April 2018, Weekend, 2-nights, campsite 69
We had a late start to camping in Michigan this year, as it snowed several days in April! We still had a couple of small piles of snow in our front yard when we left for our camping trip at the end of April, which is quite unusual.
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| Sunset from campsite at Bay City State Recreation Area |
Bay City State Recreation Area advance reservations and check-in
We were initially undecided about making an advance reservation once we decided we were going camping. There is an $8 reservation fee, and there was not really a need to reserve a site, as most of the sites were available. Also, we had never been to this park before, and some of the online information was inaccurate, so it was difficult to decide. Site numbers had been changed from 2017 to 2018, and some of the photos were obviously incorrect for the corresponding sites. On the other hand, it is always quicker and easier when we arrive, if we already have a reservation. I decided to call the campground to ask about a few of the sites we had been considering. By the end of the conversation, I learned that if we did not like our site after we arrived, we could call to have it changed, without having to drive back to the office. We decided to reserve site 68 online.
Check-in time is 3:00 PM, and we arrived in the morning. The campground was mostly empty, and we were allowed to check-in early. When we arrived at site 68, we saw that this is a lousy site (details under the campsite heading below). Site 69 is a good site, and we successfully got our site changed over the telephone.
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| Center sites looking east from bathroom. Our RV on site 69 in distance. |
Campsites 68, 69, 70, 71, 183, 185, and more
The ground is low in this campground, and more than half of the sites were underwater at the time of our visit. Some of the site descriptions say that the site is low; however, we observed many sites underwater with descriptions that did not describe the ground as low. The rainfall received in the area at the time of our stay was a bit less than usual for this time of year.
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| Same center section from opposite road. Looking across sites 77 and 79. |
