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The campground we stayed at last night was pretty bad. It was extremely crowded and very noisy, even long after quiet time started. Quiet time is the hour at which campground guests must turn off their music and…be quiet! This is also when children should be in their own RV or tent and in bed. I stayed up late working and there was plenty of noise after midnight, which was over an hour after quite time began.

Around 3:00 a.m. I was startled awake by the sound of a man crying. He was crying very loudly, wailing in fact, and I’m sure the entire campground could hear him. I’ve never heard an adult male cry like that and it was extremely upsetting to me. He wasn’t asking for help. He was just wailing over and over again. I knew something was terribly wrong and instinctively knew that I must NOT go outside to see if he needed help. Thank goodness the children slept through it, though I did wake up Richard because it sounded like it was coming from right outside our bedroom window.

I guessed the man had just learned that his wife left him, or had just had a death in the family…or he was just really drunk. Whatever the cause, it was extremely distressing for not only us but for everyone else at the campground, I’m sure. Somebody finally came out of their RV and asked, “Is everything okay.” I heard a woman say, “No, it’s not.” Then, the crying stopped and we didn’t hear anything more. I had a hard time going back to sleep after that and I didn’t feel very safe at all. After the noise, the music, the drinking around us and the wailing man, we definitely won’t be returning to that campground. I had a bad feeling about it when we arrived and felt much worse by the time we left this morning.

There really are two different types of campgrounds - those that are cheap that attract people who like to drink too much and let their children, regardless of age, run wild all night, and there are those that are “resorts” which, while priced a bit higher, are much better and enforcing their rules and, thus, making their guests feel safe and comfortable.

We stopped by Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford Museum today. I didn’t realize it was more like a large theme park than a museum. It was in the 90’s outside and, while we could leave the generator and air conditioner running for Percy for hours, there really was no easy way for us to leave the park and return to check on him periodically (we typically check every 30 minutes to make sure the generator is still running and that he’s comfortable). So, I stayed in the RV with Percy and worked all afternoon while Richard took the children to the museum and other attractions there. They had a great time and I got a ton of work done in just a few short hours, like finishing up this week’s issue of WritersWeekly.com, getting caught up on my email, and even printing checks to pay the bills. I usually take Sundays off, but I now have a great start on the week and am ahead, so I can do the touristy stuff tomorrow and not get behind.

We left the greater Detroit area (I am NOT a fan of Detroit. It is not an attractive town, in my opinion, and the government here should spend some of the money they’re earning on all those car sales to make this city not so…slummy.) and found ourselves driving through the ghetto. Um, that was fun. We finally got on the right highway, only to discover it was closed to the east. We were detoured to another highway that was slow and full of traffic lights. The detour was long and unnecessary (the freeway was open several miles before the detour routed us back to it) and not only added 30 minutes onto our trip, but costs us several dollars in additional gas as well.

We’re heading to Frankenmuth, MI this evening and will be touring that town tomorrow. Percy will be accompanying us on his leash because it involves walking from shop to shop (or restaurant to restaurant).

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