17-21 Sept. 2018 Arlington, TX

David had business meetings in Arlington he needed to attend, so we both flew down to Arlington TX. Our Cousin Amy was gracious enough to watch Etta, with some help from our Cousin Beth and her Husband John. Etta had fun playing with their dogs while we were gone. David worked during the day and joined Leslie in the evenings. Leslie spent the days visiting with her Mother and her friends, and our evenings visiting with more friends. So many people to see with so little time. Unfortunately, the pollen counts were through the roof, which really hit Leslie hard. She tried everything we knew to try and control the symptoms.  But she had a really hard time and it settled into her chest. It was great to see everyone, but we were happy to get home to our Wanderer and Etta. 

Etta looking shocked that Honey has taken over her kennel

15 Sept. 2018 Archbold, OH to North Lawrence, OH

 Today we drove from Archbold, OH to Clay’s Park Resort, Canal Fulton, OH. Clay’s resort was the only RV park in the Canton area that we could find a parking site for the full month we plan to stay. All the other parks we checked had no sites over the weekends, which are booked all the way through when they close after Halloween. We were completely surprised by this problem. Clay’s Park was the most expensive ($41.66 per night, no discounts)), did not include sewer or cable TV. The addition of sewer would have been an additional $1000!! But pump outs twice a week were only $165 a week. We pulled into the park using the OH93 entrance. When we arrived, we were met at the entrance gate by the staff that rudely told us to pull forward but not to block anyone. With a 61-foot long combination (Trailer and truck) and no place to pull off the road, that was impossible, but the young lady did not understand. When David went into the office to check in, the young lady handed David the package from the mail forwarding service that we had arrange to be sent ahead and told him this one was a special case and that they would not accept any more packages. There is no such restriction explained on the website, nor was anything said during the reservation call. She suggested he should have asked and he go down the road and get a PO box, any packages received would be sent back. Not a very friendly reception. We received plastic bracelets we were told we had to wear whenever we were in the park! We also found out that any visitors we had, even though they were just coming to visit us and not use any of the parks other attractions, would be charged $17 for a day!!! This was just the start of the rules that were not stated anywhere!! 

They did not provide an escort to our site. The park is huge and the sites are not marked very clearly. Once off the main entrance/exit roads, the roads are gravel or broken pavement, lots of potholes, washed out and very narrow. There was a big tree at the corner, along with a narrow turn into our site (Pine Trees 18) that made it difficult to negotiate the turn into the site and stay on the road. The site’s gravel surface was barely as wide as the Wanderer. We got slightly off to one side and sank several inches into the muddy dirt. There were multiple ruts where previous residents had the same problem. But we finally got the Wanderer situated on the gravel and set up.  The grass area along side our site was muddy from the recent rain. That is when we found out the WiFi is not included in the daily rate and we had to buy “access time” at $1 per day. 

Most of the sites in this park looked like they were long term leases. Most of them had “improvements” like wooden decks (some covered and screened!), pergolas, and “special lighting”. Some of the sites had extensive landscaping, while others looked trashy. Most people had golf carts. But there were rules on what kinds of Golf Carts you could bring into the park, or you had to buy one from them. All the sites were close together, with barely room for a vehicle to park. One of the trailers across the road from us had neon green light strings outlining the trailer and spiraling up a tree. At night it looked like a UFO! We just do not see the sense in spending several thousand dollars a year to lease site (We found out the leases here are at least $9K per year), plus several thousand dollars in site improvements and tens of thousands for an RV, just to be on top of each other with no idea what your neighbor is going to be like, no view, no cable TV, and tons of rules (you can't even bring in outside fire wood). And you would not see a return on any of that investment. Why not buy a piece of land and build a nice cabin? At least you could get your money out of it.

We drove over to Veronica’s and went out for an enjoyable dinner.

eroded roads

Trashy sites

13-14 Sept. 2018 Archbold, OH

 We are staying here in Archbold primarily to kill time until we can get into our site in Canton. The parks in the Canton area are full on the weekends and we could only find one nice park that had a site available for the full 4 weeks we will be in Canton, but it was not available until the 15^thof September. Staying here in Archbold breaks the drive up and helps us kill time. We used the time to catch up with house chores, David’s work, and getting packages sent off (sorry Lauren and Cynthia that your birthday gifts are so late!). As we came back in to the park on Thursday, there was a small pop up farmers market where we stopped and picked up some locally grown vegetables, raw honey, and Ohio Maple Syrup. Mmmm Good!

The Sauder Heritage RV park is next to a historical recreated village of the area in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  Many of the structures date back to the late 1800’s and were moved to this recreated village from surrounding communities. There is also an adjacent hotel. This area of Ohio was called the Black Swamp since it was a 100 mile by 40 mile swamp extending from Lake Huron until European Settlers to the area in the early 1800s drained the swamp and turned it into farms.  We toured the Heritage Village on Friday (Normally a $17 per person entrance fee but we got there late and only had to pay $7 per person). The Sauder family heritage is based on wood working of all kinds. So the village featured a couple of old wood working shops with hand held and human powered wood working tools. In addition there was a Copperage (wood barrels and buckets), glass forming/blowing, local museum, quilting, and they were opening a 1920s section of the park this weekend.

12 Sept. 2018 Saint Ignace, MI to Archbold, OH

We drove over the Mackinaw Bridge ($10 toll). It was a little nerve racking since the lanes are narrow and there was construction on the bridge. Fortunately there was little to no wind. The roads in the lower peninsula were very rough. We had one big scare when we came around one tight turn and there was a underpass that was marked as only being 13 feet, 7 inches. Our Wanderer is 13 feet 6.5 inches! Yikes!! It was too late to even hit the breaks hard! We slipped through with no damage except our pounding hearts. In Archbold, we stayed at the Sauder Heritage RV Park ($38 per night with Good Sam Discount). The primary reason for picking this park is that it is between St. Ignace and Canton, OH. The sites are level, gravel and grass, but very narrow. WiFi was strong and fast, water pressure was good. When we pulled in on Wednesday, the park was pretty empty but it filled up before the weekend.  Etta was let off leash and enjoyed the wide open space and ran and ran and played.  It was great to see her have a big time! Ohio is the 9th state since we left Texas. 

11 Sept. 2018 St. Ignace, MI

David had to work in the morning. In the afternoon we drove into St. Ignace and walked the harbor boardwalk, which had nice views of the harbor with some historical placards and the downtown district. Leslie thought the town could have taken a bigger/better interest in taking care of and promoting what could be a very impressive use of space.  Their tourist time is limited and sadly we could see why it was a bit depressed. The downtown area reminded us to some extent of Mackinac Island (Fudge and tee shirt shops). All in all, it made for a relaxing stroll.  We again found Linda and Mike outside their RV when we returned and visited for quite a while tonight.  We wish we could have spent more time with them as we all got along great. Hopefully, we may run into them in the future.

10 Sept. 2018 Mackinac Island, MI

The ferry company, Shepler’s, provided a shuttle from the RV park to the dock. We bought our ferry tickets on line ($24 per person) and carriage rides ($26 per person). The ferry ride was smooth on the way out. We were on our third great lake, Lake Huron. We had a really nice view of the Mackinaw Bridge on the ride out. Once we landed on the island, we picked up our carriage ride for a two-hour tour of the island. All in all, the horse drawn carriage ride (No motor vehicles are allowed on the island) was underwhelming.  The information the carriage drivers provided was the same information you could read off the signs on the street but glimpsed a few interesting sites. We stopped at the Grand Hotel, which was very grand but did not get off. 600 men built the hotel in the late 1890s in 93 days. But to go inside and walk around, would cost you $10. At the midpoint of the tour we had to change carriages and drivers from a two horse carriage to a three horse carriage. Best part of the second half of the ride was Arch Rock (see photo). The ride ended at Fort Mackinac. Built during the American Revolution when the British abandoned a fort at the present day Mackinaw City, and built the fort on Mackinac Island, a more defensible position from the American Rebels. But, to tour the fort would cost you $13 per person. Based on what we read on line, we bypassed the fort and walked back down into town. After the first half dozen Fudge shops, tee shirt shops and tourist trash shops, you have seen them all. We did buy two planks of wonderful Fudge at the oldest fudge shop on the island, Murdick. It will last us at least a month! We ate lunch at one of the pubs, which was actually fairly good. After that we walked around the town and admired the old buildings (most date back to the 1800s). Then we picked another pub for a refreshment while we waited for the next ferry back to St. Ignace. Seeing the horse drawn carriages (and associated “discharge”), the bikes, and all the pedestrians, it made you feel like you were on a main street of a 1890s town. The ferry ride back was also uneventful, but it had warmed up enough for us to sit on the open top deck. Overall, the weather was beautiful, the ferry rides relaxing and Mackinac Island is a tourist trap with some really beautiful period homes. But

Later we drove over to the Mackinac Bridge overlook, which also had a museum about the building of the bridge. David really enjoyed the descriptions of the bridge building techniques.   Leslie was in love with the view.  We returned to the campground and ran into our neighbors, Linda and Mike Oates, also new full time RVers (since October last year). Over the next two evenings, we exchanged experiences of full time RVing. 

Grand Hotel

Arch Rock

Fort Mackinac

Shoreline Drive, Mackinac Island

Light Houses at the entrance to Mackinac Harbor

Leslie and Etta with Mackinaw Bridge in the background.

9 Sept. 2018 Christmas, MI to Saint Ignace, MI

Today we drove the two hours to St. Ignace. The drive was pretty easy and the roads were good. Part of the drive was along the northern most portion of Lake Michigan shoreline (our second great lake). We stayed at the Lake Shore RV Park ($42 per night, no discount), which had a nice view of Lake Michigan. The water pressure was good, WiFi was strong but slow, site was a pull through that was gravel/grass and fairly flat. Folks at the front desk were very friendly and helpful.

8 Sept. 2018 Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Chapel Rock area

We drove over to the Chapel Rock area of the Park. There are several good trails here with longer distances than the other areas of the park. We hiked the three mile trail to the Chapel Falls, reportedly the prettiest falls in the park. The falls go over several tiers, the highest being about 40 feet. But access is limited by the high canyon walls making it difficult to see them well. On the way back we stopped off at Trapped Bear bar and grill. We have seen signs for something called “Pasties” for days. We initially thought maybe they just did not know how to spell “pastries”, but we saw this same spelling in multiple areas. So we stopped off to sample a “Pastie”. Turns out a “Pastie” is a meat pie. Basically shredded beef, cubed potatoes, carrots, rutabaga, and onions (no gravy) wrapped in pastry dough crust and baked. These were eaten by the miners that came over from Czechoslovakia to mine the iron ore in the 1800s. It has become a regional specialty.

Chapel Falls

Trails in Pictured Rocks

Yooper Snow Gauge

7 Sept. 2018 Marquette, MI

We drove the coastline back to Marquette and explored this small harbor town. The downtown area is only a couple of blocks but some of the buildings date back to the mid 1800s. A massive ore loading dock dominates the harbor. The dock, built in 1939, replace smaller versions that had been in use since the 1850s to load Iron Ore onto cargo ships. It was shut down in 1971. In 1999 they tore down the railroad trestles that used to bring ore trains onto the top of the dock. The harbor has since been revitalized and is a pretty public area now. They were setting up for a beer fest on Saturday, but it only runs for 6 hours because apparently that is about how long it takes to overwhelm the small city jail with drunks. We ate lunch in a small brewery overlooking the harbor in a building that had been there since at least 1851. We learned the meaning of “Yooper” in one of the small shops. It means “Upper Peninsula”, as in a resident of Michigan’s upper peninsula. 

Ore Dock

6 Sept. 2018 Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Miners Area

Tonight is our cruise of the Pictured Rock Lakeshore. So this after noon we drove over to the Miners area of the park. Like much of the coast of Lake Superior, the Munising area was a big mining area for Iron Ore. Much of the old growth forest was cut down by the early 1900s to be used to support the iron ore mining and shipping operations. Geologically, the area is similar to Voyagers NP with a thin layer of soil over rock that has been ground down by the ice age glaciers. Here there is a layer of hard sedimentary rock over a very thick layer of soft sandstone. The beautiful cliffs of Pictured Rocks lakeshore are where the wind, ice and water has carved out the soft sandstone layer undermining the harder top surface layer. In the Miners area of the park it’s easy to see the layers. We first hiked down to Miners Falls (1.2 miles round trip). There was still a heavy flow of water from the recent rains, so the falls were really pretty. We then went to the Miners Castle Over look and finally down to Miners Beach. On the beach David found rocks from both the US side of the lake (Sedimentary, Sandstone) but also from the Canadian side (Quartz, Granite and Agate). The rocks from the Canadian side are from glacial action.

Miners Falls

Miners Rock from the overlook

In the evening (06:45), we boarded our Pictured Rocks Cruise Boat, the catamaran Pictured Rocks Express, for a sunset tour of the coastline. The sunset cruise, although a bit more expensive ($45 per person), provided the best lighting conditions for observing the colors of the rocks. The Sandstone formations leak water which contains minerals (Manganese, iron, calcite, diorite) which stains the rocks beautiful colors. To say they are picturesque is a major understatement. We shot over 300 photos between the two of us in two hours. The boat went past all the major rock formations and many waterfalls. With all the rain lately, the major waterfalls were flowing better than they had all summer. Everyone should add this cruise to their bucket list of things to do!! After the cruise we stopped off at Foggy’s for a beer and a late night snack.

Eastern Light House

Bridal Veil Falls

Miners Castle from the lake

Rainbow Cave

Lovers Leap

Indian Rock

Sunset over Grand Island

Grand Portal

Spray Falls

Chapel Rock

Grand Portal

5 Sept. 2018 Munising, MI

Last night and this morning it rained very hard for hours. Our weather apps woke us multiple alarms about flash floods and flood warnings. Between that and the pounding on the roof of the Wanderer by the heavy rain, it was difficult to sleep. The rains continued until almost noon. Whoever graded the RV Park did a very good job and there was very little pooling of water in the park. The small nearby town of Munising suffered flooding. After the rain moved out, we went out in search of the many nearby waterfalls and beaches. As expected the waterfalls were flowing fast and heavy due to the rain. We stopped in the Pictured Rocks Visitor Center and collected our 15^thPark Stamp. During our hikes to the waterfalls we noticed that the maples are starting to change color to beautiful reds and oranges. Tonight the temperatures are dropping into the 40s. Perfect fall weather!

Algers Falls

Wagner Falls

Munising Falls

4 Sept. 2018 Woodruff, WI to Christmas, MI

We pulled out of Indian Shores in the rain. Getting out of the site required some tricky maneuvering but we made it without hitting any of the trees. The drive to Christmas, MI was on two lane roads most of the way and we passed through many small towns. Michigan is the 8th state since we left Texas. The last 40 miles we were running along Lake Superior with beautiful views. The GPS took us right past the RV park, so we had to turn around and drive back about 10 miles. The RV park is brand new, just opened this season, but was not marked very well. It was a good thing we called and got instructions for the way back or we would have missed it again. The park in Pictured Rocks RV Park ($35 a week night, $40 a weekend night), right off M28. The roads are gravel, but clean,  as are the RV sites, but it is level and plenty wide and deep. Water pressure is great, WiFi good and strong, but no local TV stations could be picked up and there is no cable. The rain is moving in tonight again. But the next 4 days look like they will be beautiful. We have a cruise set for Thursday night to see the picturesque lakeshore.   

31 August – 3 Sept. 2018 Woodruff, WI

David had to work some over the holiday weekend. Otherwise we relaxed and enjoyed not being on the move, preparing to move or having to go and see something. We slept late, enjoyed our slow mornings and relaxed. We did some maintenance work on the Wanderer, explored the local area and avoided the crowds. When we came into the RV Park it was pretty full and completely filled up over the Labor Day weekend. Many of the spots appeared to be seasonally leases and others it appeared the lot was owned, with a lot of “improvements” even though it was still a Park Model trailer as the basis for the “cabin”. By Monday night the place was empty, including all the seasonal leases.