else they are living in La La Land, because they just don’t seem to know that the market has changed and they can no longer play by the same old rules. Our friends Ron and Brenda Speidel called to give us a lead on a Winnebago Ultimate Advantage for sale at an RV dealer in Ohio.

This is our dream rig, although this particular unit was only a 38 footer and we really want a 40 foot model, and it only had a 300 horsepower diesel engine, and we have decided that we really need at least 330 horsepower with the size of the van we tow. Plus, it was about $5,000 higher than two different Ultimate Advantages we had looked at before, that were a year or two newer. But you never know, so I called anyway to see if it might be something we could live with.

The first thing out of the salesman’s mouth once I told him which rig I was interested in was “Are you going to buy today?” I told him no, since I was about 400 miles away, but that if the unit sounded like it might be able to fit our needs, we’d be interested in taking a look at it.

“Well, unless you’re prepared to give me a deposit by credit card, there’s no use wasting my time or yours,” he told me. “The used RV market has gone crazy in the last year or so and we can’t keep them on the lot. Every unit we have moves in 24 to 48 hours.”

I told him that I never gave my credit card out over the telephone, and that if the unit sounded good, we were a short day’s drive away. Then I asked a couple of questions about it’s equipment, and again he told me that he had too many customers waiting in line to buy it to waste time with someone who was not prepared to make a commitment right then.

I happen to know that this particular motorhome has sat on the same lot for over a year. I also don’t like clowns who think I just fell off the turnip truck, so I ended the call, and possibly a chance for him to sell an RV. Even if that particular coach did not meet our needs, they may well have had something else we’d have fallen in love with. I guess we’ll never know.

Thought For The Day – Even people who believe everything is predestined look before they cross the street.

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We have enjoyed our week in Muskegon, Michigan but sadly, it’s time to leave and get on down the road. But we sure have had a wonderful time in this friendly lakeside community.

We stayed at Fisherman’s Landing, a city owned marina and campground, where our back-in RV site had a concrete pad with picnic table, water and 30 amp electric, and a dump station, all for $25 a night. Actually two of those nights were only $12.50, with our Passport America discount, which is good for two nights in any 30 day period. The campground has 70 RV sites, and is located on a lake that connects to the Muskegon River. We did not need them in our self-contained bus conversion, but Fisherman’s Landing also has restrooms with showers and flush toilets.

How friendly is Muskegon? When we returned to our bus late last night after spending our last evening with my cousin Berni and her husband Rocky, we found a business card stuck in our door from city commissioner Steven Wisneski, along with a stack of goodies he had left for us that included two folding chairs in cloth bags, and two goodie bags packed with gifts like water bottles, can cozies, and keychain flashlights, along with a big collection of brochures about local attractions. You can bet we’ll be returning to Muskegon again! It’s one of our favorite places to visit, and I can certainly understand why Rocky and Berni chose this area to live in when they stopped fulltiming.

The city and surrounding area have a lot to offer visitors, from fishing and water sports, to neat museums, great restaurants (we ate out six of the seven nights we were in town, at a different  restaurant each time, and never had a bad meal), a wonderful farmer’s market, and some of the nicest people we have met anywhere.

And the fun doesn’t stop at the end of summer! The Muskegon area is a year round playground, with a winter sports complex, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, and ice fishing. At least Rocky tells me so. I hope to be in Key West by the time the first snow falls!

I wrote in yesterday’s blog that we hoped to do some more paddling before we left town, so yesterday after Berni and Rocky got off work we put our kayaks in the Muskegon River and paddled for a couple of hours. This time we were smart and paddled upriver against the current starting out, while we were still fresh, and allowed the current to carry us back to our launch point when we were done.

We poked into a couple of channels that led off the river and up into some small islands. At one point the channel we were paddling wasn’t more than a few feet wide, and the water under us was choked with weeds. Our kayaks did fine, but a regular boat would have had a hard time of it.

I was in the lead, and as I rounded one bend in the waterway a beaver or muskrat swam across and disappeared into the cattails on the bank as I approached, and soon after that I drifted around another curve and startled three great blue heron, who took flight at my intrusion into their little sanctuary.

Now that’s why we love kayaking! You can have your motor boats and jet skis. We much prefer the slower, quiet ride that allows us to get up close and personal with Mother Nature. As much as I love our life on the open road, I have to admit that I am just a little bit jealous of Rocky and Berni for having this wonderful place only a minute or two from their front door.

We’re heading back to Elkhart Campground in Elkhart, Indiana today, and we’ll be there for a few days before we head over to Bowling Green, Ohio for the FMCA rally, if they have an open vendor booth for us. It’s been a fun mini-vacation.

Thought For The Day – Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

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Muskegon, Michigan is located on the shore of mighty Lake Michigan, and the city’s history and personality were greatly influenced by its maritime heritage. Even though it is not as busy at it once was, the waterfront is still a busy place, though these days the pleasure boats far outnumber the working vessels.

In addition to the big lake, the area includes several smaller lakes and the Muskegon River, so everywhere you look there are people in fishing boats, sailboats, canoes, kayaks, jet skies and every other imaginable type of watercraft, as well as several I have never seen before.

Several retired historic ships are berthed in Muskegon, including the USS Silversides, one of the most famous World War II submarines, which we visited at the Great Lakes Navel Memorial and Museum and featured in the November-December 2008 issue of the Gypsy Journal. Also at the museum and featured in that issue, is the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter McLane, which saw service chasing whiskey smugglers during Prohibition, and Japanese submarines during World War II.

On this trip to Muskegon we toured another historic World War II veteran, the LST 393, one of only two World War II LSTs still in existence. The official designation for this type of vessel is Landing Ship Tank, because they were designed to carry tanks, trucks and other heavy equipment right to a beachhead, though their crews referred to them as Large Slow Targets. LST 393 made 30 round trips to Omaha Beach during the D Day invasion, and landed 3,248 vehicles during her wartime service. We’ll have a feature story on this historic ship in our next issue.

Docked right behind LST 393 is the cargo ship Paul H. Townsend, which spent the last fifty years carrying concrete from Duluth, Minnesota to Great Lakes ports. Built near the end of World War II, the ship is currently used for concrete storage, because it is cheaper to move cement with barges powered by a tug boat. We were talking to a gentleman at the dock who told us that the ship is still commissioned and can be made ready to sail within a matter of days. Meanwhile, he said, Inland Lakes Management, Inc., the company responsible for the ship, pays a watchman $300 a day to live aboard the Townsend to protect it from vandals or burglars. If I ever stop traveling, I want a job like that!

Seeing so much activity on the water had us eager to get our kayaks wet, so yesterday we introduced my cousin Berni Frees and her husband Rocky to paddling. They rented a couple of kayaks, we hauled ours out of the van, and off we went up the Muskegon River. Rocky and Berni both took to kayaking like ducks to water, and we had a wonderful time. Here is a pictures of Rocky and Berni enjoying their first paddling adventure.

Since it was their first time paddling, we didn’t make a long excursion, but in the couple of hours we were on the water we probably covered a little over three miles.

Until now, Terry and I have only paddled in the Florida Keys and the Gulf of Mexico at Aransas Pass, Texas. We learned that paddling a river is much different. Going downstream with the current is pretty easy to do, but fighting our way back upstream against the current our last half mile or so was hard work! We all had sore muscles by the time we pulled the boats out of the water, but all four of us were already talking about our next expedition!

Thought For The Day – Love, not time, heals all wounds.

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