Pure Michigan – Part One

OK, so the marketing works! We’ve never been to Michigan and all the hype and advertising lured us into our plans to aim for Michigan for our first long distance trip up north. We’ll be spending about a month in Michigan before heading back south. Since this is more than a one stop/one update state, figured we’d break this into two parts.

Leaving Elkhart, Indiana, which lies just south of the Michigan border, we pointed north towards Traverse Bay for a two-week stop, our first since leaving Florida on May 1. This will give us time to recharge, do some heavy cleaning and checking of Lola, and also ease into life in Michigan.

Our first stop – Grand Haven. This would just be a two-night stay as we worked our way towards Traverse Bay. We had a great site, facing the Grand River (thus why “Haven” is so Grand, also the same river that makes the “Rapids” Grand up stream in Grand Rapids, MI).

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It was cool and misty most of the 48 hours we were in Grand Haven. We grabbed lunch one day while checking out the town but it was pretty chilly trying to get a pic of the beach and the pier/lighthouse so we didn’t stay in town long.

An interesting observation we’ve made as we traveled from one campground to another – Adele really loves a campground with a dedicated dog run/park. We thought, at first, that this was someplace she sought out to get off leash and play a bit. But after more observation, we have come to realize she sees these parks as her “bathroom”. She will hold her “business” until she can reach one of these dog parks, whenever possible. Good to know as we select parks in the future to ensure they meet the need of our sweet Adele.

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Next stop, Traverse Bay. We had a great back in site, lots of space and very quiet. Weather really made a big swing during our time here. It started cool and ended warm, with summer finally catching up with us (we hadn’t seen temps in the 80’s since we left Nashville!). We really didn’t have a lot planned for this stop, really only three main objectives from a tourist standpoint:

• Visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
• Explore the Old Mission Peninsula
• Explore Traverse City

First up, Sleeping Bear Dunes. This is a beautiful part of the country, part forest, part huge (400 plus feet high) dunes. Given Jill’s medical history (Type 1 diabetes) we were able to qualify for national park admission for free, signing up right at the visitor center, no questions, no forms, no proof! Great deal and great for everyone to take advantage of where possible. We drove the loop road, stopping along the way to enjoy the views.

One thing we were not expecting was the beautiful, varying colors of the waters of Lake Michigan. In some cases, they seemed to rival those we have seen in the Caribbean. We also stopped at one dune which was 450 feet above the water level. Although people were warned not to make the trip to the bottom given the 2 plus hour trip it would require to return to the top (or a fine of $1,000 to be rescued), we saw several people attempting this challenging climb.

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We continued on our tour of Sleeping Bear by visiting several other vistas as well as the preserved life saving station which previously housed 8-10 rescue personal who saved sailors on ships which became stranded while sailing this area of Lake Michigan.

We spent a couple of days doing a deep clean of Lola, both inside and out. You don’t realize how much a 42′ RV can get dirty but with two humans and two dogs, things can get dirty and smelly pretty quick. A few days were spent cleaning human and dog beds, clothes, and doing a very complete wash and wax of Lola, the first full cleaning she’s gotten since December.

Unfortunately, while working on cleaning, our mascot UGA got out and tried to cause some trouble. He headed for the swamp out back of our site and got all messed up (luckily, no Gators there to mess with him). We had to wash him and then dry him off – luckily we had the fire pit to give him a quick dry!

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Next up was a drive up the Old Mission Peninsula that divides Grand Traverse Bay. This small, thin strip of land is covered with wineries and thus our plan was to combine a little bit of history with a little bit of sipping.

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We stopped at four wineries on the way back and enjoyed the sampling and the views.

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We also stumbled upon a cute little little music museum just up the road from our campground. This museum has been opened for several decades and focuses on instruments that can be played by themselves – player pianos, antique phonographs, calliopes, organs, etc. And most of them have been restored! Thus, the 1 1/2 hour tour included listening to these wonderful and unique machines that in most cases, were over 100 years old.

We thought this would be a good place to mention the various types of parks we park. It really ranges from very inexpensive parks (state, local, and national) with few amenities (some with none at all) all the way up to places with pools, nice individual sites with shade, tables, chairs, etc, walking trails, off leash dog parks, and more. You usually get what you pay for and we try to balance out the variety to help with budget as well as sanity (remember our spot back in Nashville?). At Traverse City, we stayed at what we’d consider a more upscale place with a large pool, beautifully landscaped public areas, several club houses, and nice laundry. They also had a “dog park” but we soon discovered that this park was in a flood plain and was an underwater mud bog the whole time we were there. They also had very specific rules about walking dogs that we had never encountered before. They included:

• Dogs were not to be walked on any individual sites other than the one we were assigned to. This included all/any site/turf that came up to the road since lots were individually owned and the owners did not want dogs going on their grass.
• If dogs were to leave your site, they could not go anywhere else other than common areas (like grassy area near entrance, along entrance road, near clubhouse, etc.).
• As noted previously, we were welcome to use the dog park if we didn’t mind our dogs getting muddy and eaten up with bugs, etc.
• No trash receptacles for depositing dog business was located anywhere in the park. You were expected to carry it back and place it in your trash for pick up later.

So basically, we had to walk our dogs in the road, keep their urges held until we got to a common area, pick up their stuff, and walk back (and then they could go again when we got back to our site if they needed to).

This may seem trivial but try telling your dog exactly where they can and can’t go after having free reign for the last 5 months. And we totally get that some parks prefer not to have dogs, others prefer just small dogs, and most limit types of breeds. But this park noted itself as being “pet friendly”. We’ve decided that what they really meant was that they were “pet tolerant”.

The other amusing interaction we had while there for two weeks involved the trash man. As mentioned earlier, this park provided trash pick up each morning at the site (at many parks, you take your own trash to the common trash receptacles that are centrally located). We’ve had this service a few times, it’s nice to just put out your trash in the AM and see it disappear. But at this park, they were very particular:

• All boxes should be broken down (except when they ask you to put your trash bag in a box, see below) but don’t put them in a bag (even though the posted rules said to bag all trash)
• All dog poop bags should be put in your trash bag

Seems simple. But there were all these other unwritten rules that the trash man gave us when he stopped by:

• Although not noted in the rules, he’d prefer to have all trash bags placed in a box at the curb (or even better, hung from a nice decorative cast iron hook that you should buy and use)
• If a bag gets opened (this happened to one of our bags after birds picked it open after we left one morning), the trash man may or may not pick up your bag.
• If he does pick up your bag with anything that fell out, he will, under no circumstances touch any dog poop bags that fall out. He will, instead, push them with his foot over to your rig so you can put them in another bag and hopefully have more luck the next day.

Too many rules for us! 🙂

So, for those thinking that since we don’t work, we don’t have to deal with drama or politics, don’t worry. Campgrounds have their fair share.

As some may know, this area of Michigan is also well known as the Cherry Capital of the country. In fact, their airport is officially called the “Cherry Capital Airport”. And the last weekend of our stay also marked the start of the week-long Cherry Festival. There would be all sorts of cherry related activities – cherry pie making, cherry pie eating, cherry pit spitting contests, etc. By the way, as we have traveled the country, we have enjoyed learning the names of the Class AAA baseball and junior hockey team names. In Traverse City, the team is literally named “The Pit Spitters” or just “Spitters” for short.

So, with it being Cherry Festival time, you’d think that as you drove thru the groves, you’d see lots of trees full of red fruit or maybe empty after having just been picked. Instead, what we saw are trees with green fruit. At first, we thought we were driving thru olive groves! We were later informed that the cherries would not be ripe until late July/early August. “But then, where are all these cherrie coming from?” we asked. Come to find out, all the cherries come from Washington state! So, happy National Cherry Festival, wherever they come from!

One last surprise/unplanned activity was meeting up with Chris and Kris Varley. Jill has known Kris for years and they live in the Tampa area so we don’t get to see them much. However, it just happens that Chris’ family has property only 30 minutes from where we were staying and they were flying into town the day before we were leaving. A few texts and emails and we were able to connect for drinks and dinner on our last night in town.

Overall, we enjoyed two wonderful weeks in the Traverse City area. The weather was glorious almost the entire time, the people were very nice, and the towns we visited were all picture perfect. But, after two weeks of sitting still, we were ready to move farther north. In fact, this would be Lola’s farthest northern stop on this trip. Our next destination – Petosky, Michigan!