Showing posts with label MICHIGAN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MICHIGAN. Show all posts

WE'RE BACK (for 1 night) IN MICHIGAN? (MI)

SATURDAY - Some of you may be wondering, "What are they doing back in Michigan"?

Well I'm not ashamed to say we're here for only one reason and that is to collect another state border crossing. This time it's the one between Ohio and Michigan.

That makes 93 out of 107 and we still have two more planned at the end of summer when we are back near the Atlantic coastline.

Some people may think it's cheating if you just drive across the state line and then return a few minutes later. I would have to agree with that, but we're spending the night in Michigan and not leaving until early the next morning.

Our only rule is we have to tow THE POD over the state line, or in the case of our crossing #62 between Kentucky and Missouri, we had to ferry THE POD across the Mississippi River because there are no bridges between the two states.

So in my book today's travel counts as a bonafide crossing, besides we are only 15-miles north of the route we had planned anyway.

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WE SPENT THE NIGHT IN HOLLAND? (MI)

FRIDAY - After 43-nights in the state of Michigan our 1st visit to the state is sadly coming to an end.

We spent the night in 4 different National Park Service campgrounds located in 2 different National Lakeshores, plus 5 different U.S. Forest Service campgrounds in 4 different National Forests. All of that camping was at ½-price thanks to my Lifetime Senior Pass.

We also had the experience of visiting 3 Michigan State Park campgrounds, all with varying degrees of satisfaction.

Now we're finishing off our first visit to Michigan with a free overnight in Walmart's parking lot.

We saw a lot and did a lot in the last 43-days, but by no means covered all there is to see and do in Michigan. We'll be back for another visit, I'm just not sure when that'll be!

After we finished our grocery shopping in Walmart ($130.88) we went across the street to the Chick-fil-A for a tasty, no mess dinner. We were surprised to see the one and only Chick-fil-A Cow mascot in her "Eat Mor Chikin" jersey.

They were running a promotion whereas if your child could sink a basket they would get a coupon good for a FREE dessert.

Check out the toy sized hoop hanging off the side wall.
My guess is every kid who tried was rewarded with a FREE dessert.

I had one more Michigan Bucket List item to check off before leaving the state and that was to find out what a "Boston Cooler" tastes like.

The Boston Cooler has nothing to do with the big town in Massachusetts, it's more of a Detroit thing. It's a mix of Vernor's Ginger soda and vanilla ice cream. It's not quite a milk shake, and not exactly a float, but somewhere in between.

Anyway here's a LINK to a detailed explanation.

I couldn't find it on any restaurant menus in the last 43-days so I made one of my own. It was like a Giner Ale Cream Soda, so what's not to like!

We won't be sleeping alone tonight!
The trailer next to us is a family of 4 from Sarasota, FL and have been fulltime for 2-years now.

SATURDAY - This morning we were up at the crack of dawn as the Walmart was opening for a new day of business.

The parking lot gets loud with all the employees arriving in addition to the early morning customers.

Tricia walked back over to Chick-fil-A to grab something for our breakfast and now I'm getting ready to post this blog.

Later this morning we'll be crossing another new state border, this time Michigan-2-Indiana. It will be our 92nd of 107 possible crossings and we have 3 more planned before the end of the year, bringing our total to 95.

The early morning scene at the Holland Walmart Supercenter.

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MANISTEE NATIONAL FOREST (MI)

WEDNESDAY - After a short drive down the M-22 Highway to the town of Frankfort we made our way over to US-31 for most of the rest of the trip.

While traveling through Frankfort we noticed a cool sign when exiting town. It showcased two lighthouses with a large ship passing between them, how appropriate for a Great Lakes town.

A short time later we were all set up in our new site. Without any cell phone service and too many trees to get a Starlink signal though, we decided to cut our visit here from 3-nights down to just two.

Also by doing that we can cut our next moving day distance in half by spending the night in a Walmart somewhere along the route. No need to drive 250-miles in one day when it's not necesary, right?

THURSDAY - Not too much further south down the lakeshore from here is another very popular Michigan State Park with a campground.

We decided to go check it out for a possible stop during a future visit. What were we thinking!

The park was nice, but the campground was super crowded and the sites were stacked on top of one another. We made notes anyway on some of the "better" campsites to mark down on my Google Map for state parks, but I doubt we'll ever visit.

Lundington State Park has a 3½-mile entrance drive...

...where you can find some not so crowded beaches to enjoy.

There are even some smaller dunes along the lakeshore here.

Once we returned to our campground in the Lake Michigan Recreation Area of the Manistee National Forest Tricia checked out the Lake Overlook Trail.

The trail started out simple enough...

...but it quickly became evident that this trail had some stairs to climb.

167 stairs later Tricia was at the top and found this big wide deck that overlooks Lake Michigan.

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SLEEPING BEAR DUNES NATIONAL LAKESHORE - PT 2 (MI)

THURSDAY - Today's 18-mile move down the road was a breeze, all the way up until we were backing into the campsite.

The Ranger at the check-in station had no problem letting us check-in 1-hour early and we were quickly on our way to the campsite.

Our campsite was plenty long enough and wide enough for an easy fit. The problem was the angle between the roadway and the campsite, then throw in a stop sign and a campsite post in the worse possible locations for where the truck needed to be in order to straighten out once the trailer was headed in the right direction and it turned into a very difficult maneuver.

After four failed attempts at getting into the site I threw in the towel and pulled completely off the site, went around the block and came in at an unconventional angle and nailed it on the first try.

We've backed THE POD into over 500 different campsites in the last 6+ years, so you'd like to think we could do this blindfolded by now. That was part of the problem today, we didn't take into account that each campsite is different and each one needs to be approached according to it's unique surroundings. Lesson learned! I hope.

FRIDAY - The "#1 Thing To Do" down here in the southern end of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is to go tubing on the Platte River.

There are two different places that the outfitter will drop you and your rented tube on the river. The shorter of the two trips down the river will take no more than 1 hour to float and the second location is a 2-2½ hour float. Both trips end just before the Platt River meets Lake Michigan.

Riverside Canoes also rents kayaks, rafts, paddleboards and of course canoes that you can take down the river, all the way from the outfitters location to the river's end at Lake Michigan. These trips usually take 1½-2 hours, depending entirely on how much you want to paddle.

We of course elected to do the longer tube float trip and planned to be on the river by 2PM.

TUBING ON THE PLATTE RIVER

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Here's what the Riverside Canoes dock looked like an hour before they opened.
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Not a single person on the river at 7:30AM.
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After the morning chaos here's what it looked like at 1:30PM when we arrived.
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The shuttle drops you and your tubes off about ¼-mile walk from the river's edge.
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Finally in the water and well out ahead of our pack.
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An hour into our float and we're still going strong.
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We're even within sight of the group who launched before us now.
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Here's what we found on the beach at the end of our trip, it looked like more chaos!

MONDAY - After a rainy weekend, Tricia was itching to get back out on the river, this time in a kayak.

I didn't share the desire to see the river again, so I elected to forgo another trip down the river and instead went into town to fill ROVER's gas tank and eat a second breakfast at Wendy's.

I dropped Trica at the outfitters at 9:00AM where the longer kayak trips launch from and made plans to pick her up at the end of trip at 11:00AM, then headed into town.

KAYAKING ON THE PLATTE RIVER

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Here's Tricia in her "Happy Place", out in a kayak on the water.
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Being on the water early on a Monday morning meant she had the place all to herself.
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It also gave her time to pull over and stop to take photos, lucky us!
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Half way down the river is the fish weir where we put in with the tubes on Friday.
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The turtles didn't seem to mind how close that duck was to them.
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This Great Blue Heron was on the hunt for breakfast...
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...and a few seconds later it was time to eat!
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With fewer humans on the river the wildlife was out and about.
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Hey, there is another paddler out on the river this morning.
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I recognize those sand dunes, it means the trip is almost over.
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Tricia went twice as far, in half the time, as we took in the tubes.

TUESDAY - It's that time again! Time to go "Knee Deep in the Great Lakes", this time in Lake Michigan.

This is #3 of 5, which if my math is correct, means there's only two more to collect to have the complete set.

Here I am knee deep, at least I was when a wave went by!

Here I am with Sleeping Bear Dunes in the background.

With the moderate easterly winds today, the waves were more like a seashore than a lakeshore.

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