Monday, August 28, 2023

Bitely, Michigan: Nichols Lake National Forest Campground

July 2023, Nichols Lake National Forest South Campground, site 27

Campsite 27 in Nichol's Lake South Campground


Location and arrival

This campground is on the south side of Nichol's Lake, just west of M-37. The campground has 28 primitive campsites (that we saw). The reservation site says there are 29 campsites in this park, and the US Forest service website says there are 30. We only saw sites 1 -28. Some sites are available first come, first serve, and some can be reserved through the recreation.gov reservation site. We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and more than half the sites were available. We could not choose an empty reservable site, however, because the host at this campground does not update the status like other national parks we have been to. Usually, the host has contact and posts signs on sites with upcoming reservation dates. If there is no reservation for the current night, then someone else can rent it. When we arrived, there were about 5 empty reservable sites with previous dates on the posts, and no upcoming dates. We were only staying one night, so I asked the host if it was okay to take once of the vacated sites that did not have an upcoming reservation tag on it. He said those sites can only be reserved. So, we moved down to campsite 27.

Campsite 27 in Nichol's Lake South Campground

Wednesday, August 23, 2023

Shenandoah National Park in Front Royal, Virginia

June 2023

Above: view from vehicle on Skyline Drive
Below: Jeremy's Run Overlook

I am quite far behind with my travel sharing; this is just a brief post to share some photos of our drive through Shenandoah National Park in June of this year. 

Above: Hogwallow Flats Overlook on Skyline Drive
Below: Little Devil's Stairs Overlook

We traveled Skyline Drive from Front Royal to Tunnel Parking Overlook and back. There is a National Park entrance fee to drive this road.