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.

Ann Arbor and Vicinity

Another corner of Lower Michigan was our target as we begin to wind down our travels. We parked at the Detroit Greenfield RV Park, which is an old KOA campground. We arrived in the rain and the roads throughout are dirt, so there was mud all over to maneuver Jordy around on his walks. We got in fairly early because it was a sort drive from Bay City. We decided to find a movie we wanted to see so we went to “Boyhood”. It was entertaining, although Ellyn seemed to like the acting better than Geoff did. The movie was shot over a period of nine years and all the actor actually grew older during the movie, rather than using make up tricks and multiple actors for the children. It was done very well.

One interesting thing that happened was that the theater had a brief power outage about 3/4 of the way through. It worked out well for us because we were able to take a bathroom break while they got the projectors back up and running. It was a long movie and we had a lot of soda. Also, it seems there was a very active storm system which went through, because there was reports of flooding in parts of Detroit around the same time period we were in the theater. We were unaware of it until the next day when the news was covering it.

On the second day, we visited with friends of ours from Sun’N’Fun, Diana and Clyde, at their home in Ann Arbor. I say they are Sun’N’Fun people but that was in the past, as they will be moving on to another RV park this winter. They did not utilize the activities in the park as much as we do so the cost was not worth it for them. We should still be able to see them as they will be a bit south of Sarasota. They took us to one of their favorite places, Zingerman’s Deli. We had a great lunch and then walked around some of the shops while more rain fell in the area. Then we went back to their house and played a new game we just started playing…Tenzi. We played and talked for quite a while until we had to get back to the RV and tend to Jordy. We are lucky that he is very patient while we go on these outings.

On the third day, we visited the Henry Ford Museum. We had been to Greenfield village many years ago but this was our first time in the museum. There is really a lot of stuff there and we were not able to see all of it because they had suffered some flooding due to the heavy rains two days before. Some of the exhibits were closed. We saw an Imax film on Jerusalem and spent most of the afternoon in the museum. Then we visited with one of Geoff’s friends from MTU and his wife, Ken and Josie and went to dinner with them. It was a nice finish to our visit in the Ann Arbor/Detroit area.

So the next day, we had to back-track a bit on our way to our next stop on Lake Michigan, near Muskegon. Ellyn had to go back to the dentist in Midland to get a filling put in on the tooth she had root canal work on when we were up there. The good news, it was really quick, less than 1/2 hour to do. The bad news, we had to be there by 9:45 AM and it was 2 1/2 hours from Ann Arbor. We hate early mornings.

Additionally, Ellyn twisted her foot getting into the car after visiting with Ken and Josie and so she wanted to see an orthopedist while we were in Midland, but she needed a referral and we didn’t think it was bad enough to go to an emergency room. So we went to an urgent care clinic. They x-rayed it and found no broken bones. A prescription for a pain killer and an ace bandage later, and then lunch, and off on the 3 plus hour trip to Muskegon.

Cousins and Other Relations

When Geoff was a kid, he grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His Mother was one of 11 siblings, the majority of which lived about 60 miles away in the State Capital of Lansing. As part of an agreement between his Mother and Father, for moving her so far away from her Mother, his Dad would take them to Lansing as often as requested to see Geoff’s maternal Grandmother. Usually, they would also visit with one of her Sisters and their family in the same trip, and very often that would be Geoff’s Aunt Mac and Uncle Frank and his cousins, Ricky and Vicky. They were twins born the same year as Geoff and part of the seven cousin group fondly known as the “49ers”. Rick was one of Geoff’s favorite cousins and the male cousin he knew best on that side of the family (There are 41 first cousins on his Mother’s side). Also, on Labor Day every year, there would be a big Family Reunion at one of the major parks in the Lansing area (Usually Fitzgerald County Park in Grand Ledge or Potter Park in Lansing). Geoff’s chances to get to the reunion after he left home for the Navy in 1967 became few and far between, and after his Grandmother died in 1970, the reunion changed venues to properties owned by one of the families in the next generation and to dates more in the summer months. This year, the reunion was held on August 9th at a small park in East Lansing and we were able, for the first time in 11 years, to get to it. Geoff brought his bbq bean recipe and guitar, and his Cousin Rick was there too with his guitar, and another of the 49ers, Jody, who also plays was able to make it. (Of the seven 49ers, five were able to attend the reunion.) The weather was excellent and the food was plentiful and terrific. A lot of music was played and one of the few surviving Uncles from the Lynch family, Uncle Phillip, was able to attend as well. Although the party only lasted a couple of hours, there was lots of reminiscing done and everyone cooed over the youngest members of the family. We are not sure when we will make it to the reunion again but this was a special time and we will remember it for a long time.

Bay City

So we scheduled four nights in Bay City at the Bay City Recreation Park so we could visit with Ellyn’s friend from Junior High School, Debbie Palmer, from Midland, Michigan. We spent an afternoon the first day wandering around downtown Bay City. It has a very nicely kept up downtown area, although it seemed kind of deserted when we were there on a week day.

The next day, Ellyn went to spend the day with Debbie, shopping for fabrics and playing Mah Jongg. Geoff stayed in the RV with Jordy and was able to fix a couple of items which had been needing attention but also went out on his bike for lunch and the rode around the Tobico Marsh (have we mentioned earlier that we have had some excellent weather on this trip?).

On the third day we went with Debbie to Dow Gardens.

On day four we went to Frankenmuth, Michigan and visited the Bronner’s Christmas Store, probably the largest year-round Christmas store in the world. We don’t celebrate Christmas but somehow we ended up spending $120. We also had German food for lunch in the Bavarian Inn. Then we went to an outlet mall in Birch run and bought Geoff some new sandals.

So we were supposed to leave the area after four days but Ellyn developed a tooth problem which became an emergency root canal so we had to stay over another day. But on the way to our next stay near Lansing, Michigan, we stopped off at Geoff’s Cousin Ric’s house and Geoff and Ric got to play some guitar together and plan out the play list for the big reunion the next day.

Petoskey

Camp Pet-O-Se-Ga in Alanson, Michigan near Petoskey is a very nice campground. We’ve been here for a week and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Our campsite is spacious, we had no problem getting satellite TV, the weather has been very nice, and we have enjoyed biking and walking around the campground. It is a little remote. Alanson is a very small town and about 15 minutes away, Petoskey is about 30 minutes away, and we have to drive on a dirt road to get to I-75 by the shortest route. But we’ve spent enough time here to get settled a bit in our spot, put up the bug shelter so we could sit out a couple of evenings, and we’ve used the grill a few times. The only disadvantage is no sewer hook up but we have been able to make it so far. Hopefully we can make it until morning when we dump on the way out. Geoff even found a couple of trees where he could hang his old hammock.

While we were here, we traveled over to Petoskey and went to the beach to look for Petoskey rocks. We were somewhat successful and even found some other possible fossils and interesting rocks. We also drove further down the coast of Lake Michigan to Charlevoix. Geoff had a friend when he was growing up who used to come up here every summer to his Grandparents house. Geoff had never been here himself. Ellyn met up with one of her friends from Sun’N’Fun and they went fabric shopping and had lunch together while Geoff found a laundromat in Alanson and washed up all the dirty clothes from the last few weeks.

So next we head off down state to see friends near Garfield Township and then to Bay City on Lake Huron.

Not-So-Dire Straits

Geoff is totally convinced that he has a memory of his family traveling to Mackinaw City in Michigan, probably in 1956 when he was 7 years old, to view the Mackinac Bridge under construction. His Father was absolutely infatuated by large construction projects and, at the time, this was likely the largest one going on in Michigan. Another one which drew his attention was when I-96 between Grand Rapids and Lansing was under construction. That one had a more direct effect on his life, since they made that trip about once every two months to visit with Geoff’s Mom’s family. Geoff’s Dad even drove on the last stretch of that road to be completed prior to its actual opening while returning from Lansing one time. Geoff’s parents had a more direct connection to “The Bridge” later in their lives after their kids had left home, since they would go up on Labor Day Weekend and participate in the walk across the bridge. Five miles was probably not a big deal to them, since they did a lot of walking at home. They used to walk lots of miles in the Plainfield Township outside of Grand Rapids where they lived for 61 years. So driving the Mackinac Bridge is somewhat of a nostalgic trip for Geoff, not just because of his family, but also because he made the trip over The Bridge eight times a year during the four years he spent going to Michigan Technological University in the U.P.

Our first stop was at Straits State Park in St. Ignace for one overnight. On our way from The Soo, it rained a lot but when we got to St. Ignace, it was starting to clear up and, as the afternoon progressed, it got clearer and the sun actually came out for a while closer to sunset. Although we could see the bridge nicely from the campground, we drove to Bridge View Park on the west side and got a closer look. There they had a nice history of the bridge. They had actually planned a bridge back in the 30s but, by the time they got around to building something, WWII had started and it was called off. It wasn’t until 1955 that they got to actual building and it opened in 1957.

The next day, we headed over the bridge and stopped in Mackinaw City for lunch and a look at the Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse. It had been a foggy morning on the Straits and, as we strolled the park, a black cloud worked its way across the bridge and started dropping rain on us. We left the RV there and went off in the car looking for lunch. We stopped at one place but there was a wait and we were hungry, so we went across the street to the Mackinaw Pastie and Cookie Company for, you guessed it, pasties and cookies. Then back to the RV to hook up and head 45 minutes down-state to Camp Pet-O-Se-Ga.

The forecast was for the weather on Monday at Mackinac Island to be mostly sunny and this was the best day of the week we were going to be in the area, so our plan was to go back and visit the island. This was our first visit in about 29 years, when we brought Logan and Brian here and we bicycled the island perimeter on rented bikes. This time we took our own bikes over. The weather was not as good in the morning as we had hoped it would be. It was quite heavily overcast and quite cool. The morning temp was only about 55 degrees. Not what we would be expecting for the end of July, even in Northern Michigan. We had bought a combination ticket which would also get us a guided tour in a horse drawn wagon as well as our ferry ride over. The ferry ride also took a side trip under the Mackinac Bridge before heading to the island.

When we got to the island, we had to decide whether to start touring right away or to wait for the skies to clear a bit. We decided for a little late breakfast/early lunch and shared some French Toast at one of the hotel restaurants. The clearing still had not come so we decided to go on the bike ride. The first half was pretty cold because the wind was blowing out of the north and right into our faces, but by the time we turned the corner at Point Au Pins, the sky was starting to clear and the sun was starting to warm us a bit, plus the wind was not so much a factor. By the time we got back into town, it was starting to look like a nice day.

After lunch, we did a little shopping and then got on the carriage ride. This was something we had not done with the kids and we got to see a lot of the island we had not seen before. The return trip on the ferry was a whole different thing than in the morning. On the way out, everyone wanted to be in the cabin where they didn’t have to be out in the cold. Now, we were able to sit up on the top where you could see more. It was even almost warm out. The rest of our time in the area the weather does not look so good, with a possibility of rain almost every day, but it was the end of our visits to the Straits of Mackinac and the last we would see the U.P. on this trip.

Shipping Disasters and Successes

Making our way from Houghton to Sault Saint Marie, we stopped off for one night in Munising. This was only our second overnight stop on this trip so far, and was basically to allow us to stretch out the following day to go to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Museum on Whitefish Point on our way to the Soo. We parked the motorhome at the intersection of M-28 and M-123 and drove the car up M-123 to Whitefish Point. The museum tells the tale of several shipwrecks near Whitefish Point, many as the results of collisions, and most notable, the “Edmund Fitzgerald”. Geoff was at Michigan Tech in November of 1975 when the storm blew in which caused the sinking, and he remembers that the sky was a particularly ugly color that day. He heard about the ship being lost then but it was many years later, when Gordon Lightfoot released his song that Geoff remembered just how that sky had looked and the song still gives him goose-bumps to this day.

After returning to the RV, we discovered a fifth-wheel rig sitting in the same parking area, and it turned out they had had a blowout of one of the tires on their trailer. It had made a mess of the side of the rig and they were planning to change the tire and then go get all of the tires checked out and replaced if necessary. We are thankful we have not had any incidents like this on our recent travels.

From here, we traveled on to Sault St. Marie and close proximity to the Canadian border, which generally plays havoc with our cell phones. They seem to like to pickup the Canadian cell towers and limit our use of the internet on our phones. Fortunately the campground wi-fi here is pretty good. Shortly after arriving, We watched our first ship go past the campgrounds.

They have a very nice viewing platform right up against the locks so you can get a really up close and personal view of the ships going through. The closer lock is smaller and usually handles the tour boats and personal craft, tugs, and smaller cargo ships. The second over is for the big freighters up to 1000 feet in length. The 3rd and 4th locks are no longer in use and are being converted into a second large lock like number 2. This may take several years and the progress should be visible on Google Earth. Right now you can see the coffer dams they have created at either end of lock number 4 to facilitate the draining and excavation of the new lock.

On the second day, we took the Soo Locks Boat Tour which traveled up close to some of the ore carriers and went “up” through the Canadian lock and then back “down” through the American lock number 1. It also went over close to a Canadian steel factory. Very dirty but very necessary for an industrial society. Geoff interviewed at one while job hunting in his last year of college. It was not for him but it was interesting to see the rolling mills for the steel into the big spools you see on trucks.

On day two, we went into two of the local tourist exhibits; the Tower of History and the Valley Camp. the former is a tall, concrete tower designed originally to be a church monument, but then taken over by the city and turned into a towering view of the locks and the whole St. Mary River Valley. You can see for miles in every direction and have great views of the Cloverleaf Electric Cooperative Historic Generating Station. You can see the lock area but, trees block a direct view of ships in the locks.

The Valley Camp is an old ore freighter which has been converted into a museum. By today’s standards, it is pretty small, only about 500 feet long, whereas the large freighters now are 1000 feet. Still, it makes for a pretty impressive space and shows of the meager amenities of these large vessels. The ore space is all displays from many old lake-going vessels and one large display on the Edmund Fitzgerald. We enjoyed it a lot.

Next, to the Straits of Mackinac.