9/16/08 Apostle Islands, Wisconsin, Ron’s Repair Shop Washburn, WI, Paulding, MI

Captain’s Blog

Once again we awoke to a magnificent sunrise. The weather is much warmer today at 75 degrees and bright sunshine.

We are in a quandary because of the flooding in areas we had planned to visit next. Chicago is out and we will be heading into Michigan. We’re not sure about the Detroit area and will be calling my brother and our friends the Soloman’s to see if it is safe to stop in. I know many of the counties have been declared a disaster, Wayne County being one of them. That is where my niece, brother and the Soloman’s live.
We’re considering a stop in Paulding again and perhaps back to Picture Rocks. Both are in the Upper Peninsula, a place we’ve been and love so revisiting will be a bonus for us. Hopefully this will give the Detroit area time to dry out from the flooding.

Well, once again Ron noticed that the tow hitch on the car was loose. We are pretty much in the middle of nowhere and Ron is unable to tighten the blots this time??? The owner of the campground sent us to Ron’s Auto Repair 10 miles down the road. Ron the mechanic took us right away for which we are very pleased. As I sit and update the blog our Jeep is being repaired. It seems they have to pull the front end of the Jeep off to fix the tow plate. Oh, the fun of it all. On the bright side we are in our home away from home, the day is sunny with a great breeze, we are all together and the mechanics here seem to be very capable. Two hours later with the tow plate bolts tightened and a bill for $117.00 (a bargain for the work involved) we are on our way.

We arrived in Paulding around 7 PM and got a site at the Bond Falls Campground overlooking the reservoir. The water level was extremely low because the UP has had very little rain this year. Most of the sites at the campground have been closed. I think they are planning on closing the campground permanently. We feel lucky that we have been able to stay here more then once.

After dinner we sat by the campfire and enjoyed the sunset. We waited for nightfall to ride down the road to view the Paulding Light. Once again it did not fail to intrigue us. The light was bright white bouncing from side to side and appearing as if it was coming at us like a 3-D movie. The light would change to red and then fade only to return as a bright white orb. To date, no one has been able to explain the light or its origin. As before there were at least 20 people viewing the light with a steady stream of additional people coming and going.

We returned to our campsite around 11 pm and since we had no utilities we went to bed. The only light in the area was the light from the full moon. Quite spectacular I might say.