Wednesday, August 3rd - It was a dark and stormy night

 Last night (Tuesday night) was exciting. We had the TV on the only channel we can receive. Every couple of minutes the weather guy would interrupt programming to warn us hail and high winds in the approaching storm. The weather radar on our phone app did look like the storm might be rough. We had some rain and some wind, but nothing bad. By midnight it had blown through the area.

Around 5 or 6 AM another storm woke me up, and I'm a sound sleeper. Kathy was already up. We got rain and some real wind. We pulled in the slides because we were concerned that the wind might damage the slide toppers.

The down tree limb in the photos below was across the playground from where we are parked. The ends of the branches may have hit the power lines as the limb fell.

Wind debris on the campground street in front of us.

Canopy on the trailer behind us.

I climbed up on the roof of the coach and swept off the small branches and the pine cones that had fallen on it during the night. The ladder on our coach is not full height. It starts about 7' above the ground. The coach had a collapsible "step ladder" in one of the storage bays so I didn't bother including my good folding step ladder...mistake. The collapsible ladder is not tall enough for this old fat guy to get from it onto the lowest rung of the fixed ladder with any  degree of comfort/ease. I managed it, but only because I had Kathy  come hold the ladder while got a knee on the lowest fixed ladder rung and pulled myself up. Up wasn't bad but I didn't care for this method when coming back down. The collapsible ladder will be replaced by my folding step ladder when we get back in MO.

As I walked around the campground I was impressed by the sturdiness of todays tents. I didn't see any tents that had been torn up by the wind.

There are quite a few of the tear drop camper trailers in the park. Some have some interesting attachments.

We only have 30 amp electrical service at the campground so our use of AC is somewhat limited. It was hot (87 degrees, hot for us and our preferred temps) during the day so we went to one of the many beaches to enjoy the cool breeze. 

This little girl was cute as a button. Grandpa was keeping a close eye on her. She was not afraid to walk out into the water.

Grandma, Mom and the Beach Bunny. She was well covered to protect her from the sun; hat, dress & tights.

While at the beach we sat on a park bench, in the shade. It was still to hot to be enjoyable, so we only stayed for maybe a half hour. Then it was on to some interesting stuff. Below is a photo of the active ore loading facility in Marquette. The huge hoppers are fed from above by rail cars. They discharge into freighters using large drop down chutes. There are at least two sets of tracks running the length of the facility. I counted 49 rail cars lined up above the hoppers on just this side.

I hope you can make out the rail cars in the photo below. Also note the "tower" on the right and the enclosed conveyor going up  to the left.

Self unloading freighters must unload material into the bin in the above photo and the conveyor moves the material to the piles shown in the  photo below. I didn't see any signs to indicate the name of the facility receiving the material.

Then it was back home for lunch and the remainder of the afternoon. It was quite windy all afternoon but around 8 PM the wind dropped somewhat and the temperature had dropped to the low 70's so we started a campfire, fueled with the dead branches that had fallen on our campsite during the previous nights storm.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.