Wednesday, June 24, 2015

6/22 Port Crescent and Port Austin, MI

I took the long way around Michigan's "Thumb" today to get to my camping spot for tonight near Port Huron, MI.  My cousins and I grew up playing around what would someday become Port Crescent State Park.  The day use area is now on what we used to call the sand dunes.  The lake here was always sandy and great for water skiing.

Water has been down for the past several years, so grass has grown in on the beach.  Water has been up somewhat, though not to historical levels, for the past couple of years, so not much beach showing.  This is from Port Crescent SP day use area, looking west.




A small path down to the beach.

Part of the remnants of the old sand docks.  Wonder how much if left in the water?  In the late 1800s, it extended several hundred feet to allow big ships to come in to get sand.  Port Crescent was indeed a port and a serious town in the late 1880s until the entire area burned after it was logged over. Remaining buildings were dismantled and taken to other small towns nearby.

Even though the beach was narrow, the water is sparking clean!  That is nice to know because there have been problems with farm fertilizer run-off in the past decade. 

Looking east toward the campground and the point.  I was too lazy to walk to the river, which I should have done to get photos there.

Driving on toward Port Austin.  Look familiar, friends and family?


On the way, I could not resist stopping at Jenks Roadside park.  I had the whole place to myself!  It was clean and very well taken care of.

Looking west along the beach.


More sparking clean water.

Looking east toward the point. Very happy to see a clean beach.


I filled a container with water from the well, but it was so full of rust that it looked cloudy and settled down on the bottom of my container, so I ended up dumping it down my toilet. 

Coming into Port Austin.


One of the more memorable cultural spots in town.




My last stop today was along the eastern side of the Thumb, at a small roadside park.  I had never known about this rock.

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