Michigan U.P. Part 2 and Minnesota

Though we continued to fight a bumper crop of mosquitos in Michigan's "Upper Peninsula", we didn't let them stop us from seeing the sights (though we DID wear lots of bug repellant, long sleeves/slacks, and kept moving!).

We continued our trek across the shore of Lake Superior and stopped about halfway in a town called Munising.  This is the perfect place to catch a boat tour to see the amazing Pictured Rocks that line the coast in those parts. It is hard to catch the beauty of this area with a camera, but hopefully the photos below will do it some justice. Apparently we just missed (by less than a week) seeing ice still floating on the lake but we could still see some hiding in the rocks on the shore.

Max in his Munising campsite on the shore of Lake Superior

The amazing colors of the Pictured Rocks

More color and a waterfall too!

Pictured Rocks as seen from the shore

A little over-exposed, but still a cute dual-selfie

We also explored nearby Marquette by car, which turned out to be the largest town in the U.P. While we enjoyed a local park and nice downtown area, we were especially impressed with the Wells Fargo bank building.  We stopped in to get a little cash and found ourselves the only customers, but the structure was impressive with its majestic ancient vault, soaring elaborate ceiling, and even two revolving doors.

From there we drove the house to Ontonagon on the west U.P. coast.  From here we could explore the Keewanaw Peninsula, drive all the way to the end into Copper Harbor, tour a former copper mine, and see the scenic views in Porcupine State Park.  While here we celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary at a very understated combo restaurant + bowling alley.  The food was surprising good, the wine was nicely inexpensive, and you ate your meal watching the big picture windows hoping to see bears come up and feed on scraps they put outside for them.  Unfortunately, even though we came two separate nights for dinner, we struck out seeing any bears.

Bundled up in the Quincy Copper Mine

Old copper car

Jeffrey getting blown away in Porcupine State Park

Maren in Porcupine State Park

Heavy rain causing waterfalls everywhere

We cut our Ontonagon visit a day short to flee some approaching storms that sported predictions of 55+ mph winds -- no thanks! We managed to escape to a campground in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, which was packed to the gills with families since it was Father's Day weekend. Thankfully we only got a bunch of rain, but we saw our first wild turkeys on the drive down!

This schedule change enabled us to arrive in Rochester, Minnesota a day early -- letting us enjoy a full 5 days of visiting and sightseeing with Jeffrey's aunts Louise and Margaret and uncle Merlyn along with their son Mike. Along with Jeffrey's mom, Evelyn, the girls grew up in nearby Burr Oak and Decorah, so it was nice to tour those areas and see plus hear the family history.

Visiting with Jeffrey's Aunt Louise, cousin Mike, Uncle Merlyn and Aunt Margaret near  Rochester

As I write this, we are sitting in Forest City, Iowa awaiting a service appointment for Max at the Winnebago factory. Life in a motorhome is just like living in a "sticks and bricks" house... stuff breaks and you need to have repairs made every once in a while -- though maybe a little more often when your house drives down the road hitting bumps along the way :-) We are pretty handy (and getting handier!) and fix what we can ourselves, but we almost always have a list of "fixes for professionals to do" or "upgrades that would be nice" or "cool stuff to buy". Fortunately we've never had anything go wrong that stranded us or prevented us from traveling!  Here is an impressive rock chip we got in Max's windshield on the way to Ontonagon (2nd chip in 7 months).  It is about 1 inch long and we had it repaired immediately so it won't crack any more.  Our insurance company sent a mobile repair guy out to us and you can't even see it now!

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Amazing Michigan

After leaving the Detroit area, we crossed over to the SW side of the state and plugged Max in at a KOA in Allendale.  This turned out to be a great central location as it let us easily explore Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, South Haven, and all parts in between. Lucky for us, with the exception of some fog that rolled in off of Lake Michigan in Grand Haven, the weather was exceptional for our entire visit (and the fog was actually kind of cool anyway -- one minute we could see the lighthouse perfectly and the next minute it was completely hidden).  Grand Haven also had a lovely walk-able downtown area that we roamed around. 

Lighthouse in Grand Haven 

Just a little drive (by car) further south along the shoreline was South Haven. Our main target there was a Maritime Museum that had a special exhibit of shipwrecks and the disappearance of NWA flight 2501 in 1950 over Lake Michigan. For being one of the smallest museums we have ever been in, we spent a lot of time there because the displays and write-ups were so fascinating (though often sad and sometimes morbid). We also enjoyed seeing yet another local lighthouse and South Haven's equally lovely downtown area. No surprise that none of the lighthouses we are seeing have a human "keeper" anymore.

Next up was a day in Grand Rapids -- in fact, we actually had to come back a 2nd day in order to see everything on the list.  The highlight was the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum and boy was it well done! Though we were young, Jeffrey and I both remember that time in history and it was so interesting to hear the more personal details about this president, the bizarre circumstances of how he became our un-elected leader, and the very difficult job he was faced with.  We also spent a bit of time at the Grand Rapids Public Museum.  Lesson learned -- museums are best seen mid to late afternoon if you want a quiet experience. The mornings and early afternoons are typically swarming with school and camp groups and rarely is the concept of "inside voices" applied by kids. 

At this point we packed up Max and relocated our home base to the Traverse City area (the "pinky" area of the state if you imagine it as a hand). This area is renown for its cherry and wine industries.  We did a tasting at Chateau Chatal on the Mission Peninsula, but there were scores of other vineyards too. It is also near Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park and it is somewhat mind boggling to see such gigantic sand dunes away from an ocean or desert -- at several points they encroach several miles inland and are almost impossible to climb up. And guess what? We saw more lighthouses up here.  They literally dot the coast all over the lake borders -- turns out Michigan has a longer coastline than any other state except Alaska.

Maren at the Sleeping Bear Dunes (Jeffrey taking picture form a higher spot)

Our next "house" relocation took us to Brimley in the "U.P" (Upper Peninsula).  To Jeffrey's delight, this took us over the 45th parallel (halfway to the North Pole) and we thankfully had an uneventful crossing of the 5-mile long suspension Mackinac Bridge.  We've been told that if the winds are too high, a vehicle like ours can't safely go over.While somewhat remote, Brimley was a good spot to park Max while we made day trips in the car to Tahquamenon Falls, the Michigan Shipwreck Museum, Sault St. Marie (where the Soo Locks are), and Mackinac Island.  This island was especially interesting because it was all bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. You take a ferry over, enjoy a lovely carriage ride tour, and even see historic Fort Mackinac. If you like fudge, this is the place to go -- there are fudge shops everywhere you look and competition is fierce!

A boat entering one of the Soo Locks

"Upper" Tahquamenon Falls

Lovely naturally formed arch on Mackinac Island (various shade depths of lake water seen through it)

One of our horse-drawn carriages on Mackinac Island

The only negative we have experienced so far in the U.P. is a horrible mosquito infestation. Apparently some disease is harming the local bat population (their biggest predator) and the late spring and high lake levels are making them a bumper crop this year.  Somehow we managed to suck in a bunch of these blood suckers into the motorhome and spent days swatting at them -- I'm talking 100 at least!  We haven't figured out yet how they got in as it was too many to sneak in the door.

On a happy note, we celebrated our 2-year anniversary of living full time in a motorhome and can't really believe it has been that long.  It is definitely true that time flies when you are having fun!

Our first "couple selfie" celebrating the anniversary

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Mountains Ho!

With Max prepped for the big spring/summer travel season, we drove away from Raleigh with Michigan as our target. This was one of our biggest treks yet and with our first "real" mountain experience en-route.  We decided to follow the 2-2-2-2 travel guideline that we have learned from RVers with much more experience than ourselves -- drive about 200 miles, get there by 2pm, stay at least 2 nights, and (for those who enjoy adult beverages) have 2 glasses of wine after you arrive and get set up.

Since Jeffrey is the only driver of Max (I've been trained, but he is calmer driving a big rig), 200 miles is a comfortable amount. We don't usually go as fast as the posted speed limit (60-62 is good for us when the limit is 70). We build in extra time for fuel stops plus any state Welcome Centers we can find. Even if we are just stopping over in a small town, the 2-night guideline gives us a day to explore the area and it is rare we haven't found even the smallest place worth this extra day.  But the biggest advantage of the 2-night plan is having a weather buffer.  More than once we have opted to shift our driving plan a day one way or the other in order to avoid storms. If we aim to get there by 2pm we don't have to get up early and we still beat rush hour traffic and avoid any chance of driving in the dark.  Though we've never had a breakdown, we have time built in to deal with an issue if something comes up.  No logistical advantage to the 2 adult beverages once we arrive!

That all said, our first driving segment put us on the east side of the Appalachian mountain range in Max Meadows, VA. This was a neat area and we wish we had more than a day to explore it as there were several wineries plus some very interesting historical areas, including a monument to the birthplace of Stephen F. Austin ("Father of Texas").  Our next segment was the big mountain push and, while it wasn't horribly steep or curvy anywhere, it was a lot of extra work for Jeffrey as he constantly had to work the engine brake and manual transmission shifting on downhills, with a rare but occasional foot brake action.  We played an interesting game with the truckers as we could go faster uphill (probably because we are lighter) but they would go faster downhill (they are braver and have more experience).  We breathed a sigh of relief when we finally arrived at Milton, WV.

In addition to the somewhat cheesy but surprisingly large Milton Flea Market, Milton is the home of the famous Blenko Glass factory. They had a fantastic showroom of historical glass blown specimins as well as a huge store where you could buy their amazing creations in every color under the rainbow.  The best part was the viewing area where you could watch the guys (didn't any ladies) make item after item perfectly. Jeffrey almost had to drag me away or I would have stayed there watching them for the whole day.

Craftsman working a glass vase at the Blenko Glass Factory

 

The Blenko store

Our next driving day landed us in Marengo, Ohio. Originally we had thought this was where we would spend Memorial Day weekend, but thank goodness this plan changed. Turns out it was an RV park in combo with a gigantic trap shooting range.  There wasn't much to do in the area and thankfully the shooting wasn't too close to us to be disturbing, but we could tell they were ramping up for some major event over the holiday weekend so we were glad to depart ahead of it.

Our final "get to Michigan" driving day got us to New Hudson, MI, just outside of Detroit. We are wrapping it up now and will drive to our next MI park tomorrow, but we thoroughly enjoyed exploring the area during our 5 nights here.  One day was spent at "The Henry Ford" museum and its adjacent Greenfield Village. In addition to highlighting Ford's many accomplishments, the museum and village cover 300 years of American life and key inventions. Thankfully an RV friend advised us to spend an entire day here and even then we didn't get to everything there was to see.

1929 recreation of Thomas Edison's Lab at Greenfield Village

Weiner Mobile at The Henry Ford Museum

 Day 2 found us in nearby Yspilanti to see the town and enjoy a picnic while attending their annual outdoor symphony performance.  After deciding to avoid the heavy holiday traffic in Detroit, Day 3 was instead a trip to the St Marys Annual Polish Country Festival in Orchard Lake.

Maren's yummy polish lunch of stuffed cabbage and Perogis

Day 4 was an 8.7 mile bike trip in a loop around a local lake. Luckily we picked up a fantastic magazine at the MI Welcome Center that covers all of the bike trails in the state -- and WOW, there are an endless supply.  We have decided to leave the bikes in the car for the next few weeks so we can whip them out wherever the mood strikes us!

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Lovely April and early May

I am very happy to report that we made the right decision to stay in Florida through March this year before we started our trek northbound.  Last year we found Raleigh to be chillier than we expected when we arrived in late February (and it was apparently even colder this year), but aside from the pollen clouds, being here in April and May is fantastic. We have enjoyed lovely temperatures and great visits with our local family and friends.

We also took a week in late April (via airplane) to meet my Dad and Sheila in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico for a nice week of visiting, walks on the resort/beach, and dinners outdoors with lovely sunsets. We have several Mexico locations we can use with this resort company we have a timeshare with and this is now one of our favorites. We didn't even venture off the resort the whole time other than to pick up groceries the local Walmart, so it was definitely a lazy week.

The four of us enjoying dinner out

A picture from the balcony of our room looking at the resort

Once we got back to Raleigh we threw ourselves into getting Max ready for the next travel segment that commences in a week -- our trip over the mountains through Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio toward our month-long touring destination of Michigan and its upper peninsula.  As it was about time for some regular "outside" maintenance, Max got a bath, sun protectant on all of his exposed plastic/rubber parts, awning seams sealed, and some roof edge sealant replaced.  Needless to say, we now both have sore muscles and a headfull of pollen exposure.  All that is left is to put silicon the rubber seals inside all of the basement doors which keeps them supple, but this is easier to do when the "slides" are in so we don't knock our heads as much.

Jeffrey washing Max's roof

For those of you interested in some of the challenges of a mobile lifestyle, we have continued to expand the level of "services" that this area of the country can provide us when we pass through.  We connected with the area's Freightliner service center so we could get some replacement clips for our front week hubcaps.  We have learned that they seem to have a lifespan of 2-3 years before failure but are super-cheap and easy to swap out.  The alternative is to buy a new not-cheap hubcap.

We also needed some vinyl seam sealer and met up with a local craftsman who does all sorts of awning and upholstery work.  Thankfully we don't need his services there yet, just his connections to the distributor of the seam sealer product.  He knows a guy who has an RV mobile repair business which, while we hope never to need it, it is nice to have this contact "just in case".

Max's needs aside, the biggest personal "wins" were that we established a dentist who can do our mid-year cleanings as well as a great local place to do shoe work.  For those of you that don't know, I have a leg length discrepancy that requires me to get all of my right shoe soles "lifted" half an inch. It can be hard to find a place that does it right so it will last... and for the right price too.  As a result, I don't buy new shoes often, but when an old important pair fails, I don't want to have to wait to get back to Austin TX or Boynton Beach FL (my other two shoe service centers) to replace them.

Well, cross your fingers that we make it over our first mountain range with no issues (other than a sore foot from me using my non-existent passenger brake pedal)!

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Chasing the Pollen North

We finished up our time in Florida by doing one final trip to the Lazydays Tampa service team (and one last quick visit with my uncle Marshall and aunt Diana).  It was successful in that we got our last set of jack springs replaced (upgrade to make our stabilizing jacks retract better) and our air conditioner leak fixed (turns our the technician forgot to reconnect our condensation drain hose when he replaced the gasket a month ago).  On the "not fixed" list is our shower drain (minor fiberglass layer flaking off) and our errant "cable guard" that has broken and been replaced twice before and shows signs already of getting wonky again. Since both of these items seem to be outside of what Lazydays can handle, we are going to punt them to get done when we visit the Winnebago factory this summer (more about that shortly).

We also took a swing through Orlando to attend our first RV "rally" (200+ RVs).  It was hosted by the Florida State Winnie Gators -- the state-wide Winnebago Itasca Travelers club. No surprise that we were probably some of the youngest attendees, but it offered a cool collection of seminars, vendors, and social events.  Of special note is that we won both a door prize and charity fundraiser "baskets".  The latter is pictured below with us. Needless to say we had to find a different home for the wrought iron Eiffel Tower wine bottle rack, but we kept the wine and colorful microfiber cloths (Maren's favorite).

However, the biggest win for us was Jeffrey attending the "RV suspension" seminar and learning that our shocks are the likely cause of our rough ride when we hit even minor bumps. We took a chance and had them replaced right there at the rally and enjoyed a much better ride after that.  Now I won't feel compelled to rubber-band the silverware together when we expect a few bumps along the way :-)

Excited to try out the new shocks on a longer trip, we waved goodbye to Jeffrey's parents and made the journey north via Jacksonville (visits with Richard/Cathie and Gator friends Liz/Butch) and on to Raleigh to spend the next 6 weeks. Yellow pollen had already been coating the car and coach for a few weeks and it appears we are going to follow it north so we get a double dose.  Surprisingly, Jeffrey's allergies don't seem to be triggered by this thick yellow stuff (pine and/or oak?), so aside from the inconvenience of extra dusting and the vehicles looking silly, we can live with it!  Here is a picture of Max at a rest area with a line of other RVs heading north too!

Lastly, we also managed to figure out our travel plan for the year.  Once we leave Raleigh, we will make our first trek across "real" mountains and head NW to spend a month touring Michigan, including it's "upper peninsula" (or U.P. as we've heard it called).  From there we'll wind our way down to Rochester to visit with Martin-side relatives/cousins, attend a week-long organized tour of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis + St. Paul), and then attend the huge Winnebago Grand National Rally (1500+ RVs). Conveniently for us, this rally is right next to the Winnebago factory and service center so we can get those 2 pesky items fixed right. That leaves us 3 weeks to do an as-yet-unplanned path south back to Austin by mid-August.

Hopefully we'll get out of the pollen clouds somewhere along the way!

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Winter Ups and Downs

After enjoying a lovely week in Orlando visiting with my parents, we hopped back down to Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound for our 2nd 2-week stint there this season.  It is such a lovely park with full RV hook ups and lots of space to camp and explore (if you can call what we do "camping"). Even better, we unexpectedly found some RV friends we had met earlier in the year, so it was a nice reunion and "comparing camping notes".

We had grand aspirations of getting out the bikes and exercising in a big way every day, but our plans were changed when Jeffrey got the flu. Sheila got it too, so no doubt they both picked it up at one of the theme parks we visited in Orlando.  The good news is that he had a flu shot so it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been -- plus we had time for him to rest and recover and still get to see some friends and all of our family in the area before it was time to leave. 

We are now in Williston FL (near Gainesville) spending most of the month close to Jeffrey's parents. The weather has been mostly nice and the heavy pollen clouds have just descended on us, leaving Max looking quite "dusted".  Thank goodness we finished some sealant work before it hit or the pollen would have stuck permanently to him in some places!

Though we are far from Texas, it has been a busy month helping our beloved Lone Star Gator Club.  The fun part was hunting down and finding some great deals on Gator merchandise that the club can use in its prize drawings next football season.  The not-so-fun part was hearing that the sports bar where we have hosted our game watching parties for the last 6 years had closed unexpectedly, creating a very busy month+ while we worked hard to find a new home.

From a "local" Gator perspective, Jeffrey and I are once again trying to see as many different Gator sports "live" while we are in town.  So far we have caught basketball, gymnastics, softball, and lacrosse and even managed to catch some free Tshirts that were thrown to fans when the Gators scored (pictures below). We always joke that whenever we buy something new to wear, we have to find something to get rid of so we don't overflow our motorhome closet storage. Somehow I'm sure we'll find a little extra space for these somewhere :-)

Both teams won their games that day.  Nothing like 2 smiling Gators!  

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Central Florida pass #2

This "winter" in Florida is definitely wetter and windier than last year -- though it is still pretty darn good given the cold, snowy, icy pounding most of the rest of the country is getting! Luckily, we still managed to find enough nice days to do some minor Max maintenance and cleanup.  Did you know that using toothpaste to polish headlights really works?  Turns out you need to pick your toothpaste carefully, but heck, the internet really knows everything!  We also managed to repair our own hot water heater (a ground wire got loose), clean out and repaint some "basement" bays that had some minor surface rust, and apply some sealant to window frames.  Like a house, there is always something to do to keep things operating properly.

Our last weeks have been spent in Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont, FL -- only a stones throw away from a collection of cousins and an Aunt/Uncle of Jeffrey's.  We managed to see almost all of them spent a nice evening at a Windermere charity event tasting and drinking samples from top notch restaurants and wine distrubutors (picture of us taken there below).

We are now enjoying our last week in the area with my Dad and Sheila here near Orlando.  They are using "timeshare" points to put us all up in style and a lovely resort near the "attractions" and we all have sore legs from exploring Islands of Adventure and Epcot the last two days.  Thankfully the weather cooperated and my Dad can finally lay claim to his very own Harry Potter "wand" (which he has been talking about getting for over a year now). They also enjoyed seeing Max for the first time.  Hopefully they won't be too bored when we drag them to Camping World later today to pick up a special electrical plug we need for a upcoming RV rally. Ah, the fun never stops!



Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

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