Day 29-August 3, 2014-Seney National Wildlife Refuge
A beautiful day again, high of 77, sunny except for some rain in the afternoon, which didn’t last long.
The water on the lake is like glass in the morning.
Drove up route 2 to a beach on Lake Michigan which had a great view of a lighthouse but the water had some gunk on it that looked like sludge. One of the local people said it wasn’t like that any other place and they didn’t know what it was.
We then went north on 77 to Germfask and the Seney National Wildlife Refuge. Stopped first in the visitor center to see what there was to see and got an overview of the refuge. We drove the 7 mile Marshland Wildlife Drive, a narrow gravel road which took almost 2 hours, although we stopped along the way for lunch at a great lookout. Saw lots of trumpeter swans, which do sound like trumpets, some loons, chipmunks, butterflies, an eagle’s nest, Canada geese, turtles sunning themselves on logs and one huge blue heron that scared us almost as much as we scared it as it flew away when we came around a curve. Pretty ferns and cattails around the ponds amid big hardwood and pine trees. Beautiful lily pads all in bloom in the crystal clear water.
As we were eating lunch Heather called from England and I found it hard to believe that we had cell service in the refuge and that she sounded like she was next door. Especially since we have spotty cell service at the resort.
After we left the refuge we turned north again to check out the town of Seney which, even though it’s at the crossroads of two major highways, route 77 and route 28, many of the buildings were boarded up or for sale. It looked like the town that time forgot.
On the way back to the resort we had some thunder, lightning and rain which helped to get some of the dust off the truck. It had stopped by the time we got back. After dinner John & Carol, who live here and are friends of Jon & Karla stopped by to say hi and give us some blueberry muffins for breakfast. The Rummikub tournament continued but we had to pause in the middle to teach some nasty mosquitoes a lesson with our new fly zapper. They haven’t bothered us until tonight, maybe the rain woke them up.