Muskegon and Grand Rapids

Our last two stops in Michigan. It has been a wonderful summer, full of sunny, but not too hot, weather. We saw lots of interesting things and camped in quite a variety of campgrounds, from rustic with dirt roads and only electric service to concrete pads and full hook ups. We have visited with friends and family in just about every place we have stopped. We have even parked the RV is some of their driveways. We have eaten in very few chain restaurants and tried to stick mainly to the local eateries. We have visited 19 Great Lakes lighthouses and taken 4 boat tours/ferry rides. We’ve spent time on four of the Great Lakes, so far, and will be camping on the shores of Lake Erie on the way back to Boston to round it out. This summer has been a lot more traveling around and visiting more places than last year but not as much as 2012 when we went to Alaska. So far, nearly 5000 miles have been put on the RV with another 1200 to go, compared to less than 5000 last summer and over 16000 in 2012.

Muskegon has been more laid back for us, partially due to Ellyn’s foot injury, but also because the resort we are staying at is so nice, sometimes we have just lazed around here instead of going out. We did drive into Muskegon to the beach in the evening our first night here and arrived just in time for the sunset. One day we went to White Hall and Montague. Ellyn had seen an ad for an estate sale where the person had been a crafter and sewer so she picked up some materials and other things for her future projects. We also saw the “World’s Largest Weather Vane” which is debatable, since we supposedly saw the same thing in White Horse, Yukon two years ago.

On Sunday, we went to dinner at a place near the channel that runs between Muskegon Lake and Lake Michigan. After we walked on the pier and took pictures of the lighthouses and the coast guard station. Ellyn struck up a conversation with a guy who saw she was looking up cargo ships on the app on her phone. It turns out he tracks lots of the ships in and out of Muskegon and he said that a ship was coming in on Monday with a load of wind turbine blades. So, on Monday, after lunch, we went to where the ship was docked as indicated on Ellyn’s app and we watched them getting the blades off the ship. Unfortunately, they seemed to run into some problems and, although we hung around for more than 2 hours, we didn’t see a single blade unloaded. We did see some which had already been unloaded to trucks placed on the pier. We also got to observe some monarch butterflies which were around milkweed plants in the area.

On Tuesday we moved on to Grand Rapids. We stopped by the Cummins Bridgeway to have them look at our muffler, which has rusted out. We also have an appointment at Midway RV to have them replace two of our leveling jacks which do not retract properly. Then we went to Lakeside Camp Park in Cedar Springs. We stayed here for 2 weeks with Mom in 2009 while we were cleaning out her house in Grand Rapids and putting it up for sale. Then we stopped here for two nights in 2011 after the Spartan Rally and before going to Midland to see Ellyn’s friend Debbie. The noise from the highway can be loud but there is a nice little lake and the people are nice here. We had dinner with Jerry and Marilyn, people we were camped next to in 2009. They are not at the park any longer but live close by.

The primary reason for coming here is so Ellyn can attend the AQS show. She went to this quilting show when it was in Des Moines, Iowa in 2012 as we made our way back from Alaska. She bought her first really nice sewing machine then. Geoff is hoping she doesn’t find one she likes better this time.

On Thursday we got the jacks replaced and on Sunday, when we retract them, we will know if the work was worthwhile and if we can stop totting around an eight-foot 2x4. However, we also got the bad news that not all of the parts to fix the muffler were able to be received in time to do the repair here in Grand Rapids, so that is getting pushed out to Cleveland. On Tuesday, we will take the RV to a repair place there, drop it off, go site seeing around Cleveland, and then come back and camp in their lot over night before heading out. We will likely take in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Our last day in Grand Rapids was also the last one for the AQS show. Ellyn had a class in the morning and then we both took in the quilt show. There is one particularly large quit there which is touring the world known as the Quilt of Belonging. It has sections depicting every country of the world from which people have emigrated to Canada, as well as every indigenous tribe of Canada.

In the afternoon, we traveled north to Evart, Michigan to visit with Geoff’s Uncle Dick and Aunt Thelma. We had a really nice visit and went through a bunch of pictures that Geoff’s Cousin Jill had given him at the reunion. We also showed them pictures we had taken at the reunion as well as ones we took at Mom’s 90th birthday. Uncle Dick is the only other surviving sibling of Mom’s family.

Next, Cedar Point and the final Great Lakes stop on our tour, Lake Erie.