Copper Harbor, MI
A week has passed! How could that be? We haven't done anything -- at least nothing of redeeming social value. While the rest of the country has sweltered -- including Jackson OH and even the next county, Copper Harbor has remained consistently at about room temperature -- 70 +/- 5 degrees. There usually has been a significant breeze, if not outright wind. Our activities have been basal: walk the dogs, eat monastically minimal meals, read and type, nap (involuntarily), go into "town" (a couple of hundred people including the tourists) all of a mile away to pick up a pasty for supper and a Jilbert's ice cream cone, mail cards and letters, and do our interneting. Once we drove up Brockway Mountain to get a cell signal, and of course once we visited the monks at the Transfiguration monastery to buy some jams and their monstrous, lethal muffins.

Excitement has consisted of a family of three bears (honest!) who have been hanging around the campground mooching from coolers.

The park rangers gave a "bear lecture" to every incoming camper. So every night the campers carried their flashlights when they went out to the bathroom. Plus everyone had to watch carefully where they walked -- the bear left piles of scat indiscriminately:


Four days ago the rangers set up a bear trap (it obviously had been used before) between the playground and the campsites.


At first nothing happened, but yesterday morning when we got up we learned the bear had been caught during the night and was on his way to Traverse Bay. Hopefully the other two bears will keep their distance.

Then when everyone relaxed, in the afternoon the rangers posted signs on all the water faucets around the campground -- it seems the previous day's testing had shown too many coliforms in the campground water supply. Suddenly everyone had to drive at least a half mile to get drinking water. Next the sewer macerator went out, reducing all the campers to using a couple of outhouses on the north side of the campground. Not until this afternoon did the flush toilets all become usable again.

What next?