Minnisota

We wanted to avoid Chicago area so went through Joliet and visited my 94 year old Aunt. She is doing great and so good to see her again. She was so surprised to see us. Than we were off to Minneapolis for a few days. We are staying at Mystic Lake Campground called Dakota Meadows. We are parked side by side with our doors facing the common grass area. Riley(Pats cat) and Buddy have enjoyed being outside with us when we are home. The weather has been in the 80's and not so humid so we can sit outside. The casino although not new looks like it is and really nice inside. We ate in the buffet and one of the restaurants and both had good food. We spent yesterday at the Mall of America. It is a huge complex of stores although most have fall clothes out and didn't find much to buy. Pat was able to get some shoes and so did John, clothes and shoes don't have sales tax. What a buy! We plan to go back later while we are here and see a movie. We have decided to stay here a few more days as we have a really nice camp spot and weather is bearable and lots to do and who knows when we will be back to see this area.

Tall ships & wines

These are last few days here in Traverse City and then heading west. We are nestled back in the tall trees=John thinks some of them are 100 ft tall. We went into town to the farmers market and got some good tomatoes and peaches which aren't ripe yet so will see how they are. The Michigan cherries are ripe so we have been eating sweet dark cherries. Came back to motor home for lunch and back into town again. We went on a tall schooner ship named the Manitou for a 2 hour sail around the bay. What a fabulous experience! The crew was mostly girls, 2 guys and fun to watch them put the sails up and down and we got to help. The water was calm and wind OK but they know how to work with the winds they get. We ate dinner at Olive Garden and came home after a full day. Sun July 31 We had a leisurely morning=Pat did laundry and we did some grocery shopping and just enjoyed sitting. After lunch we drove up the Old Mission Peninsula and did some wine tasting. They mostly have white wines here and a lot of fruit (cherry in particular) wines. We are spoiled being from Calif where we have good red wines and so we didn't get much here in Michigan. We had a nice dinner outside on the picnic table tonight and did some travel planning for the next few days. Tomorrow is up early as it is a drive day.

Traverse City

Arrived here at Holiday Park, just south of Traverse City and our spot wasn't ready yet so we parked by the office and had lunch and by the time we finished our spot was all ready with new gravel put down. Pat & Elmon are across the way from us. We are nestled in the trees which are really tall. This park has alot of airstream owners that own the lots and when they aren't here they rent the spaces. Thursday was a relaxing day to read, I did laundry and we BBQ dinner together. Friday we went to Cracker Barrel for the first time on this trip and had breakfast. The pancakes were really good, John & Elmon said. After that we headed for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. Stopped at the visitor center first and got our maps, watched a short movie and off we went to explore. We went to Coast Guard Maritime Museum. We toured the crew quarters and boathouse where we saw the boats they used to rescue the many people who were ship wrecked along the coast. We also watched the kids climb to the top of the sand hill. Next was a ride through the forest to see Lake Michigan and the sand dunes along the coast. You just can't imagine how steep and long it is from the top of the dune down to the water. The water is so clear and blue and we could see along way today on the calm Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful day today with a slight breeze, not too hot or humid for me. We stopped at a local farm on the way back and got cherries (this is Cherry Capital of Michigan) and some cherry turnovers which we had for dessert after dinner.

Waterfalls

Our last day here in Mackinaw City, we went into town and had a buffet breakfast=I think our first breakfast out since we left. We drove through the countryside but like most places back here you can't see anything because trees line the highway. Our first stop was the shipwreck museum at the Whitefish Point on Lake Superior. It was interesting again to hear about all the ships that lay on the bottom of Lake Superior close to the Whitefish Point. We also got to see the light keepers house and the lighthouse. We walked out to the Lake Superior sandy beach. Than we drove back to Tahquamenon Falls State Park to see the Upper & Lower Falls=the same names as the park. They were beautiful=the root beer color again is from the tanic in the trees that color the water. John was thrilled to finally see them. We ate lunch in the park and headed home with sprinkles following us home. After dinner we went downtown and walked through some of the shops and bought a few souvenirs. We've had a good time up here and leave tomorrow to go down further to Northern Michigan's Traverse City.

Mackinaw, Michigan

We arrived here a few days ago and have been doing the tourist thing. We had a nice drive with spurts of rain along the way. We drove over the big Mackinaw bridge with road construction so was slow but didn't cost us a leg & arm with motor home and car. Shortly after we got here, we had a good thunderstorm go through and quite a bit of rain so cooled off nicely. John and & Elmon did a few fix it jobs and we ate in and had spaghetti. Today we had a quite morning and than took off for the ferry to get us over to the Island. This time we took the hydro jet that has a big rooster tail of water behind us and gets us over faster. We also got to go under the bridge before going to the island which is new since the last time we were here. We got our tickets and rode through the city tour on a cart drawn with horses. We had lunch in town and Pat & I tried the pasties (meat, potatoes and vegetables in pastry) which are famous here as miners and loggers used to take them for lunch. They are like a pot pie and ours came with gravy on top and were real good. We have also tried the Lake Superior whitefish which was pretty good and tonight I tried the perch which was excellent fish. We also tasted a lot of fudge today which Mackinaw Island is famous for. The weather has been in 70's here, so is quite nice. Tonight we went for a walk along the Lake which looks like an ocean and saw a lady walking a lop eared rabbit. He was on a leash with a harness and was 7 months old and so soft. He was quite a hit with everybody. Tomorrow we go in search of waterfalls.

Ishpeming, Upper Michigan

Isn't that quite a name for a town. But this is iron ore mining country. Today was a lazy day and it has cooled off considerably. We spent the morning at the Cliff's Shaft mine and museum. What a place to see all the memorable things from mining in this area and travel down the tunnels to see things. The shafts covered by these amazing buildings that are in our pictures. The ore truck is SO BIG as you can see. Then we went down to Lake Superior which looks like and ocean especial today with the waves and white caps. There were 2 tall ships visiting in the harbor and we took a look at them. Had lunch in a restaurant called Hudson's. A lot of old Hudson cars around. Food was good, service slow. We also tried a little locals restaurant last night and had some fish=cod,perch and walleye. We haven't tried the Superior white fish yet. This afternoon we had thunderstorms and rain. Tomorrow will be cool again and chance of thunderstorms again. Tonight, we are grilling hot dogs and going to show, to see Captain America.

Waterfalls & Eddie Lake

We have spent the last few days here in Sunday Lake Campground. We can look out our window to Eddie Lake. The spots aren't level and sewers are hard to get to but we have air conditioning which we do need. The satellite TV won't get signal as a tree is in the way and no cable TV so we are on a quiet 2 days. We took off to see the first waterfall called Root Bear Falls and found ourselves down a tiny road which had all kinds of bugs flying at the windows to get us. Arrived at a ditch with water in it and couldn't go any further. The water here is mostly root beer colored because of the acid from the hemlock trees in the ground. Next we went to Gorge & Pottawatomie Falls. The first one in our pictures was the best and highest. We could get to them via a path and lots of steps. Next stop McDonald's for a burger and then we went to an American factory that makes Stormy Kromer hats. We are not familiar with them but a big thing in Michigan and cold country. The factory makes these hats and does sewing for a lot of other companys. They sew dog and cat beds, boat and awnings, fishing pole rod holders, beautiful wool coats, jackets, pants. They are a very diversified company and have a lot of people sewing on machines, special machines to cut fabric and canvas. It was quite interesting. After that John had to have his Dairy Queen strawberry shake. We had a great cool day and even got to grill Elmon & Pat's trout from Mammoth. Tomorrow we travel a short distance and sit for 3 days. Crossed another time line today so now we are 3 hours different than home and in our last time zone. It is 9:30 as I write this and still really light outside.