September is Special

September is always a special month for us, more so this year as we celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary on the 25th. We made it back to Colorado in time to be with Amy and family and Amy had set up the new normal way to gather and celebrate thru Zoom! Also had 2 very small gatherings, less than 8 people at each. It was a very special weekend for us. Thank you all for your congrats and I have so say that 50 years of being together – well I wouldn’t want it any other way as we have been blessed.

Freighter Superior Sunset campfire on lake superior Sault Ste Marie Locks Frankenmuth Welcome Center

Travels with Will and Pam Continue

Ate our way into into September and Michigan at the same time with brother Will and his bride Pam. First overnight stop was at Frankenmuth for a family style chicken dinner. As one gets older, family style kinda loses its appeal. First, it is A LOT of food that just keeps coming out from the kitchen, and family style doesn’t mean it is less expensive. Paid $25 per person for the pleasure of having all you can eat however the upswing is you can take doggie bags of any uneaten food. Tried to take the soup but that didn’t work out so well (spillage all over back seat). The upswing is with all the left-over food, we had another complete meal the next day. But it still wasn’t that good even the 2^nd time around.

Then as we made our way up I75 heading to Sault Saint Marie we had to stop off at Gobblers for turkey lunch, which was actually really good for a place that by its looks I would have just kept on driving by. Lot of poultry in 24 hours.

Sault Saint Marie – right on the river our campsite was and we were able to watch the river and ocean freighters pass by on the way to the Soo Locks. Nice way to spend a couple of nights. These freighters are BIG and we were so close.

Munising – has the best city RV park, Munising Tourist Park, a real treat right on Lake Superior. Here we tried to ride bikes on the rail to trail but it was better suited for snowmobiles as it was sand. Highlight of this stop are the Pasties – meat filled pies; this is what the UP is famous for and of course we had to get some to eat (donut replacements).

 

Navigator (me) is easily confused

The trip was starting to get into a “ho hum” rhythm of tourist spots, pasties, lakes, drinking, having fun, so we decided (unintentionally) to spice it up. Left Munising and now heading to our next camp, Porcupine Wilderness State Park. On our way we make a stop at what has been labeled the “Junkyard Art in the Upper Peninsula” Lakenenland. Now this is a very quirky tourist stop. An artist bought a whole bunch of land, went out and gathered a whole bunch of scrap metal and turned it all into …art? Interesting to say the least. This little side trip will add a hour to our 4-hour travel which is ok as we are not in any hurry. When we leave the tourist trap, I google Porcupine State Park and off we go and 4 hours later we are going down a dirt road (which we didn’t think was right but there was no place to turn the rig around and we don’t have cell for Google Maps) so we drive for about another hour and we arrive at Porcupine State Park. Small little place for tent camping. We are at the WRONG campground. We should have been at Porcupine Wilderness State Park. What nut decided to name 2 campgrounds Porcupine in the same state? Of course, this is not my fault for omitting a word – it’s the State’s for naming two parks exactly the same, minus the addition of Wilderness. We have no cell to google map our way out, so we back track and side track and forward track for about an hour down a winding dirt road with dirt buggies passing us (probably thinking “what the hell are these two geezers doing down this road with this big ass rig?!) until we finally reach the main highway and cell service! We have taken a 3 hour detour and finally pulled into our campsite 7 hours later – whew!

Leslie me Pam

Welbourne’s meet the Ouellette’s

Our very good friend, well actually all our friends are our very good friends, met us at the Porcupine Wilderness State Park. Since we were so late in arriving, Tom and Leslie Welbourne although they haven’t met Will and Pam and not being shy scouted out the campground and figured out where we were supposed to be and found W&P. They started cocktail hour without us.

Will Ty Tom Lake Superior Superior Sunset Peninsula State Park Ontonagon MI

Upper Peninsula of Michigan

…is unspoiled beauty. We hiked every day we were there, Lake of the Clouds, Fire Tower Lookout, and Lily Ponds. Great hikes, great weather, great company.

Funny meeting you here – isn’t that a quirky statement? But it happened to Tom and Leslie as we all were hiking the Lake of the Clouds and who should come along but their pastor from the church. It was a Sunday and evidently he was skipping out too.

Always hate to say goodbye to Will and Pam. This year’s travel adventure was our longest and I think one of the betters. Ty didn’t get sick this year that’s a plus. My favorite moment was dancing in the dark with Will. Love you brother!!

 

Will and Me

Leaving Porcupine WILDERNESS State Park

If you own a RV or a boat, you know something will always break and that just part of the adventure. And since nothing had broken yet on either of our RVs, and W&P did not have their annual water problems (think that is because they bought a NEW USED rig – Kitty) Wanda decided that we just used the Up and Down switch one too many times and pooped out. This Up and Down’s are here to continually haunts us. The switch failed which means we now have to HAND crank it UP then Down to get it attached to truck. AND of course, same thing when we get to next site to get Wanda detached from truck. Wanda is a big girl, weighing in at around 10,000 lbs – we should have eaten more Wheaties instead of Pasties.

Schoolhouse Becah WI

Peninsula State Park Wisconsin

Switch out Will and Pam and continued to travel with Tom and Leslie. Lovely campsite and it had been upgraded to electric which was a nice surprise. Little tricky to back in tho, and Ty looped around the camp site 3 times finally a really nice young guy stopped him and said. “Hey I am a truck driver and this is a tricky spot (wasn’t he kind) do you want some help?” So glad Ty did not hesitate because it was cocktail hour and I hate to start without him.

As far as weather goes, it turned cold and rainy and quite frankly we are not use to that as this whole 8 months we have been traveling it has been warm and sunny.  However, we made the best of it; especially since we played a lot of Euchre which I miss dearly and Leslie made a “camper style” Paella to die for. Camp is right on the Sturgeon Bay and it is very scenic place. Great place to get smoked whitefish (which we did) and lots of fresh apples. Welbourne’s left after a few days and we stayed behind. Weather cleared and we took the ferry over to Rock Island and rode bikes. Lovely day.

Little known fact about the rocks that wash up on Schoolhouse Bay. These are limestone and they actually are rocks that break off from the Niagara Falls. Then they tumble and keep moving along with the current until they reach journey’s end at this bay.  These smooth rocks are found only here and if you take one and get caught the fine is $2,500!

Jen Mark Fouchey

Mark and Jen Fouchey

Before we left WI to travel down to Naperville Ill to visit Ty’s side of family, Ty being the “fix it” guy found an UP/Down switch and installed. Naturally the first try it would only go UP; second try only Down and third time the charm. Works perfectly.

Mark and Jen live in the typical suburbs of Chicago, Naperville, and it is not the usual RV stop but on invite from Jen we came down for the weekend. And what a nice weekend it was! Always good to be with family, especially if everyone likes each other and gets along (at least I think they like me) and Mark is a terrific cook and again played lots of Euchre, talked, ate, and just had a pleasant relaxing time. Wanda the rig was a big hit as we parked her out front and plenty of neighbors whom Mark and Jen never in 30 years have talked to came by for a chat. Babies, dogs and RV’s are like that.

Back to Grand Design

Off we went back to GD hopeful that this would be the last. Had appointment set for September 14 for GD to look at our squeak AGAIN. We hated to travel backwards to Elkhart Ind, so we wrote a letter to the Vice Prez of Grand Design and wanted to know what the fix was going to be. Greasing the bearing wasn’t doing it and at this point so lets talk lemon. Got a call 5 minutes after we sent the email and was told they were going to replace the springs. This is what we have been asking for all along, finally. We dragged ourselves in and GD actually went the extra mile and replaced the springs, brakes, axles and all the associated hardware with the undercarriage. I am sure as I talked to the customer service person going over the repair manifest that she was secretly thinking “Get the heck out of here and never come back! Unless you want to buy a new rig – then we would love to see you again!” ha ha. Sincerely, GD has been great to work with, we get that new rigs come with problems and one has to be patient. But sometimes a nudge to the top is required to finally get what is needed (Thanks Mike Farmer for the tip). All the repairs that they have done have not cost us anything, even the tire blowout repairs. So really no complaints. So far, no squeak.

Door Project Next Door where Wanda Stored Amy and Me Flagstaff hike Tessa Student Driver Deer on Flagstaff

Covid Quarantine

We really don’t know what it is like to be quarantined from what we have learned listening to family and friends while being “home” these last few weeks. We really have it made, we can still travel, we have no obligations, do what we want basically when we want (masked, 6 feet apart, no tours, no museums etc). But being confined with 4 teenagers, who are doing online school, and both parents working from home brings the reality of what this 2020 is all about to a real slap upside the head. I now get how it is, how stressful it is with all the teenage testosterone and estrogen hormones going bonkers. I get how stressful it is for the parents to try and keep the peace and harmony and keep the kids engaged in school and not at each other throats. Amy and Scotty are doing amazing at this. I feel helpless while here so am spending the days doing the wash, cleaning the kitchen multiple times a day, walking the dog (at least I get my 10,000 steps in) picking up this and that from the store, making masks, mending and sewing cornhole bags, taking Tyman golfing (that’s a hardship – not). Hope I have helped out in some small way.

We’ve had a great stay here – lots of good conversations with Amy and Scott. Great visit with their friends and ours. A quick afternoon picnic up Left Hand Canyon for a much need respite. Helped make corn hole games and Ty and I painted them. Amy has a decoration project of putting up doors along the back fence to deter Lacie (dog) from barking “her head off” (as Amy says) at the neighbors. Tessa learning to driving (little scary) and Wanda is stored off of South Boulder and 75th roads and has good company. So all is good.