Way up in the northwest tip of Michigan's Lower Peninsula is Wilderness State Park. This past weekend 
Wilderness State Park is pretty massive as far as acreage goes and it boasts 26 miles of shoreline on Lake Michigan. The opening photo above is from a drive we took a long that coast.
Besides driving, we also did a bit of walking too, so I am going to include some pictures from that and offer this as a #wednesdaywalk post sponsored by 
We left home around noon and after stopping for gas once, we rolled into Wilderness State Park around 3:30 in the afternoon. We quickly got our site set up and were ready to do some relaxing for the evening. I cooked us dinner on the Blackstone (more on that in another post) and then we got a fire going for the evening.
My brother in law is finishing his basement, so he gave me a ton of 2x4 ends that were left over from the wall framing. I split them up with my hatchet and they work perfect for kindling to get the fire going.
You might notice a bit of a haze in some of these photos. That was due to the wildfires in Canada. They have been wrecking havoc on our skies lately. There are times it feels like there is a thick fog across the landscape, but then you smell that faint campfire smell on the wind and you realize it is from the fires.
As I said, Wilderness State Park is pretty large. We woke up on Friday morning and decided to take a walk back to the ranger station at the park where you check in. It was a good mile and a quarter back to that point from where we were camping.
You can't really read it, but this sign is pointing out that there is a dark sky viewing area inside the park. Unfortunately, due to the wildfire smoke, star gazing was absolutely out of the question.
They've really done a great job of modernizing the park with paved streets and nice facilities.
The campground is split up into four modern sections with several rustic group camp areas spread out in other parts of the park. The front three sections are close to the water, but are really difficult to get into. Instead, we were in the area that was away from the water.
It's not that we didn't like this park, but I think if we had been able to at least see the water from our site, we might have liked it more.
This main road that runs through the park is an actual highway and if you go up just past the building on the right, there is an actual house/cabin, that belongs to a private owner. It has a mailbox and everything. I was kind of surprised to see it smack in the middle of a state park!
I know there isn't a lot going on in these photos besides nature stuff, but it was a quite peaceful walk in the morning. Despite the heat and the two bugs, we had a really nice time. It was the perfect start to our day!
This is the entrance to the park and that is the ranger station where you check-in when you are first arriving as a new camper. If you squint and look really hard, you might see some campers parked along the road just past the ranger station.
That is the full hookup section of the campground. Wilderness State Park is one of the few state parks in Michigan that has full hookup sites (water, power, sewer). Most of them just have power.
The sites that are near the water still require a short walk to actually get to the shore. If it weren't for the wildfires, you would see a magnificent strip of blue in the photo above that would stretch to the horizon.
You'll just have to trust me on that!
We walked down to the edge and stopped just short of putting our feet in the water. We had our walking shoes on after all!
I'm so disappointed that I wasn't able to get some better shots to share with you. Like I said, you just have to believe me that on a clear day, the view takes your breath away!
As I was walking back up the path, I notice these interesting looking plants along the way in the sand. It takes some pretty specific flora to be able to grow in the loose sand along the shoreline. I got a pleasant surprise when I went back to look at this photo and noticed that there was an ant crawling up the plant.
This is a better look at that sign I tried to share with you earlier. Up the road several miles is another dark sky park called Headlands. 
We returned to our travel trailer on Friday afternoon to find that our fresh water pump was running intermittently. Given the fact that no water was coming out of any of the faucets, that had to mean that water going somewhere. After some investigation, we found that we had a leak which was dumping water in between the walls of our trailer.
I should have asked for some input from
Either that, or I would have spent the whole day Saturday working on fixing it and since we were set to leave on Sunday, it would be a wasted day.
On top of that, we would have to cut all of our water which isn't a big deal if you are tenting, but it kind of defeats the purpose if you are in a travel trailer.
We rolled into our driveway around 9:00 PM and Saturday morning instead of waking up and going for another walk in the campground I started working on locating the exact point of the leak.
As you can see from the photo above, it was a hot water line that had rubbed over time on the edge of the paneling. I'll write a full post on the repair at a later date.
Despite the disaster we came back to, I'd like to leave you with some happier photos. On our way back to the campground from Cross Village, before everything went to hell, the sky had started to clear a little bit and we got these great photos of Lake Michigan.
This back road was packed with cars parallel parked along the side. It's pretty common for people to do that and then spend their day at the beach.
Right now, I am a bit on the fence about whether I would ever return to Wilderness State Park. I still want to see that other dark sky park, but I've definitely got some PTSD from how this trip ended up.
I know for sure that I am going to try to get one of the sites that at least has a view of the water next time. Sometimes just being able to see it is enough to put you in a different frame of mind!
All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or
