RV Adventures

Our lake filled adventures continue!

Last week we spent some time hopping around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  A visit was paid to the town of Munising.  There we boarded a boat for a tour of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  These sandstone bluffs have been eroded over time.  The erosion along with various minerals in the soil have created a varying picture-scape that can only be seen from the water.   The tour boat is one way to do it.  Kayaking is another way, with hundreds of kayakers out enjoying the view on a warm July day.

Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks

Pictured Rocks

Driving through the U.P., we saw some interesting mailbox setups.  We figure this is the residents’ way of keeping the snowplow drivers from taking out their mailboxes.  I think our town in New York needs to try this approach!

Snowguards next to the mailboxes

Our next stop was the town of Marquette.  There is a campground right in the city that made a great “base camp” to explore the area from.  We started by exploring the laundromat and the grocery store.   Yes, we have to do normal things too.  There are some iron mines in the area.  How often do you see a sign on a washing machine like the one below?

No Mining Clothes allowed in the laundromat’s washing machines!

We checked out some of the local parks and did a hike up to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain.

View of Lake Superior from Sugar Loaf Mountain

Top of Sugarloaf Mountain

View of Lake Superior from Sugar Loaf Mountain

View of Lake Superior from Sugar Loaf Mountain

By this point, we were finding that it’s hard to get a campground for more than 2 days without an advance reservation.  Camping in Michigan is pretty popular in the summer and most sites are reserved in advance by specific site number.  We found ourselves having to move around because someone else had our spot reserved for that night.  So we were onto Van Riper State Park.

Van Riper was a pleasant surprise.  It is on Lake Michigammme, which I didn’t even know existed until last week!  The park was popular with families and had a wonderful beach.  Our only complaint is that it was full of amateur campfire makers.  From breakfast until late into the night, there were multiple campfires smoking, not burning.  It caused a smoky haze to settle over the campground.  After a bit, we gave up and closed the RV windows and kicked on the air conditioning.  Yup…this is when we gave into glamping (glamorous camping).

Van Riper State Park

The beach at Van Riper State Park

Finally, it was time to head to Wisconsin.  We arrived in Jim’s childhood home and parked the RV at the farm of our friends Allen and Bonnie.  I’ll take this campsite again anytime…and probably will!

Sunset over our camping spot on the farm. Can you name that quilt block on the barn? It’s the Split LeMoyne Star.

And the view out the RV window in the morning was spectacular!

Sunrise over the fields!

We visited with Jim’s Aunt and Uncle, his brother and sister-in-law and various cousins.  At Allen and Bonnie’s, Jim got to revisit his roots and rake hay with one of their big tractors.  You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of him doing it.

Jim’s Uncle Bill and I. On our way out of town we stopped so Uncle Bill could check out the Blue Flame!

We are now in Madison, Wisconsin (located on Lake Monona) at another FMCA Rally.  Jim loves these opportunities to attend seminars and learn even more about holding tanks, gravity feed refrigerators, etc.

This is what it looks like where everyone is parking on the day the rally starts.  Everyone gets escorted in by a golf cart.

I took the opportunity to attend the Quilters on the Road seminar.  Quilters will stitch while traveling, and then donate the quilts they made to a local charity in the rally city.  Attending this seminar was a lot like attending my sewing guild back home.  This included looking at the audience and spotting my friend Lois, the woman who was the school nurse for my kids in elementary school! Lois is also a fellow quilter and former Girl Scout leader from Spencerport. I had no clue she had an RV and belonged to the FMCA.  There is nothing like running into someone from home in the middle of Wisconsin!  We renewed our friendship and decided to skip the next seminar and went out to visit a local quilt shop!

Quilters on the Road seminar. Check out that pile of charity quilts on the table! They were donated to a local hospital.

Last night Jim and I attended a free event sponsored by one of the big RV dealers.  It was held at Monona Terrace, a Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW) designed event center.  FLW designed it in the 1930’s, but it wasn’t actually built until 1994.  It is right on Lake Monona and right in line with the Wisconsin Capital building.  I think the best view of the building must be from the water.  Still, it was cool to get a tour of the building.

Monona Terrace…I borrowed the picture from the University of Wisconsin.

View from the top of the Monona Terrace, looking at the Capital.

The exterior of Monona Terrace.

We will be here in Madison for a few more days, then we are heading to the Wisconsin Dells for 5 days of relaxing downtime (I hope).  It’s hard to believe that after visiting Wisconsin for 30 year, I’ve never been to the Dells before.  Now’s the opportunity!