Life At Kamp Koon………

Kamp Koon is my hang near Lake Michigan in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Its about 90 minutes NW of Grand Rapids on the edge of the Manistee National Forest and borders the Muskegon State Game area.

I use Kamp Koon primarily as a base kamp from April to November tho sometimes I might stay thru November. Kamp is remote wilderness of mixed coniferous & deciduous forest just off the Muskegon River. It’s my piece of Natural Pantheistic Heaven……..

More to follow
INTJohn

Kamp Koon Background:

Here’s about my 0.57 acre I bought 10 years ago for 400$. It cost me 800$ to have a culvert put in and the property taxes are 22$/year. Last year I added 300$ worth of slag gravel on the previously dirt/mud drive. Sooo after 10 years I have about 1800$ total into it. Yep, 180$/year.

The following below has been copied & pasted from a previous post on this Forum from my “How I Became A Vagabond” thread in the Captains Logs Forum.

This post is about my spot in West Michigan that I use for my Base Camp. It is a small approximately 0.6 of an acre (100' x 250') parcel of wooded/wilderness property that I actually OWN; have a legal & valid title to aforementioned & described piece of Natural Pantheistic Heaven. It is on a paved wilderness road surrounded by a combination of Manistee National Forest; Michigan State Forest and a large tract of private wilderness property. It just happens to be located in a corner of where these 3 different tracts all come together and I got it for 400$ - not a typo - 400$!

How did I aquire it? Well once I made the decision to live off grid few years back I began the process of finding a small inexpensive suitable place where I could hang. I didn't want to park it on National Forest Property and have to keep moving every 2 weex and there was NO EFFING WAY I was going to spend any time in a Campground at 500 to 1000 dollars a month and be surrounded by vacationers - idyut people with screaming kids & yapping dogs that entire suburban world that is just in rv's! - this would have been a qwik trip to prison for me and the only bars I like pour alcohol. I started looking around for some places that were for sale, etc. CHEAP! and remembered this particular isolated vacant parcel of land, the existence of which I had discovered years earlier while researching some deeds for a client.

Now at only 0.6 of an acre it did not meet current modern local zoning ordinance minimum size for a structured/home buildable parcel as it is a 1 acre minimum limit. PERFECT I thought. Only thing its good for is camping on! So who owns it?? So I can approach them about buying it! I get on the computer & dig into the County's Land records and it comes back that The County Treasurer is the legal owner! VOILA! How did the county acquire it? For back taxes!! The previous owner had simply quit paying the taxes on it and it reverted back to Local Governemnt ownership. Now once a year the County is required at Public Auction to sell off any land it has acquired from delinquent taxes so I find out when the Auction is; what the minimum bid is on this parcel blah blah blah so I can bid on this piece and get it...........

In the mean time I'm interested in the history on this parcel as in WHY did the previous owner just simply let this go back to The Gov. The taxes on it were EXTREMELY minimal as in like 25$ YES NOT A TYPO - twenty-five dollars a year. Gawd any1 can pay that Y just essentially give it back to The Gov?????? Y not sell it for at least a couple/few thousand bux? This MAKES NO SENSE INTJohny - I'm saying to myself. WTF is the deal?

The short story answer is this: The guy that owned it had it given to him by his parents years preev. This guy had never married or had any children or siblings. He did in fact have some really distant relatives like 2nd or 3rd cousins etc none of which had any close connections to him and anyway, one day he decides he's had enough of the conscious lifestyle and he hangs himself from this big oak tree thats growing on this parcel. In contacting the local Township Zoning Administrater (who was a retired deputy sherriff) he gave me the entire story about how they estimated he's been hanging there for about 3 days before anyone even discovered the swinging body! Blah blah blah.

So I get the parcel at Auction for 400$ - yes four hundred bux! Anyway it was a well timed albeit inadvertent gesture on the previous owners part as it worked out great for me!

jonny boi livin the dream

My hunting buddy & I bought 13.5 acres in the west U.P. for $1200, selectively logged it didn't cut anything 14" or under unless it improved the stand & made $14k+. His wife found out & got all over him for wasting $600. After the cut she got all over him for not buying more!

Kamp Koon got its name the first fall I had this place..........
That year was a bumper crop of acorns - both white oak and red oak acorns were everywhere and every evening while I am sitting by the kampfire a trio of yearling rakkoons would show up scrounging on the acorns. They were quite a source of amusement and eventually they would end up climbing the very large white oaks around me scurrying along the limbs like big squirrels with short chubby tails playing tag and I would just start laffin my ass off.

Yep, "Kamp Koon" was born........
jonny boi

Upon my return in the spring the first order of business is to stockpile wood for the kampfire.
The wood is generally gathered from the adjacent state forest land but this spring I also got a bunch from a friend’s land a couple miles down the road.







All this wood will last me spring and most if not all of fall.

Also, gotta have an antler tree.
Just sayin
jonny boi

That is a cool story John and nice looking property you got there.

Do you have a well? Or haul your water in?

I have a few acres in northern arizona but no trees or well. Too deep and expensive to dig a well. I'm looking to sell and find a better off grid property.

Looks lovely, John.

I’m a UP/Lake Superior gal, myself, tho I don’t have any property up there it is one of my favorite places in the country.

Great pics John, you did well. I used to hunt very near there before going to the U.P. There got to be too many hunters but I bet you're gone by 11-15.

Fork King said:

Do you have a well? Or haul your water in?

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No well; no electricity.
Have 35 gallon water capacity in my van which lasts me a month. Its Michigan; water is everywhere.

Sooo, I’ve been back at Kamp about 6 weex now. Returned about 2 weex earlier than anticipated; touched on this in another thread.

Around mid Feb I noticed a small bump near my right temple similar to a small pimple and having lived my life as an ultra high risk candidate for skin cancer I’ve always watched for this kind of thing. I thought I’ll have Dr Dawter (she’s an oncologist) check it out end of March when I visit her in North Carolina. Yep, she confirmed my concern saying it was highly suspicious and have it removed and sent to a lab.

Well that cut my winter van beach hopping escapade short and returned to Kamp Koon 1 April. Earliest Dr Dermatologist could see me was 1May which kind of annoyed me as I hoped for something within a week or 2. But, hell who has time for an old man with a potentially fatal disease when you’ve gotta treat all those wrinkles on peri-menopausal women.

Anyway, had the biopsy and came back positive as squamous cell cancer and in a few weex I go back for a Mohs Procedure. It’s not really a big deal & prognosis is excellent. Gotta catch it early.

More to follow
jonny boi

Hmmm, as one who has had a number of basal and squamous cell cancers, and one melanoma, the important thing is to catch them early.

Just from my experience, dermatologists love to schedule us for Mohs procedures, the most expensive and dermatologically intrusive of their options.

Takes an entire day, you have a good sized incision, stitches, etc.

I’ve had three, only one for the melanoma, and if I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have allowed it but for the melanoma.

Melanomas can spread to other parts of your body, and be potentially fatal. The others, not so much unless ignored for years.

A small basal cell or squamous cell can be scooped out in the office, and if it comes back, which none of mine ever have, that can be repeated.

They can also give you something called fluoracil cream, which you can use to treat small and superficial whatever’s.

Which I have done 5-6 times, and they have not come back.

Just sayin, dermatologists like to cut on you. It’s a huge business, those Mohs surgeries, and yours may be necessary but keep your critical thinking cap on.

Life is fatal, no one gets out alive!

WanderingRose said:

Hmmm, as one who has had a number of basal and squamous cell cancers, and one melanoma, the important thing is to catch them early.

Just from my experience, dermatologists love to schedule us for Mohs procedures, the most expensive and dermatologically intrusive of their options.

Takes an entire day, you have a good sized incision, stitches, etc.

I’ve had three, only one for the melanoma, and if I knew then what I know now I wouldn’t have allowed it but for the melanoma.

Melanomas can spread to other parts of your body, and be potentially fatal. The others, not so much unless ignored for years.

A small basal cell or squamous cell can be scooped out in the office, and if it comes back, which none of mine ever have, that can be repeated.

They can also give you something called fluoracil cream, which you can use to treat small and superficial whatever’s.

Which I have done 5-6 times, and they have not come back.

Just sayin, dermatologists like to cut on you. It’s a huge business, those Mohs surgeries, and yours may be necessary but keep your critical thinking cap on.

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Like I wrote:
My Dr Dawter is an oncologist. I get all the inside info from a cancer dr — FREE!
This is my 5 th cancer too; one required 12 weex radiation so I’m like a seasoned vet
Hell, they can cut all they want - get all of it. I dont care bout no stitches or scars. Ain’t like I’m a Hollywood face model.

jonny

Okay, then, but I’ve warned you.

While I’m getting firewood logs in the state forest I always end up wandering around the woods exploring for whatever; similar to when I’m hiking on a beach.

Wherever I’m at I always seem to run into; finding crazy stuff. This spring has been no different as several weex back taking a break from the firewood I stumbled into an old dump site from who knows when and what do I find?

These 3 old milk bottles. Kool, eh? One is from a dairy in Muskegon, one from Traverse City and the other from a dairy in Grand Rapids.

intjonny always finding weird things

So if I happen to be passing through Michigan, can I stay there too?

Believe me anything under an acre gets crowded real quick! Lol!!!

INTJohn said:

While I’m getting firewood logs in the state forest I always end up wandering around the woods exploring for whatever; similar to when I’m hiking on a beach.

Wherever I’m at I always seem to run into; finding crazy stuff. This spring has been no different as several weex back taking a break from the firewood I stumbled into an old dump site from who knows when and what do I find?
View attachment 35542
These 3 old milk bottles. Kool, eh? One is from a dairy in Muskegon, one from Traverse City and the other from a dairy in Grand Rapids.

intjonny always finding weird things

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Look at the bottle tops, if the mold line goes across the top it's the newer was to make them. If it stops on the top of the side & doesn't cross the the top it may be pre 1900 if I remember my 5th grade history class.

Tony's Dream said:

So if I happen to be passing through Michigan, can I stay there too?

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We're 2.5 hrs south & have 40 acres, privacy 120 & 240v, outside water & a cabin on the back of the farm. Let me know.

Tony's Dream said:

So if I happen to be passing through Michigan, can I stay there too?

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Tony baybee……..
Nice try. Kamp Koon is my inner sanctum; there’s only 6 people that have ever been here.

Contrary to my beach bum party like a rock star at the rock & roll beach bars personae where I get my social fix, I’m actually an extremely solitary introverted private person and I gotta be by myself.

But if you ever do traipse thru Michigan, draw a line from Muskegon to Bay City and north of that to Lake Superior there is so much state & national forest land you can pretty much pull over and get lost anywhere.

jonny boi jus sayin