After the fox hunt, we had a down
day. Mark invited us to go shooting on the farm, so we
loaded up and headed over to his range. When we left
Herrin, we headed north toward South Bend to visit our
neighbors Brian
and Kait.
We realized that we were only a few miles from Michigan
and given that
neither Kathleen nor I had been to Michigan, we
decided to check it out.
The photos below are what we saw.
Mark has plenty of land,
so he has built a shooting shack to test and sight his guns.
The far backstop is 200
yards from the bench. The hay bale is 40 yards and the
target stand at 15 yards. We each shot handguns at the
target.
Mark had placed the target
on-center on the stand and my .45 did a good job of totally
destroying the 4x4 post behind the panel.
After we were done with
the pistols, Mark brought out his custom .308 built on an AR
frame.
Gail had to pose with her
best frown-face. But trust me, behind that frown-face is
a great personality and a heart of gold.
The lower right target
shows Mark's final group. The rifle is still shooting a
bit high for the distance we chose, but likely right-on for
200-300 yards.
Kathleen
tries Mark's new "air bow". This is a compressed air
driven device that is a cross between a bow and a rifle.
The penitentiary at
Marion, IL. This is a great place -- to avoid. Plenty
of guard towers, lights and razor wire, not to mention the
great clientele.
Further north, we passed
the remains of an RV that had crashed in the center divider.
Not much left. RVs are not known for their crash-worthiness.
We continued north to
Fishers, IN to visit some of Kathleen's college buddies.
Outside Fishers, we spotted this huge vehicle working an
accident on the freeway. There were some folks trapped
in a wrecked car.
We spent the night at a
really low-budget camp ground that was close to our meeting
place the following morning. After a lunch with
Kathleen's buddy, we continued north to South Bend, IN to
visit our friends Kait and Brian. After a great night in
South Bend, we continued north past Benton Harbor, MI and
followed the Lake Michigan coast line. We stopped at a
small park that had beach access and saw the somewhat limited
areas that pass for beaches here.
Continuing north near
Muskegeon, MI we spotted this Unimog from the highway so we
went to investigate. We spoke to the owner at length and
gave him some maintenance tips and then continued north.
Our destination for the
day was Silver Lake State Park. Silver Lake is an inlet
from Lake Michigan and has dunes as well as a nice camping
area.
Silver Lake Dunes were
visible across the lake. These are big dunes, but
nowhere near as big as the Altar Desert in northern Sonora,
MX. Note the structures at the right of the photo above
as a reference for size.
Camping was an open area
although they did have electrical connections. Sadly for
the campers in the next site, they chose to put their tent
next to the electrical so Thor was right next to them.
Sunset brought nice colors
and the reflections highlighted a fisherman returning to port.
This panorama of the dunes
puts things into perspective. The dunes were between the
inlet bay and Lake Michigan.
One of the campers brought
his fishing boat. Campers were allowed to tie-up on the
shore next to their campsite.
Further north, we passed
Manistee, MI and spotted this old steam-powered ferry.
Continuing north on the
coast road we came upon a view point that afforded a somewhat
hazy view of Lake Michigan.
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Photos and Text Copyright Bill Caid 2017, all rights
reserved.
For your enjoyment only, not for commercial use.