Finding Weekend Campground Reservations – 2025-06-18, 19 & 20
One of the little challenges of camping these days is that it’s so popular, especially on weekends. In spite of the wealth of campground facilities, finding a campsite on a weekend can be difficult and this weekend was no exception. So, because we free spirits tend not to plan ahead, we got kinda stuck this weekend and had to find three one-night-stands-in-a-row.
Not that it’s difficult for us to move, it’s just that finding three nights in a row of campsites near Bay City was a challenge. Our first, on Thursday, the 18th, was a free night at a Boondockers Welcome host right in Bay City. We filled half of their driveway in a nice, modest neighborhood.
On the 19th we found a site in Vanderbil County Park & Campground about ten miles south. It was an OK place, mostly the haunt of families who fish. If there was an issue it was the toilet facilities. When we pay for a campsite we hope for something better than a poorly maintained pit toilet.
We found something much better for the following night at Finn Road Park Campground, another county park only five miles south of Bay City but in a different county. Same price as the previous night but this one was immaculate with concrete pads for your RV, really nice bathroom and shower facilities and even sewer hookups at each site!
We witnessed a near tragedy returning to our campground our last evening in Bay City. Nearing our campground, an oncoming SUV suddenly swerved to its right, bounced over a parking lot island, launched over an embankment between two parking lots, taking out two mailboxes while airborne between a tree and a street sign. Landing in the second parking lot, the car came to rest, taking out a large sign and demolishing the vehicle.
Fortunately, the driver, who was going about 40 mph, was not seriously injured. She was wearing her seatbelt and her airbags deployed as they should. But it took a fire rescue team working their jaws of life to pry open the passenger door so they could extricate her. It was a sobering event as, had she swerved the other way, she would have hit us head on!
So, what about Bay City?
Just off Lake Huron, Bay City is bisected by the Saginaw River. The river is navigable for commercial shipping so there are lots of old wharfs along the river. Most of them have been developed by repurposing old buildings, incorporating them into parks or by using them for new development. Much of both sides of the river is now nicely developed waterfront park space. The downtown is vibrant with a wide variety of restaurants and shopping opportunities. There’s even the U.S.S. Edson, a 1950s era destroyer you can tour.
The city has an interesting history. Much of that we found out at an event held in their city museum. The city began as a lumbering town. The Saginaw River has many branches into the interior and the area was forested with a variety of commercially valuable species. Lumbering would take place in the winter when the frozen ground made hauling felled trees to the river’s side easier. When the rivers thawed in the spring, the logs were floated to town where they were sawn into lumber. The city thrived as a major lumber port becoming known as “Lumber Capitol of the World”.
Shipbuilding developed next, constructing ships for the U.S. Navy. These were wooden boats and the Bay City boatyards eventually succumbed to the prominence of steel construction. Not to be put off right away, the DeFoe company managed to hang on, building freighters using wood for framing and sheathing them with steel. They remained competitive because the construction method produced lighter ships able to haul heavier loads.
Then the city turned to building housing. Not site built houses, mind you, but mail order houses. The concept started in Bay City beginning with Sinclair soon to be followed by at least two other prominent builders. Their products ranged from precut, numbered components with the DIYer in mind to kits where the structural elements were largely factory assembled. These were precursors to the famous Sears Roebuck houses. The city still boasts several blocks of these mail order houses.
All this success in industry lead to some rather wealthy people. They liked to build their mansions along Center Avenue and those houses remain lovingly cared for by their current owners. It’s a riot of architectural styles, materials and colors. The avenue is wide and the mansions line the street for several long blocks. It’s a real treat to see them as you enter town from the south on SR-25 as we did.