Moving Towards Michigan

So our next big stop is Hearthside Grove RV Resort in Petoskey, Michigan.  We "won" a week stay at an auction at a Country Coach Rally.  It's a highly rated park, but more on that later.

As I said in the last post we are committed to the under 300 miles a day pledge so this trip has a couple of one-nighters.  I have been trying to do boon-docking then a hook up site just for amenities.  As we get better obviously we can go  ore days off the grid.

So as we leave North Dakota we are headed from the winery to Saginaw, MN for a campsite.  Along the way we pass through Akeley, MN.  Home of Paul Bunyon.  Right on the main drag there is a giant statue of Paul, so we stop for a quick picture.

We had a little more fun taking the picture than we should have.  They had a selfie stand for your phone/camera.  You set up phone, start the timer and jump on Paul's hand.  Hunter v& I took a bunch, just because it was fun to run back and forth...

We continued on to Sagiunaw and set up in the campground.  We drove into Duluth, MN for a great dinner and a leisurely stroll on the pier.  What an awesome town, we are coming back for a longer stay!

Highway bridge over the channel to the harbor.

Light house at the end of the pier.

Left the next day driving to Marquette, MN on the shore of Lake Superior.  We stayed at a Walmart and once again drove to the river for dinner, this time at a brewery on the bay.  After an awesome dinner our waitress directed us to a park that was on an island that had a great view of the sunset.

Of course we have to skip rocks on the lake.....

Now its onto the resort.  We slipped across the "U.P" (upper Peninsula of Michigan) across the Mackinaw Bridge and onto the Upper Lower Peninsula.

 The bridge is interesting it's a suspension bridge that is over 26,000 feet long & 550 high.  It's a bit windy & it sways.  Our speed limit was 25 miles an hour.  It was pretty cool.  Back on terra firma we head to the comfortable confines of a "Luxury RV Resort" at Hearthside Grove.

Let's Start Heading East!

So we are wrapping up the Medora stop and are going to head to Michigan for a couple of weeks.

But we have instituted a new CC rule.  It's a common RVing rule called the Three or Three-thirty  Rule. We will now only travel 300 miles or be parked by 3:30.  After owning CC for four years now we have taken a number of long trips and have always had to get there.  So we would crank out the miles and I would be worn out when we got there or heaven forbid we would get there after dark and have to pull into a campsite in the dark.  Well NO MORE!

We may have to fudge the #:30 part if we get a late start, but i will not drive more than 300 miles a day.

So now I am using my map / planning software to plot out 250 - 300 mile days.  Sometimes we go to a campground, Walmart, Flying J, Cabella's, and now we have added Harvest Hosts to the mix.

Harvest host is a program that lists over 850 winery's brewery's, museums, family farms & golf courses that you can stay at for free.  No hookups, but we don't need them anyway.

We had stayed at one in April at Cave Vineyard at Ste. Genevieve, MO and it was great.   Pull in, set up, go try some wines.  Buy if you like them.  Then spend the night.  Which is exactly what we did.

So while planing this trip I located a winery 299 miles east of Medora.  When I contacted them to make sure they had room they mentioned that on Friday nights they have dinner specials.  On the night we were coming it was a Lobster Boil.  WHAT???  We are in.

It was perfect because it was the day before Rita's birthday.  We got there and there were four other RV's in the lot.  The owner told be to pull into the vineyard and set up.  SO we nestled CC among the grape vines set her up went to taste the wines made some new friends and had an awesome lobster dinner in Buffalo, ND.  Who would have thought....

After dinner the owner started a campfire and broke out his guitar and we relaxed with the other RVers and drank some wine.  The best part was no one had to drive, just walk to our RV.

Next day, slept in and drove 260 miles to Saginaw, MN and a chance to visit Duluth.

North Dakota Badlands & TRNP

Well Medora is the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park & the North Dakota Badlands.  Once we were settled into our campsite, we made sure our batteries were fully charged.  Though this was a true campground there were no hookups of any kind, so were we’re allowed to use our generator from 8am to 8pm but needed to operate on batteries overnight.

Once charged we headed off to explore the park.  There were beautiful views everywhere.  We saw a bunch of prairie dog towns and a couple of herds of wild horses.  We found a couple of walking trails and took some hikes and on one hike watched a big herd of bison.

The first overnight was our first true test of our new lithium batteries.  Since we were gone most of the day, we didn’t quite top them off at 100% so we started the night at around 80%.  Running our residential refrigerator and our CPAPS & lights all night didn’t hurt us too much.  We woke up with 30% left.  (the nice thing about lithium compared to our old flooded batteries is though we are still at the same capacity 400-amp hours, with flooded you can’t drain them past 50% without damaging them.  Lithium you can drain down to zero with no damage).  So, cranked on the generator to charge for awhile during breakfast & the start of the morning.

On day two we decided to go into Medora & go grocery shopping.  BUT, no grocery stores.  WTH?  So, we had to hop on the interstate and drive 25 miles to the next town to shop.  We made sure we were well stocked.

Stopped in Medora for a competitive game of miniature golf then back into the park. We grilled a real nice dinner then waited for dark.  Inside the park is a RVing couple we met in Shawnee, OK at a rally.  They are astronomy enthusiasts. www.geoastrorv.com  They are set up in the park for the summer and get out their telescopes for tourists.  We got there around 9pm with about a dozen other campers.  They had two really nice and really big telescopes.  They first gave us all a lesson in finding the stars, galaxies, constellations, & planets.  Then we went back & forth between the scopes as they moved them from planets to the galaxies.  We were under strict light control. NONE!!  So, the view of the sky was unbelievable.  The Milky Way was so bright & close it was like we could reach up & touch it.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t take pictures because our cell phones would ruin our night vision.  But at the time we couldn’t care less…….

After a late night we slept in, I’m getting better at this…  We headed out for a hike to the Petrified Forest in the back country.  We had a 45 minute drive down dirt roads past all the oil fields & cattle ranches, deep into the park then an hour hike to the trees.  Now they weren’t very big, but we knew that going in, but the hike & scenery was gorgeous, the weather perfect & cool.  A great day overall.

While there we figured out how the trees died.  They were scared to death,,,,  get it they were petrified!!!!

The next day we hit Medora again, touring the Chateau de Mores, the original house of the Marquis who name the town.  That night we did the pitchfork steak dinner and the “Medora Musical” a tribute to Teddy Roosevelt and the origins of the town of Medora.  Even some elk showed up for the show.

We had a great time.  On the way back the herd of Bison were right at the entrance to the campsite so we had to slowly negotiate our way in.

The next afternoon, just before sunset the herd was IN the campground milling around the campsites.  All the tent campers were all huddled in their cars & vans.  We figured we were safe in CC, even thought they didn’t get that close.

Our last day there we went to a couple of one man plays in Medora. The first one was about the man who saved Medora ,Harold Schafer. He had the insight to turn the old and slowly dying town into a old west town. With shopping, dining and family friendly entertainment, to include the musical. That afternoon we saw a Teddy Roosevelt impersonator, he was really good. It felt like we were actually listening to Teddy tell stories about his past. A day well spent, Plus Hunter won the prize for being the youngest person in the theater, a Teddy Bear!!

Next day we are heading east!

Medora & Teddy

After we left Minot we took a leisurely drive west to Medora, ND. I heard about Medora from the GeoAstoRv couple we met last year in Shawnee, OK. They are retired & astronomy fans who have a rather impressive collection of telescopes and like to set up in National Parks and allow people to come out for stargazing.

They mentioned that they would be at Theodore Roosevelt National Park for the Summer of ’19. 

So I put it on the trip.  On the way Hunter got the urge to climb a hill. (He’s the red blip on the top left.)

So after the Rally we went to the public campground outside the park to refresh our tanks and do some quick laundry. We re-conned the National Park and decided to go in for 5 nights.

The challenge of National Parks is that CC is usually too big to fit. The park rangers said theirs is more open & the spot we reserved was 70 feet long. It looked OK so we went in. We were able to drive through the campground without incident. The campground is a big loop and the campsites are drive thru’s. They pull off the main road and the cut back sort of like little bent roads.

Here is where the day started to turn dicey…. Between the trees on the inside of the turn & on the narrow driveway we really had a tough time getting her in. Once in we could hardly make the turn without scrapping branches. The thick trees were pretty scary because they would really do damage. The branches were leaving marks, but those will buff out.

Anyway as we pulled in, trying to avoid the trees on the left the right rear tires off-tracked the driveway and slid in the grass towards a ditch. CC started to list to one side and we almost had a catastrophe.

Here’s the left front wheel off the ground.

Meanwhile the right rear wheels were in the ditch…

But after an hour of up a little, back a little, up a little, back a tad….  We got her nestled into the site.  Level and opened.

This is a National Park and has NO hookups.  We needed to make sure our batteries were fully charged by 8pm and couldn’t fire up the generator to recharge until 8am.

Actually we had no problems with battery power the new lithium’s worked flawlessly…

We began exploring the park, which is actually the Bad Lands.

FMCA Rally Minot

We’re in Rally mode. There are over 1,800 rigs here on the North Dakota State Fair Grounds. We lucked out & are on a gravel lot real close to the vendor halls. Even luckier because the power pole we are sharing with the RV’s around us has twelve 30 amp outlets and one hidden 50 amp, that nobody hooked up to. On day two I transferred our cord to that one so we are at full power. 

Had one issue. We might have extended the awning & inadvertently didn’t activate the wind sensor. Storm came through overnight & tore the “soft connect” portion of the awning. The awning is ok, its just hanging out, the arms are extended but the awning is rolled up tight. Luckily the Shade Pro Awning guys staging area was in our lot, so I walked over to see if they could fix it.

Quick assessment showed that the original “soft connect” typically goes bad over time and they ordered a better replacement. They ordered a new one, had it shipped and installed it two days later. All good now.

Rita & I attended a number of seminars & meetings and are now much smarter. Haha. But I did get some good ideas for stuff in the future. In the vendor hall I showed great restraint and only purchased the items that I was planning on prior to our arrival. CC got a water softener, step covers & a new tow bar. Credit card was hardly smoking….

The guest speaker for the rally was Sully Sullenberger and he was pretty interesting. We made new friends at the rally and reconnected with others. Hosted a couple of fellow Country Coachers at CC one night and hung out with the Gateway Getaways one evening.

Wrapping up here and heading to Medora, ND. Full hookups for a night then entering Theodore Roosevelt Nation Park for 5 nights of boondocking. Lets test those new lithium batteries out.

Gotta Get There

Well we originally planned on getting home from Mexico on Thursday afternoon then pack up CC & leave by noon on Friday. But we still needed time to finish moving stuff around in our house so Brandi & her kids can move in. Brandi got a new full time job with Cencom, the dispatch center for St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office and they have a residency requirement. Instead of her finding a new place to live she decided to move into our house and will have Jackie’s right next door to help with the kids.

So we took Friday and finished the load out. I figured we’d just get to Minot a day later. The thing with Minot is it’s an FMCA Rally. You need to get there with your black & grey tanks empty & your fresh water tank full. Since we would have Hunter with us we really needed to be ready. Three people with only 30 amp need to be prepared.

Took off Saturday at noon. Decided to forgo the new driving rule of only 300 miles a day to go ahead and crank out 450 miles two days in a row & get back on schedule. Drove 438 miles to Mason City, IA and boondocked in a Walmart parking lot. Rita & Hunter went shopping inside & stocked us up for the week.

Headed out the first thing in the morming.  Drove 460 miles and got to Jamestown, ND.  We had a full hook up site for the night so we could get ready for the Rally.  The interesting part about this site was the road in.  Over a mile of what we soon learned was typical dusty gravel North Dakota side roads.  We threw up so much dust, I couldn’t see our tow car.  No matter how slow or fast I drove.  Turns out it then rained overnight and the road was basically mud on the way out.  Poor CC she was filthy…..

Good news?  We were back on schedule.  Short drive to Minot, 170 miles, found a Blue Beacon truck wash in Minot so CC was clean again and got to the staging area around 3pm.  Bad news? So did 900 other coaches so the process to get to our spot took some time.  But it all worked out.  We got a gravel site real close to the vendor & seminar hall, so we’re happy.  Doing some exploring & dining and we’ll start the rally tomorrow

The Real Adventures Begin

This has been the start of our adventures. We bought “CC” and started playing with a blog. Tracking our adventures as we vacationed in our Country Coach. But August 1, 2019 I officially retired. After three years as an US Army MP, thirty years as a Belleville Police officer and then ten years as the Deputy Director at the SWIC Police Academy, I AM DONE!!!!

On August 1st, Rita & I took our two daughters & five grand-kids to Azul Beach Riviera Maya resort for a week of celebration, sun & fun. We got home on August 8th & spent a full day packing CC up and took Hunter, our 18 year old grandson on a inaugural trip. We will be gone for a little over 60 days and be covering 5,300 miles and 23 different stops. It will be fun.

We hope to keep the site updated so check back every once in awhile & see what we’re doing.

New website!!!

Well I'm giving it a shot. I have set up my own domain through a local ISP. Check out my new address:

 

www.theadventuresofccandme.com

 

 

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Independence Day!

Quick four day trip to celebrate Independence Day.

We went to Cuivre River State Park my sister Peg. We took our three youngest grandkids, Saxton, Mica & Kolton, their mom had to work the weekend. Peg took all her daughters & son-in-laws & 6 grandkids, they brought the popup to house the overflow.

We picked Cuivre River because it is close to home, only 60 miles or so.  And it had a beach.

It was a lot of people but it worked out pretty well. All the little kids got a long well. They did a lot of bike riding & on one trip around the campgrounds they discovered “a million tadpoles”..  So of course the and tadpole hunting, or is it tadpoling….. was on

 Unfortunately since we are apparently in monsoon season the lake was closed, ironically, first to to flooding, then due to “water conditions”.  So we adjusted, we had squirt guns, a giant ball the kids could climb in & roll. So fun was still around……

The kids went to the Junior Ranger program and talks.  Friday night was about mammals & fur.  Saturday morning was an expedition to the Big Sugar Creek & catching more tadpoles & crawdads.  Saturday afternoon was amphibians & presentation of badges….

One of the highlights of the weekend was Mica decided she wanted her training wheels off of her bike.  She didn’t want any help she insisted she wanted to do it on her own.  I was truly impressed. She battled balance & a little fear of falling but wow.  She finally beat it.

Here is an early attempt

Here's the next day, piece of cake now..

It wouldn’t be camping without s’mores & Kolton is the king of eating them.

Since the lake was closed the kids all went back to the Big Sugar Creek to beat the heat.

Just before we left I caught Saxton on the Amish bike & Mica showing off

We spent all day Sunday there, packed up early Monday & I was back to work by 1pm.  ugh