Bye to a great campground (Muskegon State Park); hello to a bad campground (KOA-Coloma, MI)

Location: Coloma/St. Joseph KOA; near Coloma, Michigan
(click pics to enlarge)

This post is from last Wednesday, July 30th. I am still playing catch up due to the LST posting.

I said a sad goodbye to Muskegon State Park. It was a very good park located very near Lake Michigan. The only drawback was some low hanging limbs on my way out, but I drove slow and didn't damage anything.

Even though I was never able to get a good sunset picture, it was fun trying. Some of the days and early evenings were very chilly to the point where I had to break out some blue jeans one evening. I spent the last day along the channel between Muskegon Lake and Lake Michigan. It was foggy the entire day, but made for some interesting pictures. The fog horn at the end of the jetties was in full action as it was  warning/guiding boats to the channel.

Last futile attempt at a sunset

This walkway runs a very long way
along the channel between Lake Michigan
and Muskegon Lake. That is Lake
Michigan at the end of the walk
in this picture

You can see 3 lighthouses/fog horns
in this picture. There is also a small
boat heading out to Lake Michigan.
The time was late afternoon.

I was looking for an infinity picture
with the walkway. It almost happened.
To the left is the channel, straight ahead
is Lake Michigan and to the right
is a little bay that is in the next pic

A secluded little bay with a beach. It is
about a 3/4 mile walk to get to it.

I pulled out of Muskegon State Park around noon on Wednesday because I only had a short haul to the next campground. I was heading to a KOA at Coloma/St. Joseph. There wasn't anything to explore in the area but I chose it because I wanted full hookups (water/electric/sewer) and a nice laundry so I could get Liberty ready for the FROG Rally (more on that later). The campground was just off of the highway and easy to find. The site was a pull-thru which made getting in very easy. It took about 40 feet of my sewer hoses to get to the connection but that was OK because I carry 55 feet. The laundry was clean and no waiting line when I got there. The campground was quiet, the grass and limbs trimmed and the people were polite.



Nice looking campground

You can see Liberty down at the end on the right

Now the bad part. As I was hitching up to leave, I noticed a couple nails in the campsite drive. I started looking around near Freedom and Liberty's tires. Within a few minutes, I picked up an assortment of 8 nails, screws and wire. I needed to re-position Freedom to hitch up so I drove to the office and told them what I found. The older lady was on the phone and the younger girl said she would make a note of it. The older lady looked down but did not seem surprised. I left and finished hitching up. As I was removing the last tire chock, I found two more nails and a piece of barbed wire. I took a picture of these since I didn't take one of the first batch. I completed hitching up and stopped at the office to give them the last handful. By this time the older lady was off the phone and said, "yes, we know about it, it came with the gravel." I was shocked that they were aware of it. Had I have known, I would never have risked parking there. I said a few choice words and left (I may be banned from KOA's now :) ). Before leaving the campground I inspected all of my tires completely and didn't find anything. I have been monitoring the Tire Pressure regularly and haven't noticed a drop. I think and hope I dodged this tire bullet too.

Last handful of nails, etc I picked up

From here I'm heading to the FROG Rally at Goshen, Indiana. That will be in the next post.

Ya'll take care of each other. Cya down the road.