Saturday, June 6, 2009
Soaring Eagle Casino, Mt Pleasant, MI: May 12-14
It's a well-known fact in RVing circles that casinos are often good places to park. We know of quite a few RVers who park in "box store" parking lots (usually Wal-Marts) overnight, but they normally travel farther in a day than we do. We frequently arrive at our destination & set up by 2pm, and it just seems wrong sitting in a Wal-Mart parking lot all afternoon. Casinos not only allow overnight parking for RVs, they actively encourage it, knowing that a good percentage of RVers will drop a few bucks gambling. As it turned out this casino actually paid us to park there, since they give each new player $10 in free promotional bucks (which can only be played on slots, not cashed out), so after we went through our $20 we ended up with $13 in "real" money (which gives you a good idea of your return on investment there). We promptly pocketed our winnings & went on our way.
We walked around historic Mt Pleasant, which is a very nice little town, although there's no mountain within 100 miles, pleasant or otherwise. We chatted with one shopkeeper about the economic downturn, which has hit Michigan especially hard, and bought a half-price Laurel Burch bag from her. We learned that this county was not suffering at all. It is among the most prosperous (government-wise) in Michigan, due to their housing all the excess prisoners from the Detroit area for a fee. This unfortunately had the negative effect of raising the crime rate, due to unsavory visitors. She told us to be sure to check out the museum (actually a culture center) at the casino (actually a resort). The Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways is not advertised in any of the resort literature, but is truly worth a visit. It portrays the history of the Anishinabe (Chippewa) people from their migration from the east coast to their disastrous interaction with white men and their resurgence in modern days. There was also a special display of their bead & leather work. We had planned to only spend 2 nights here but were happy we stayed an extra day (due to high winds) so that we had a chance to visit this special place.
We walked around historic Mt Pleasant, which is a very nice little town, although there's no mountain within 100 miles, pleasant or otherwise. We chatted with one shopkeeper about the economic downturn, which has hit Michigan especially hard, and bought a half-price Laurel Burch bag from her. We learned that this county was not suffering at all. It is among the most prosperous (government-wise) in Michigan, due to their housing all the excess prisoners from the Detroit area for a fee. This unfortunately had the negative effect of raising the crime rate, due to unsavory visitors. She told us to be sure to check out the museum (actually a culture center) at the casino (actually a resort). The Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture & Lifeways is not advertised in any of the resort literature, but is truly worth a visit. It portrays the history of the Anishinabe (Chippewa) people from their migration from the east coast to their disastrous interaction with white men and their resurgence in modern days. There was also a special display of their bead & leather work. We had planned to only spend 2 nights here but were happy we stayed an extra day (due to high winds) so that we had a chance to visit this special place.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 7:11 AM 
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