At the Tip of the Thumb, Caseville MI [Lake Huron] (July 7-9, 2014)

The Place

When you look at a map of Michigan, the lower part is shaped like a mitten.  The eastern side of the state is bordered by Lake Huron.  The thumb is separated from the rest of the mitten by Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron.  The coast along the tip of the thumb is dotted by 2 state parks, 4 county parks and vacation homes.  We stayed in Caseville at a county park.

As we traveled up the center of the thumb, we noticed many huge wind turbines in the fields of the farms.  Hmmm, there must be a lot of wind up here.  When we looked it up later we found that there were over 300 such turbines on the tip of the thumb.    When we arrived in Caseville, there was a nice breeze.  The next morning we had a rainstorm followed by very strong winds.  The morning after, it was still windy.  Yup, there is a lot of wind up here.

The Adventure

Caseville is a small Michigan town set up for visitors.  Every June they have the “Ribstock” country music and barbeque ribs festival. Every August is the “Cheeseburger in Caseville” festival reminiscent of Jimmy Buffet .  The names of the businesses in town reflect the same sense of humor – Key North Surf Shop, Thumb Micro-brewery, Brew Moon coffee shop.  The Bay Theater has cute murals decorating its outer walls.  

On a rainy/windy day, we took a walk to town.  The Pigeon River winds its way through town.  Its banks have been reinforced, and boats are docked alongside, the whole length of the river in town.  It isn’t a wide river, so the boats are docked side by side each other.  A long, sturdy break wall extends out into the Lake protecting the mouth of the river.

The Lake

When you are looking at a map of the Great Lakes, Lake Huron is the center one – third from either left (west) or right (east).  It is the third largest lake by volume and the second largest by surface area, and has the longest shoreline of the Great Lakes, counting the shorelines of its 30,000 islands.   Lake Huron has two large bays – Saginaw Bay (where we stayed) and Georgian Bay which is in Canada.  Georgian Bay itself is large enough that it could be counted as one of the 20 largest lakes in the world.

Statistics

http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/basicinfo.html

http://www.great-lakes.net/lakes/ref/huronfact.html