The Upper Lower Peninsula

So we made it to Hearthside RV Resort.  This is one of the Top 10 RV resorts in the US.  And wow!!  It is a Class A resort only & they have age restrictions too.  Only well maintained RV's only.  As we drive towards out spot we notice mostly Prevost's Newell's and Foretravel's.  All very highend coaches.

We get settled in to an immaculately maintained spot.  Perfectly level concrete pad, flowers, and patio table.  Our lawn gets watered twice a day.  The resort has two lodges, a pool & hot tub.  The laundry is brand new & free.  We get comfortable quickly.

Rita wants a day to lounge around so Hunter & I slip in a round of golf at the Traverse Bay Golf Club. Since I have hardly played this year we decide to just scramble & enjoy ourselves.

Yes, this course is a tad hilly, so, a lot of elevated tee boxes.  But what views.

The next day we head to Mackinac Island.  We take the ferry to the island.  Of course its a jet boat

There are no vehicles on the island, everything is horse based or bicycles.  We took a guided carriage ride around the island.

 The golf course has electric carts, but you had to take a horse drawn carriage to the course.  Then we toured the mansion hotel.

Front porch of the hotel.  Chairs & tables everywhere to sit & relax.

The jet boat ride back is windier & rougher so the spray was much worse.  Hunter got really dowsed, Rita hid under her hoody.

As we drove back to the resort i spotted a roadside sign for a restaurant called Moose Jaw Junction.  With a name like that I made a quick turn and headed that way.  Rita was a bit concerned on quality so a quick Yelp check shows great ratings.  As we head there it's 10 miles of the main route & offers no cell service.  Once we arrive in Larks Lake we find Moose Jaw Junction and we are able to see the whole town in one place.  Two buildings, the township hall & the tavern.  

It's pretty crowded but its all locals.  We decide to wait for a table at the bar & make instant friends with the locals.

I try the suggested beers and we dine on local recommendations.  Lake Superior Lobster.  It's actually white fish but cooked in butter & it is unbelievable!  After dinner it's back to CC and relaxing.

While here we rented some e-bikes to see what they were like.  Hunter & I loved them, Rita still not to sure.  The discussion is do we want bikes for exercise?  Or to get around?  The e-bikes certainly increase your range.  The discussion will continue.

We also played a round of miniature golf.  I kicked everyone's but!!

Wrapping up here and moving a little east to the other coast of Michigan on Lake Huron

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.