Tawas Point State Park is located just outside of Tawas City, MI just northwest of the tip of Michigan’s “thumb.” The area has been dubbed by some as the “Cape Cod of the Midwest,” and is a haven for nature lovers, birders and beach bums (a very nice white sand beach is located in the park). The state park features modern campsites with electricity and restrooms with showers. There are also four cabins and a yurt available for rental.

But the most interesting thing about the park is something you’ll never read about in any Internet description or brochure! That being that it’s a place where strange things WILL happen involving animals! One such incident involved some stray cats.

I’ve never been much of a fashionista, but I become even less of one while camping! Snow pants are not the most flattering things in the world, but are an essential wardrobe piece for winter adventures. The boots are rated for temperatures of up to -40, but one of them has sadly sprung a leak! They have since been replaced. I’ve had that ugly hat since 1994, but don’t wear it as much anymore now that I have a new winter coat with a hood.

We rented a cabin over New Year’s in 2016 and had a campfire outside. We were having some drinks by the fire, and shooting the breeze, and quickly realized we had… company. A stray cat decided they wanted to join us by our fire. You think this is strange? Even stranger is we’d met this same cat a few months before! The park rangers knew that there were feral cats in the park, and that these cats resisted all attempts to be captured. So even if a human WANTED to give a home to these cats, these cats were like, “No can do – I like living the vagabond life. No human can tame ME!”

This is a shot we got of the cats near the lighthouse in October, 2015. Just tame enough to let you get close to them, but don’t go trying to put them into cat carriers!

We figured if we fed the cat they would stop pestering us! I went inside and found some sliced turkey lunch meat and some American cheese slices and put some on a paper plate. I also put some water in a bowl. Kitty had his/her supper/beverage, and bid us adieu by disappearing into the woods. To do what? Well, “cat stuff,” of course!

On a different cabin trip at Tawas Point, we were visited by a different critter during the night. A more “sly” one, if you will…

This “fantastic” black-footed creature visited us while we were sitting by our fire. How cute! And OMG…that TAIL!

One night, we decided to take a walk to the lighthouse, and there was a light drizzle. We had to be very, very careful on this walk – not just because we were slightly inebriated (ahem) but also because it was dark. The most important reason we had to be careful is because of the hordes of frogs that were sharing the sidewalk with us! We didn’t want to step on them (who wants to clean frog guts off the bottoms of shoes), so we had to shine our lights everywhere. And they weren’t content to just be outdoors, either! My husband said there was a frog in the shower stall with him! Silly rude frog wouldn’t even make himself useful by handing him soap/shampoo!

This was one of many, many frogs walking with us to the lighthouse at Tawas Point.

Sadly, though…not all of the animals that have visited us in this park have been cute. In October, 2016, when we were packing up to leave a cabin we’d rented, we had a squirrel pay us a visit, which is not unusual in and of itself – the campground is basically squirrel central. We had an electric skillet sitting outside (which I had not yet cleaned out), and the little critter was very interested in the smells coming from it (turkey bacon). We shooed the thing away, but upon closer inspection, there was just something… not right about this squirrel. It looked as though it had been at a nuclear testing site recently – a The Hills Have Eyes squirrel, if you will. Its face appeared to have multiple tumors, and one of its eyes was permanently shut. It was also acting very erratically, and somewhat aggressively. We were actually AFRAID of this squirrel! Come on – rabies is a real threat… We managed to fetch a park ranger, who was putting final touches on a yurt that was being built. I’ll spare you readers the gory details, but this squirrel was…quickly and humanely put out of its misery. Probably a good thing, too – because whatever was affecting it could have been infectious to other squirrels – and possibly people too. This squirrel was not living a happy squirrel life as of late…let’s all have a moment of silence for this poor The Hills Have Eyes squirrel! Sorry not sorry…no photos were taken of this squirrel!

We’ll be at this park again Sunday night. What kind of animal encounters will we face this time? I’ll be content to see a piping plover on the beach!

The shy piping plover. Some Michigan beaches are closed off during their nesting seasons to protect their habitat.