Greetings everyone! I am writing this post as part of the #wednesdaywalk challenge started by @tattoodjay.

I had to split it into two parts because quite frankly, I took a lot of photos on my walk and I feel it would be too many to share in one post.

Michigan CCC Museum

I took this walk on the first day of Fall. It was a beautiful day as you can see. There was a crisp chill in the air, but the sun was prominent in the sky. I really could go on forever about the weather that day, if you were to imagine the perfect Fall day, this was it.

Across the street from the campground we were staying at is the Michigan CCC museum. Here is a map so you can get an idea of where the site is located in the state of Michigan:

If you are under the age of 40 or just not that familiar with history before World War II, you probably don't know what CCC stands for.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was an initiative started during President Roosevelt's New Deal program.

The idea was to provide unskilled, unmarried men manual labor jobs in the outdoors. This work relief program made vast improvements to the local, state, and federal parks that many of us still take advantage of today.

That state park you love to visit with the awesome walking trail could have been built by CCC workers in the 1930's and 1940's. The old wooden foot bridge in your county park over that little creek could also have been built by CCC workers.

Here are some pictures of the sign that greets you when you step onto the grounds of the museum.

One of the things I love about this museum is it is mostly outdoors. Though I was familiar with it's existence and I have no doubt I probably visited it when I was a kid, the main reason I stumbled upon this place recently is a little more embarassing.

Many of you are probably familar with the Pokemon Go game. While I don't personally play that game, I did play a game before Pokemon Go built by the same company called Ingress.

It just so happens that the CCC museum in Michigan is a hotspot of nodes for the game Ingress. If you visit the grounds you can walk around and hack a small collection of portals all in one place.

I have no doubt since Pokemon Go is built by the same company, there are probably plenty of training areas (or whatever they are called) also on this site.

Anyway, now that I am on Steemit. I thought this would be an awesome opportunity to revisit the park and take some pictures so I could write this post.

After you enter the park and you head left down the trail, you are met with this old fire watch tower. I am going to be honest and tell you that I tried to climb up it. While they don't block off the stairway at all, there was a trap door at the top of the stairway with a pretty hefty padlock on it.

Not wanting to push my luck, I found my way back down the two small stair sections and continued on my way.

The next fire tower that they had on site was a bit more intimidating and they had fenced off the perimeter of the base so that no one would get any crazy ideas. If they knew about my distate for heights, they probably wouldn't have bothered.

I have no doubt there has probably been one or two fearless highschool kids that have jumped the fence and tried to scale the tower though.

Much respect to the brave men who used to man these towers to keep track of forest fires and help protect our natural resources.

Continuing past the fire watch towers, you come to the old packing house a short distance later. While much of the park has kind of fallen into disarray, they do a good job of keeping these buildings painted and looking nice.

I hope these placard pictures are going to publish in a way that is readable for everyone. They do a much better job of explaining what you are looking at in my pictures than I could. Also for fear of plagarism I feel it is better to let them tell the story.

Fun fact though from Wikipedia, over the course of the CCC program it is believed the workers planted close to 3 billion tress across the United States. This was a way to reforest America after the great lumber boom had decimated acres of forest.

The nursery that was located on this location help produce trees that were transported all across the state.

Vintage gas pumps are a really big deal whenever you see them. Many of them can sell for quite a hefty price if you find one in good condition. I knew I had to take a picture of this old pump when I saw it. I had to reduce the quality of my pictures so they would load better on Steemit. The sign on the pump reads this if you wondered: "For use as a motor fuel only contains LEAD (tetraethyl)"

As you leave the site of the packing house, you find yourself heading towards the ice house. This is a cool little building that gives you a glimpse of the way things used to be before mass refrigeration was readily available.

My apologies for my shadow on the sign, as I mentioned the sun was gracing us with its presence on this day and I couldn't find an angle that didn't get part of me in the shot.

Perhaps you can imagine one foot blocks of ice stacked up in here. It is amazing to think that they were able to store the blocks all through the winter just by using saw dust as insulation. It is funny the things we take for granted these days.

This is where I am going to leave you for today. There is still quite a bit of the park to view though, so make sure you come back tomorrow as I continue my walk through the Michigan CCC Museum.

All pictures were taken by me (besides the map of course).

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