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Destination Wakonda State Park, La Grange, MO - July 16

  After a good night's rest with air conditioning, private baths and showers, and included Wi-Fi, we headed south toward our new destination of  Wakonda State Park near La Grange, MO. We continued to enjoy the scenery of rolling farmlands and forests but the enjoyment was often punctuated by frustration. We occasionally encountered certain highways that set up a rhythmic vibration between the camper and the car that caused them to fight one another. This seemed to happen most often on concrete highways where the joints in the concrete were a consistent distance apart. These joints created slight almost imperceptible bumps that, when repeated over and over created this rhythmic vibration. There was really nothing wrong with the road that you would notice with just a car, but the combination of the car hitting bumps and then the camper hitting the bumps at a certain speed caused them to pound against each other. The only way to continue was to slow down and try to find a slower speed
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Destination Mineral Point, WI - July 15, 2023

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  Last night we went to bed at about 9:30 and by 10 pm, it began to rain. It's nice to have a warm, dry camper to sleep in and we had already prepared our outdoor covered areas for our "late-night trips".  When we awoke this morning, the rain had cleared sometime during the middle of the night and things weren't even too wet. After breakfast, we packed up and hit the road only knowing that we were headed toward Mt. Horeb and New Glarus, WI. These were places that Pam researched and thought would be interesting. Along the way, Pam was trying to find a possible campground and we finally decided this would be a good hotel night. So, we decided to visit those two towns along the way and booked a room just beyond New Glarus in a little town called Mineral Point. Mt. Horeb was described as the "Troll capital of the world" and Pam thought this quirky little town would be a good place to visit. Our plan was to eat at the Grumpy Troll in the downtown area. It didn
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High Cliff State Park continued - July 14, 2023

We are planning a second night at this campground, we decided to use today to tour Door County, WI. This is the peninsula on the east side of Green Bay, which is a part of Lake Michigan. As we drove through Green Bay, questions arose like "How did Green Bay Packers get their name?" "What did they pack?" One would think the answer was cheese. One would be wrong. Here is part of a San Diego Reader article we found: " What do the Green Bay Packers pack? Cheese? Meat. Good ol' American red meat. Earl Lambeau hustled $500 from fellow employees at the Indian Packing Company in Green Bay, bought football jerseys, and named his squad the Packers. That was 1919. From more donations, the players received $16.75 each at the end of the season. They went pro in 1921. It's the only NFL team that's never moved from its original city. But only because it's too cold for all of them to get their cars started at the same time." We arrived at Sturgeon Bay and
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Destination High Cliff State Park, Sherwood, WI - July 13, 2023

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Last night, we were expecting rain so we packed the majority of our gear before we went to bed and planned to get up early, leave and eat breakfast out. When we awoke we were pleasantly surprised to find it had not rained, but we still got an early start  We said goodbye to Lake Superior and drove south along the Lake Michigan shoreline. It didn't look that different from Lake Superior, although, it wasn't as blue as where we had just been at Pictured Rocks. As we began to leave the Northwoods behind and come into a rolling landscape with fewer trees and more farms, we realized we had missed more open vistas. We enjoyed the beauty of all the trees, but we must be Midwesterners/Westerners after all. We need to be able to see some distance. We headed toward High Cliff State Park on Lake Winnebago in Sherwood, WI. Part of how we decide where to go is based on availability at a campground. They had two spots available, so we grabbed one. It is strange to choose a campground/campsit
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Bay Furnace continued, July 12, 2023

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After a leisurely breakfast, we cleaned up and headed toward Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We had no idea what to expect but everything we read said this was a "must-see" in the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan. After some searching around, we figured out the National Lakeshore was about 50 miles long with various stops along the way. An awful lot of the road was NOT along the lakeshore. There is a 42-mile trail that one can hike that closely follows the shore, but we were not going to do that. Our first stop, and probably the most popular, was Miners Castle. This was an impressive rock formation carved by the wind and waves of Lake Superior. Miner's Castle - closeup View from the cliff Miners Castle from the overlook We drove quite some distance to the next stop, which was Au Sable Point. Here we walked 1.7 miles each way to view the lighthouse. One of the things we wanted to see was a lighthouse and we were excited to take this walk along the coastline. Swimming B
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Destination Bay Furnace National Forest Campground, Christmas, MI - July 11, 2023

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We awoke this morning to find that we stayed dry during the night. Well, not exactly dry...... Everything was soaking wet from the rain the day before but we did not get any new rain. We stayed very dry and toasty in the camper but everything else - tarps, screen tent, potty tent - were soaking wet and covered in dirt and a green snot-like substance. Something dropped from the trees during the rain and turned into green slime - yuck! Using a whisk broom, we got off as much as we could before folding and packing everything away. Green "snot" was all over everything after the rain. We headed east toward Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore near Munising, MI. Along the way, Marquette, MI seemed like a good place for lunch. We decided to drive through the downtown area to find a restaurant but pulling a camper made parking almost impossible. We ended up parking about 6 blocks away and walked back to find a place for lunch. We ate at Donckers and had the best meal Rob has had so far
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Twin Lakes continued - July 10, 2023

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Campsite at Twin Lakes We woke up this morning to rain. We were so glad that we learned from our previous experience to go ahead and put up the tarp. We had just enough overhang to put our feet on dry ground when we stepped out of the camper. By 8:30 am, it had cleared enough to fix a wonderful breakfast of blueberry bacon pancakes. We headed north toward Houghton, MI in search of a cell signal and WiFi. We stopped at Walmart to pick up a few things, then ran thru the car wash, and into McDonald's for a drink and free Wi-Fi. Say what you will about McDonald's, everywhere we go, they are the one place we are certain to find free Wi-Fi. So, this blog is brought to you by McDonald's. With our late start this morning and our longer-than-expected stay at McDonald's, we decided to cut out some of our sightseeing and took a shorter-than-planned route home. FYI, Houghton is on the "upper peninsula of the Upper Peninsula". It is home to Michigan Technology University a
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