When do you ever stop 'learning' and 'adapting' on camping trips? This was our fourth trip and somewhat different in that we used the camper as a motel of sorts while visiting my sister in Lansing Michigan. It was my nieces' 1st birthday and we had not seen their house yet, so this was the perfect opportunity for a visit.

Cottonwood Campground is the only campground in Lansing and literally minutes from Cheryl's house. The cost was okay, though they charged extra if you wanted to run your air (1.50 a day)...it would be interesting to see if other, colder climate areas, do the same. I am sure this keeps their electric prices down, though I am not sure how'd they enforce it.

Randy was not too impressed with the campground, but admitted that judging it after visiting Lake Rudolph, really wasn't fair. (Lake Rudolph has been voted national campground of the year this past year and back in 2005.)

He also noted that we haven't gone on a camping trip, yet, where it hasn't rained. We got a short storm Saturday morning as we woke up. No damage and it cooled the day down considerably.

We spent Friday afternoon and evening with Cheryl and her family. The kids got to swim, hit the playground, and have a 'cookout' including making S'Mores over the fire. This was nothing new to them as they visit their family's cottage in northern Michigan several times each summer, but it was still nice to give them a taste of what we do when we camp.

Saturday was spent at Abby's softball tournament. They had not won a game all season due to a mismatch error with teams; however they remedied the problem for purposes of the tournament and they won! We were so proud of her. We also were able to visit MSU's new baseball stadium and view my brother-in-law's pic on the Wall of Fame at a sporting restaurant for MSU. The head coach's actually have a private room for viewing and eatting. We were quite impressed with Jake and I think he was happy to finally be able to show off his new digs.

Now to the 'learning' part of the trip. After the sewer mishap at Lake Rudolph, we apparently threw the attachments to the sewer hose away by mistake. So when we were setting up camp, we couldn't do anything with the sewer. Thank God for WalMart. Cheryl took us Saturday and we bought the whole set up...unfortunately the hose was too short, so we tried to join the two hoses with a coupler...putting those little suckers together is quite the challenge and tried my husband's patience. It didn't help that we were trying to do this in the dark. When Randy finally 'got it all together' and pulled the valve, the hoses came apart at the coupler. Stinky. He finally gave up after hours of trying. The next morning, we were able to use our original hose with the new attachments (the new hose had been destroyed). Lesson learned? Make sure you use your checklist before you leave the house and when you are losing ur patience, walk away and it almost looks better in the morning :)

This was our longest trip to date. Four hours is a long time to drive, though we did stop for lunch on the way back. We have decided to upgrade our camper after next year, but I am still thrilled with what we have and the adventures we have had so far. Next trip will be sometime in September, after Mary Alice is born.