The next part of our trip was to find a place for the 4th of July. We left Pentwater on Friday after doing some more repairs on the furler. We had to go to the artisan center again and get some stainless steel cut and drilled. Katie had not been there on the last trip but came along this time. She now would like to move here. She feels a little kinship with this town of 800 having come from Wild Rose a town of 600. We set off for Ludington about 1:30 and got in about 4:30. We stayed at the Municipal Marina this time. It was very nice. It was only a dollar a foot for slip fees. Cheaper than a motel room. We got on our bikes right away and headed for a hardware store. It is a good thing that Mary Patterson had talked us into buying the fold up bikes. The hardware store was 2 miles down the road. We got our stuff and came back in time to check out the farmers market and stop at Lucianos' for dinner.

The next day we took care of some chores. Katie did laundry right at the marina. They had a beautiful set up for showers, laundry and access to the town. Jeff got the dinghy back in the water and all set up with the motor on it. We had bought a spark plug wrench but it was kind of a cheap one and we couldn't get the spark plugs off. So we tried to start the engine anyway. It had been flipped over on the back of the dinghy and dragged for about a half hour. It was a little reluctant but after a couple dozen pulls it fired right up. Jeff went for a ride while Katie took a nap. The Badger Ferry that goes from Ludington to Manitowoc was in harbor and pulling out as he motored around the harbor. The engine ran great. We later went for a bike ride into town and bought a capo for his guitar. We saw the "Jesus Guitar". There is a guitar made of spalted maple that has what looks to be the face of Jesus in it. We also checked out the art fair that was in town. It was large and real nice. Katie bought a new purse and a ceramic soap dish for the new bathroom at home. We met John and Sandy on an older Chris Craft next door to us. They were having family come in tomorrow for the 4th of July. A bunch of their friends had come in from Holland Michigan where they used to keep their boat. Jeff started playing his guitar again. He had been so busy working on the boat that he hadn't played in several months.
We decided to stay in Ludington for the 4th of July. We learned that they were having a parade just 2 blocks away. We thought it was at 10:30 so we took our bikes and some chairs and went to the parade. It turns out that the parade wasn't until 1:30 but people were saving spots to watch the parade. We saved our spot and headed to the light house. It is a ½ mile out on a jetty and was open for viewing. We went up in it and met some people from Virginia that were there to give tours and work as light house keepers. It would be a fun thing to do for awhile. We may give that a try sometime. Any how we got some good pictures and went back to get some lunch. It ended up being an ice cream cone from the House of Flavors, a popular place in Michigan. It turns out that we went to the headquarters for our lunch. It was busy with everyone being in town for the parade.
We found our chairs and got ready for the parade. We hadn't been to 4th of July parade in a long time. This thing was a big deal here. There were thousands of people watching. It was 3 miles long and would last for about an hour and a half. There was a jet fly over for the start of the parade and of course the military was at the head of the parade. One of the highlights was the 2 semis full of ice cream. The House of Flavors had 2 semis handing out pints of ice cream to anyone that wanted some. It was a delicious Butter Pecan. We shared one even though we had already had an ice cream cone. Jeff had to have a hot dog and found a stand selling those with the works. No parade would be complete with out the politicians in it. There was an RV all painted up in Michigan Blue and Maize followed by a pick up truck towing a trailer with an old rusted out school bus from about 1940. Duct taped on the side was a sign that was falling off that said Ohio State. It was quite funny. The hightlight of the whole parade was the clown band at the end. They were a great sounding band and full of funny clowns. We got a bunch of pictures of them.
That afternoon we went down to the beach after the parade to cool off in the lake. The sand is beautiful and the water was real clean. It is so nice swimming in clean fresh water. There was a little bit of a surf coming in so we had some fun waves to jump into also. The day was wrapped up with a great fireworks show right off the back of our boat. We were in the perfect spot to watch a great fireworks show. It was a little breeze but it was real good. This was an interesting way to spend the fourth of July.