Deckerville

August 5th through August 6th, 2006

Saturday, August 5^th - 82º, Mostly Sunny

    Tara, Sam, Drew, & I got up this morning around 8:00am to get ready to drive north for the Deckerville Homecoming. We left our house to pick up donuts for Sundays breakfast before heading out of Holly around 9:45am. We had a smooth drive up, making it to Deckerville around 11:30am, just in time for the 12:00pm parade. Sherry Kenny, Dad, Mom, & Tyler met us there, after coming up on Friday to attend the tractor pull. We enjoyed the parade, which lasted about an hour, as the kids collected two pretty decent sized bags of candy (including many, many Tootsie Rolls).

    At the conclusion of the parade, we headed to the west end of town to eat at “Champions”, which is a local sports bar type restaurant. Although the food was acceptable, it wasn’t outstanding either. The worst part was the wait, which seemed to take forever.

    After eating, Mom and Sherry took Drew for a ride to run some errands, while the rest of us went into the downtown area for the annual car show. We didn’t spend much time there this year, as the car show wasn’t as full as the past few years. The kids and Tara were disappointed as the craft show was so lightly attended earlier in the day that they had packed up earlier and headed out.

    Once we had perused the car show and Dad had chatted with a few people that he knew, we loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly… oops wrong show. We actually went back to Forester Park to the new fifth wheel to wait for Sherry, Mom, and Drew to return from their trip. While waiting we started to watch the movie “Eight Below”. During the movie we were interrupted by a visit from Patty, Dick & Lois, who stopped by to check out the new camper. During their visit Mom, Sherry, and Drew returned and visited for a while. Once our visitors’ left, we headed out “Williams Inn” in Harbor Beach for dinner.

    With our stomachs full, we left the restaurant and stopped at “White Rock Park”, a scenic lookout along M-25 north of Deckerville Road. Several years ago we took a picture of Tyler & Sam at this park that we really liked, so we thought we might try again. From there we had back to the park, where we then took the kids up the store for an ice cream cone. After they had those finished, we started “Pirates of the Caribbean” before heading to bed for the night.

Sunday, August 6^th - 88º, Sunny

    I woke up around 8:00am this morning, but sat quietly looking at magazines until everyone else awake around 9:00am. We had the donuts that we bought yesterday for breakfast, and generally spent the morning packing. Sherry had to fly out today, so Tara and I volunteered to drive her to the airport (Detroit Metro, this time, due to a rescheduled flight). Tyler and Sam also decided that they wanted to ride along too. We packed the Trailblazer with most of our stuff and all of Sherry’s and pulled out of the campground around 11:00am.

    Our drive to the airport was pretty smooth. We stopped for lunch in Imlay City (McDonalds for the kids and Sherry, Taco Bell for Tara & I). Our only other stop was along US-23 near M-14 to use the restroom (the large pop from lunch had to catch up with me sometime).

    We made it to the airport around 2:45pm; just before the 3:00pm goal we had set for ourselves. We parked and got Sherry her boarding pass and seat assignment. We were a little worried about her bags (one checked in at 46 pounds, the other at 9 – and that was probably 6 pounds of bag and 3 pounds of potato chips) when we saw other passengers being told to lighten theirs. She managed to pass with flying colors, however. We stuck around the airport for a short while, until she got through security and into the waiting area near her gate.

    On our way back home, we made a stop at Camping World to return an item purchased earlier this year and to pick up an outdoor rug for Dad & Mom’s new camper. We wandered around the store for a while to check things out, but mainly to make sure Sherry didn’t call with any problems at the airport. When we were certain that everything was ok with her flight, we headed back home.

    We stopped at my parents to pick up the rest of our stuff from the camper, as well as give them their rug. While we were there, we ate dinner. We had steak, baked potatoes, and corn-on-the-cob that Mom had bought. After our meal we headed to our home to unpack and call it a night.

Trip Summary

    This trip was a little more rushed than we would prefer for camping. With Tara & Sam having a party to attend Friday night and my having to work (I need to remember to be more judicious with my vacation time next year), we didn’t really have much time to spend at the campground. In fact, we didn’t get any outside stuff out at all this time – didn’t even unroll the awning. On top of how busy we were on Saturday, Sunday was shortened by having to take Sherry to the airport, although that didn’t affect our camping, as checkout was 11:00am anyway. Besides, it was great having her with us for the week. I’m sure that we will plan to do this again next year, but to actually spend more time there.