The local Chamber had over-sold Muskegon on their web site. It was a dirty industrial town, with nowhere to fish unless you had a boat. We rented our site for only one week, which gave us time to scout the area for a better spot to spend the summer. Our efforts led us to Manistee. We reserved our spot in a very nice RV Park and campground and headed back to Muskegon.

At the end of the week we needed a visit from the Honey Wagon. The honey wagon operator was a free-lance entrepreneur. He kept his wagon at the campground and showed up three times a week, charging $5.00 per visit. Lots of RVs have a 40-gallon holding tank and needed three visits a week. With about 50 RVs to visit this guy was making a killing.* The Honey Wagon was a small trailer with a pump and a plastic tank that held about 200 gallons. A hose connected our Poo Tank to his pump. A hose from the pump directed the flow into the top of the tank. He opened our valve and started the pump. A three-inch stream hit the inside of the translucent tank. The tank was empty when he showed up, but as it began to fill, neighbors began to gather. The visuals were enough for me. I watched from inside because I knew that the combination of the visual stimulation coupled with a smell of the operation would surely cause me embarrassment. You could tell the Poo Wrangler was getting nervous, but when the slurry hit the 175-gallon mark, the job was done. He drove away toward the dump station at about 1 MPH. This would be no time to tip the rig over, or to start a tsunami that would leap out of the open top tank.

We ended up with a nice spot at the RV Park in Manistee. We are under a big tree and have another tree that provides evening shade. The Park is also a marina on the Manistee River that dumps into Lake Michigan. The town has a population of about 6,500 and has a restored historic downtown area, which includes a microbrewery. Living in a small town is going to require some adjustments. No Wal-Mart is the biggest problem. Instead of incurring ATM fees, we would go to Wal-Mart and buy something and get $100.00 back from our debit card. Food and gasoline are expensive in Michigan. Butter is $3.75 a pound and gasoline is $1.17 a gallon. I have not been this far north in a long time. It does not get dark here until after 10:00 PM.

Another special thing about Michigan is the deposit on cans. Have you noticed the little announcement on some cans that there is a 10-cent deposit in Michigan? The cans have to be rinsed out and whole, not smashed. You have to take them to a grocery store that has a can gobbler. You feed the can gobbler and it gives you a coupon you can redeem at the cashier. Not everyone rinses out his or her cans, so the area around the can gobbler is sticky. While you are feeding the beast your cans, you get glued down to the floor. When you enter the store, until your sticky shoes pick up enough dirt, every step makes a sound like pulling Velcro apart.