We have a camper

We trekked across Michigan and back today, picked up the new camper, and right now we're ensconced at Van Buren State Park on Lake Michigan. (So far on this trip the only time we have actually laid eyes on Lake Michigan is when we took a wrong turn and drove through the town of South Haven, just up the road. It's amazing how close you can be to something so big, and never actually see it. Sounds like a good metaphor for something.) It's Saturday evening and we've had dinner (pizza in the half-time oven), and we have no cell phone service so this won't get posted until we head out tomorrow.

This campground is quite pretty but we didn't notice until we were all parked that there is no water at the campsites. If we had realized that we could have filled the tank up before we parked. But now we are stuck unable to use the kitchen or bathroom. I guess I don't get to try out the shower until Monday morning.

This camper is so much easier to use than our first one. The front jacks are hydraulic, rather than Tom having to crank it up and down by hand. The water heater is started and stopped with a switch inside, rather than having to go outside and fool with getting the pilot to light by pressing a button and counting to 45 and watching when you let go whether the pilot takes or not. It has big windows all around the rear of the unit, and we have a roof ladder!

The interior storage is not very convenient, which we knew. It's kind of funny because storage was almost nonexistent in our first unit, nevertheless you find yourself thinking how the new unit should really have this or that feature, even though you managed to get along without it before.

This one is quite a bit roomier. The outside storage is much, much better than we had before, I think. (Maybe when we start filling it up I'll change my mind. It's all in one big space on this one, the other unit had pockets of space all over.)

We headed right into a pretty fierce wind when we left the dealership. I think it handled pretty well, considering. It is definitely bigger (6 ft) and heavier than the first one. It has much larger storage for "gray water," which means we can actually use the shower. And the shower is like a real shower, not a little plastic compartment with a glorified kitchen sink sprayer in it! (I know, why even bother to call it camping!)

Anyway, we didn't bring a lot of stuff, but what we did bring is stowed in drawers and cabinets to start out with. Tomorrow we're going to get through Chicago and stop somewhere around the Dells. (I still want to know what a dell is. And do you see any when you go to the Dells?)