From Door County we had to back-track to Green Bay before heading north towards the Michigan Upper Peninsula. We only had about 3 hours of driving to do so we decided to make a stop in Green Bay and do some laundry. We have not had very many stops lately with sewer hook ups so we have been saving most of our laundry. So we stopped at a coin laundry and Geoff stayed there while Ellyn drove to a local Costco and picked up a few things we needed. After about 3 hours of washing and shopping, we were back on the road. We arrived in Menominee Michigan to discover we had stayed at the campground, River Park, in 2011 during our trip around the country.
We pulled in right behind our friends, Ken and Ma
rtha, in their new Dutch Star rig. We parked next to each other and set up camp. There were a bunch of other Newmar rigs there, heading up to the rally in Escanaba the next day. We stayed for two days before going. We figured we would be arriving way ahead of Ken and Martha, so we offered to make dinner for the bunch of us the first night. It was a night evening and we had a nice picnic dinner off the grill. Ken spent most of the evening setting up his satellite dish on his new coach and Geoff had to set up the ground dish, since we had a tree between us and the sky.
The next day we didn’t have anything planned so we went to a movie. “Dawn of the 
Planet of the Apes” was playing in Martinette, WI and it had really good ratings so we went to see it. It was really good. Nice to see Andy Serkis getting top billing as Caesar.
From Menominee, we drove north for an hour to Escanaba for the Newmar Kountry Klub Rally at the Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds. With Ken and Martha leading the way, we felt like we were back in Alaska again. We spent a lot of time following their lead up there.
The Rally was a complete success. 368 motor homes, nearly all of the Newmar brand (we saw one Tiffin on site) were in attendance. We had two dinners and three breakfasts served to us in the 5 days of the rally and the food was terrific. There were many informational sessions held and all the big manufacturers were here. We got some service from Spartan 
and Newmar and got some advice on a couple of other things. We may stop at the Spartan shop in Charlotte, Michigan later in August for a chassis inspection. We got a new decal for the front of our rig to replace the one which was removed when the Diamond Shield was removed last year. Now it doesn’t look so naked in the front any more. We tried to get the dashboard A/C fixed but apparently it is leaking coolant in the lines which run the full length of the motorhome. Replacing those would be an expensive and nearly impossible task. We have a work-around which we will continue using for now. We toured some new models and it might be nice to have something more up-to-date than our 11 year old rig, but they are way out of our price range. Besides, buying new is not always the best idea. Better to have something a little broken in.
We also got to do a little touring around the area. We went to Fayette, the historic site of an iron smelting plant where there are many buildings still standing from 100 years ago. Then we went to Manistique for lunch and then to Palms-Book State Park to see Kitch-iti-kipi, a beautiful, clear spring, teaming with fish, and with a floating raft from which you can view the spring activity. It was a great day for sight-seeing and road-tripping around the U. P. of Michigan.
Next. we are off to Munising, Houghton, and Sault Saint Marie.
