We started the day by going to a casino located a couple miles from our camp spot with the intention of going to the breakfast buffet touted by our campground hosts. We arrived at the casino by 10:00 or so and checked in with the casino’s freebies desk. They dutifully took our I.D.s and gave us gambler cards with a bonus $5.00 credit on each. We took our credits over to some machines that appear to be slot machines, in some respects. They do not have a lever for the sucker to pull located on the side of the machine.
After aimlessly farting around by sticking our newly acquired cards into the slot for money instead of the slot for cards, we were rewarded by the machines ignoring us. A slot attendant came up and showed us idiots how to play the credits but who was woefully uninformative about how to play the game. Soon, our credits had vanished back into the casino’s virtual bank of non-existent things. We headed for the buffet, arriving only 5 minutes after access to the buffet was curtailed. So much for the highly-touted breakfast buffet which apparently only operates for some small number of minutes per day. The hostess offered us food off the regular menu and we took her up on it. I got steak and eggs for about $10.00 which was quite good for the price. Peggy got eggs and what turned out to be ham, bacon and sausage although she was only expecting one meat ration. She thought her food was pretty good, too.
From our visit to the casino we took off on a little mapless, destination-free ramble along the shores of Lake Michigan. There are much nicer houses here than on Lake Superior. Peggy drove us on a thoroughly confusing and circuitous course through the UP countryside. We got to see a whole bunch of ducklings hanging out on top of a crater-shaped rock in Lake Brevort. When their folks came around and summoned them, they hopped into the lake in a nice, obedient line and were escorted through a raft of seagulls by their folks. The seagulls did not give the ducklings any shit while their parents were around although I wouldn’t trust ’em when you are not looking. Brevort extends right close to St. Ignatz but drains entirely into Lake Michigan about 15 miles away. Lots of water up here. The folks in California would kill for some of the water here.
Peggy whipped up another of her tasty dinners while I did the outside-the-trailer preparation for our drive to Iron Mountain, MI tomorrow. I’m sure the folks around here consider this part of the world as gorgeous. I would have a tendency to disagree. The spot is quite touristy with many money-sucking attractions. The local countryside, at least that portion visible from roads, is quite monotonous with tiny conifer and hardwood trees lining both sides of the road except in those portions where it is swampy. I probably won’t make the effort to visit again. It just didn’t turn out to be one of our favorite spots. We did get a lot of looks at Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior and they were terrific. It is quite acceptable here in summer but winter here is formidable and only those who choose lifestyles involving snowmobiles hang around the area. I suppose there are also cadres of ice fishermen.