Winds Howling

It’s Labor Day. Cam and I used the long weekend to visit Newaygo, a small city tucked into a quiet corner of northern Michigan. You can usually tell a city is in the middle of nowhere if the county is named after it, as it is here. It’s sort of between things, a dot of city in the forest between much bigger cities.

We first learned about Newaygo earlier this summer, when we passed through it on the way home from a camping trip at Silver Lake State Park. I used to live just north of here, so I was familiar with Newaygo as a place name and a word on signs, but had no idea there’s actually a pretty nice little town here. There was more to explore than we had time for that day, so we vowed to come back, and that day already came.

While we were in Newaygo, we:

…stumbled an ongoing lumberjack competition, part of the “Logging Festival.”

…admired some hydroelectric works by the township of Croton.

…camped at Happy Camper Campground and played with their chickens.

…got breakfast at the River Stop Cafe.

…browsed the arts and crafts on sale at the Logging Festival.

…got to explore the local history museum! Even though Google Maps said it would be closed, they opened it up because the Logging Festival brought so much foot traffic the previous day. I was fully expecting to have to come all the way back here on a day it would be open.

…walked up to the school overlooking the city.

…drank beer at Newaygo Brewing Company.

…watched a parade go by.

…met Gregor the Eagle.

…camped at Newaygo State Park.

I plan on doing at least a couple more posts going into some of these items in more detail. I’ve got to stop promising future posts, though — I’m not sure I’ve actually written any of the posts I’ve teased.