Our second "try out" was to the P. J. Hoffmaster State Park in Muskegon, MI on Lake Michigan near Holland, MI (the Tulip Festival site) and Grand Haven, MI, another beautiful area. We didn’t pick up the motor home until Wednesday morning and spent several hours packing. We packed so quickly that we forgot several things, not the least was Bill’s medications. Now when you get our age that is a major thing….pills, pills, pills! Not good. Anyway, we are making another list of what we forgot this time so that hopefully for the Alaska trip we are more prepared and thorough. Anyway, we arrived at the camp Wednesday around 8PM and the girl said, “You must be site #42”. I said, “Are you psychic?”. And she said, “No, you are the only ones camping tonight!”. Can you believe out of approximately 250 campsites, we were the only ones there. We couldn’t stop laughing. It was so weird knowing you have a whole state park to yourselves!! It was like being the only 2 people left in the world . We walked down to the beach of Lake Michigan Thursday morning and stood in awe at His creation…it was so amazing to see the beautiful water, waves, sand, trees, sky, horizon, NATURE! God’s gift to us mere mortals. Such a humbling, uplifting, inspiring sight --- all that with no sign of anything man made, Nothing! Just His beauty. Such a blessing.
We spent Saturday and Sunday mostly in Holland looking for tulips, windmills & wooden shoes. We did find the wooden shoe factory and were able to observe the making of a wooden shoe and talk to the man “behind the shoe”. Saturday was a day of exploring but Sunday we met friends, Dane & Shannon along with their children, Aubrey & Carson, for worship service and a wonderful dinner at their home. Another great visit.
Then we were off to Windmill Island to tour the original windmill from Holland, Denmark. This windmill was donated to Holland, Michigan as a thank you to the United States for help given Denmark during World War II. It is still a working windmill to this day. As it has been such a wonderful spring, the tulips had already met their prime but as we strolled through Centennial Park we found many beautiful tulips still in bloom of every color imaginable. (except black, they haven’t been able to come up with that one yet!) Sunday evening we watched the sunset over Lake Michigan and had a huge campfire. We sat around the fire making future plans and eating s’mores until midnight! It was such a great fire we hated to douse it.
