This is the “most rustic” of my road trips, spending 5 out of 9 camping nights at sites without electricity and nearby plumbing. Two of those will be on the island, the rest are at state parks. Tonight is one of them.
I’m at J. W. Wells State Park near the mouth of Green Bay. It has a day-use beach, and a fairly large “RV lot”, but also a “rustic” section with a handful of cabins (no electricity) and three campsites. Every time I’ve made reservations here, that’s what I’ve selected.
Yes: “every”. The first time was in 2009, on my first big ride. It was supposed to be my last night of camping, but I was feeling like I’d had enough, and decided to ride on to Manitowoc and catch the ferry a day early. I stopped here and canceled my reservation, and rode on, for one of my longest days on the saddle.
The second time I made a reservation here was last year. Again I canceled on my scheduled arrival day.
I finally made it. And I’m definitely glad I stuck with the rustic sites. Except for one thing.
The rustic sites are kind of a have-it-and-eat-it deal: there are no flush toilets or showers, but you can go to the RV lot and use those. They’re about half a mile apart. I showered last night in Ludington, so this evening as the sun set, I set out for the showers. I then had to wait for a while for one to be free (a lot of people take the same before-bed-shower approach). As u was undressing, I noticed that I’d brought the wrong bag. Instead of the ziplock baggie with my soap. toothbrush, daily meds, and other toiletries, I’d grabbed the ziplock baggie with my ointments, headache pills, etc. they look similar at a glance.
If this had happened last night, a quick walk back to my site would’ve solved it. But there was no way I was going to hike back to the rustic sites at that hour (darkness was already falling) just to get my soap.
So I showered with just hot water, washing away the day’s sweat and sunscreen and bug repellent. And it still feels good.