After our indecently hasty first-week charge through the center of the USA, our pace has (deliberately) slowed in weeks two and three. Instead of 1,289 miles in 7 days, we covered “just” 691 in 14 days; i.e. half the distance in twice the time. That’s still probably more than most dedicated RVers will travel in that time, but a better realization of what RV travel is all about.
We gave ourselves a day in Gaylord, three days in northern Michigan at Mackinaw City, seven in the Upper Peninsula in Munising for the superb Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, one day in Crystal Falls, and then another seven as we crossed over into Minnesota at Duluth and pitched camp in Saginaw, just to the north-west.
The map of our route from Lansing, Michigan, to Saginaw, Minnesota, 14 days of excellent RV travel
That’s where we are right now, prior to our next major move – west through Minnesota and into the “undiscovered country” of North Dakota, Fargo, Bismarck and all. This will be entirely new territory for both of us, and we can’t wait to discover new adventures…
PS: The map shows it would take 11hr 33min (by car, non-stop) to cover the route that took us 2 weeks!
The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. Home to wolves, bobcat, coyote, bears, and, a long time ago, woolly mammoths, Minnesota is also the birthplace of Susan’s grandfather, a descendant of Slovenian immigrants seeking life and work in a place similar to home. And that means mining, a distinct accent, and winters harsh enough to freeze your bollocks off.
But our arrival was much more temperate, once we got past Duluth.
Duluth, Minnesota
Those Steep Grade warnings on our GPS were the first test of our nerve before we head into mountain territory, and while Simon was eager to give it a try (with a healthy dose of respect), Susan was not so sure. Perhaps the person holding the steering wheel with their foot on the gas or the brake has a mental advantage over the helpless passenger.
Whatever the case, the downward grade proved to be a doddle. We’d had worse coming through the Appalachian foothills on our way up from Florida. The upward grade, however, would be a different matter.
Leaving Wisconsin meant crossing the St. Louis River into Duluth, where the unexpected sight of the John A. Blatnik Memorial Bridge brought on the heart-pounding terror of the Mackinaw Bridge crossing for one of us (Susan, obviously), with its massive rise and certain death by drowning if the rig went over.
In the end, it was butt-clenching but do-able, much more so than the Mighty Mack due to its higher sidewall and less visibility straight down to the river.
We could see the uphill Steep Grade we’d been warned about when we reached the end of the bridge. From there, it looked incredibly daunting – a nearly straight-up pitch with its full horror hidden by sweeping upward curves. Simon downshifted into second gear, checked that we were already in Tow Haul mode, and let Fati’s engine take the brunt of it.
We have no photos of it, of course, since Simon’s hands were gripping the wheel and Susan’s hands were gripping the armrests.
Our 11-ton rig performed magnificently, and once we were at the top of the hill we (and she) breathed a sigh of relief. The rest of the trip was pretty and uneventful, though we were immensely curious about the foggy pall that lay over Duluth, a meteorological phenomenon caused by air hitting the warm land after passing over Lake Superior’s deep, notoriously cold waters, which we’d encounter repeatedly over the next few days.
We were thrilled to be upgraded from a 30-amp back-in site to a 50-amp pull-thru when we checked in at Red Pine Campground in Saginaw, Minnesota, about 28 minutes north-west of Duluth. We parked between two fragrant pine trees with an Airstream RV on one side and nobody on the other, hooked up to water, electric, and sewer, then set off to see the sights.
Having learned our lesson with a tick scare on Ruthie after hiking in Michigan, the first order of business was to find some hiking clothes, ideally the kind that has tick and bug repellant built in. Menards – that vast warehouse of all things outdoors in Michigan – wasn’t far away. It also wasn’t anything like the ones in Michigan, and was really a gigantic Home Depot. Strike One. Walmart was Strike Two. In the land of outdoor adventure, either the locals never went outdoors, were far heartier than us, or already had hiking clothes.
Susan refused to go into any more stores that didn’t have the words Sporting Goods on them, and to our great joy we came upon Dick’s. But this wasn’t a big Dick’s. It was a little Dick’s. And no offense intended to anyone, but we were pretty sure we’d hate little Dick’s.
Little Dick’sSusan in her ultra-flattering men’s hiking shirt, freezing on the lakeshore
Simon waited in the car with Ruthie (again), while Susan dealt with the little Dick’s. Long story short, it wasn’t a little Dick’s, it was a big shopping mall with a little Dick’s. Apparently, women don’t hike, so half an hour later we both had a set of men’s hiking pants and shirts (and a massive cha-ching on our credit card), and we were off to the North Shore Scenic Drive with Gooseberry Falls as our turn-around point.
First up was a pull-off viewing area that led down to a small river that emptied into Lake Superior where, it seems, something spawns.
Roadside oddity Toms Logging Camp (no apostrophe needed, it seems) was our next discovery, and while they don’t allow dogs on the camp trail, we took a few minutes to explore the wacky gift shop and it’s homespun signs that explained the “décor” on the walls, from the type of timber used to build the shop to the mountain goat’s head and a grim description of how long it took to die after it was shot.
The most gorgeous cowboy in Minnesota!
Susan had been hoping to find a small bag of long-grain wild rice, and we found it here, then we headed north again. Our packed-lunch stop was the lighthouse in Two Harbors, where the fog on Lake Superior was starting to roll in. We made it to the end and back, but during that walk the temperature dropped by about ten degrees, then rose again when we reached land.
You can see the fog in the background, which would be in the foreground soon.
Even the over-achiever Canadian Goose couple with their 27 (!!) goslings were unimpressed.
Simon had too much blood in his caffeine stream, and we seriously needed warming up, so we popped in at Burlington Station, where he added eight hand-made truffles to the bill without asking how much they were. The total for the truffles and two mocha coffees came to $46, and the look on his face was priceless as he tried to hide his shock and horror.
In all fairness, they are absolutely scrummy, and we’re making them last as long as possible. But damn…that’s some serious cash for a couple of pounds of chocolate. You could buy a whole new check valve for your water pump for that price!
Gooseberry Falls was the most magnificent of all the falls we’d seen so far, so we’ll just let you enjoy them, as we did.
Fog followed us back along the coastline until we turned west and headed home again, where one of us flopped onto their bed, so exhausted by the day they couldn’t even close their mouth all the way before they fell into a deep, contented sleep.
A trip back to Marquette to pick up a prescription was necessary, but a bizarre roadside attraction recommended by our dear friend Julie helped break up the trip, and, ultimately, made the whole journey worthwhile.
Lakenenland’s tongue-twister of a name hints at the quirky nature of the place, and the deliberately placed warning signs before entering the always-open always-free drive leaves no doubt there is a story behind its current location. The smaller sign reads:
“As a result of (8) eight years of continuous harassment from the township of Chocolay, the No Trespassing sign is directed at all local members of planning and zoning boards only. All other members are welcome here 24/7/365. Thank you for stopping and hope you enjoy your visit. Sincerely, Tom Lakenen”
Clearly, there has been some animosity
We’ve never been on those boards, so we spent a happy half-hour driving past various objects the intrepid Mr. Lakenen assembled into works of unusual art.
A boat. I guess.Wildlife spotting!
Tom has opinions, too, and (luckily for our mental health) we agreed with his support of front-line workers, nurses, and people who are currently being maligned by the likes of Florida’s dictator-wannabe. But most of the art is just fun, even when it’s a bit head-scratching.
Mechanical BandA tribute to freedom in Ukraine
We returned to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore’s Sand Point for a final walk along the beach and were treated to two water rescue planes (Coastguard, maybe) doing training sessions. This is a photo of them landing in the bay. At least, it would have been if Simon had realized he had the camera’s lens turned to “unintentional selfie.”
Even so, the magnificence of the beach and the lake was an ideal “goodbye” to the area, as we prepared for our speedy trip to the pretty Pentoga Park Campground in Crystal Falls, Michigan, where, we were assured, our hot water heater and water pump problems would be solved by mobile RV mechanic, Scott, who we found through our now-familiar go-to company, MyRVResource..
With such a short distance to drive to the campground, we stopped in the impossibly tiny town of Alpha, where we found The Village Longhouse, a cash-only coffee-and-cake stop that would waste an hour or so, allowing us to arrive at the campground right at check-in time.
While we were sitting in the shade with coffees and a piece of cake to split, one of the locals came out and asked if he could join us, saying, “I’m used to the people inside. I like it when there’s new blood I can talk to.”
In the U.S.’s current political division, we had some concerns about how this was going to go, but it seems we met a somewhat rare liberal in Upper Michigan, and the next hour passed quickly as we shared stories of travel and politics. Finally, it was time to leave, and in a short time we were pulling into the campsite, where the friendly camp host shared photos of her dog and let us scope out a site that was as level as possible.
Pantoga Park campground
If you’ve been following us on Facebook, you already know the outcome of our hot water heater issue. The heights of joy, and the crushing next-day disappointment. Susan’s much-needed hot shower, and Simon’s agonizing path to cleanliness. We laugh about it now, as we hope you will, and we accept the hard-earned titles of “total twonks.”
Calm restored, we left Michigan the next morning and drove through America’s Dairyland on our way to our Minnesota campground. It had become our habit to do a wildlife count as we drove, and so far the tally was meager, with only one deer, several wild turkeys, and the hugely surprising sight of a gray wolf crossing the road just outside Marquette.
Perhaps the most surprising sight of all came when we stopped at a gas station in the middle of god-knows-where, only to discover what we thought was a convenience store was really a bar filled with ATV-ers swilling back Michelob and cocktails before “hitting the dust” again. The massive Frontier Bar sign on the front of the building was a hint, but, as we’ve so often done, we didn’t take it.
This photo is worth clicking on for some Up North humor
We did take a chicken strips basket to-go and split it in the rig, then made the rest of the journey into Minnesota while our GPS flashed the warning signs for a 6-degree Steep Grade going downhill and a second Steep Grade of 6-9 degrees going up.
The first week of our grand “Year On The Road” adventure – and a LOT of miles!
Considering how far we’ve come in the initial phase of our great American road trip by RV, we thought it was worth highlighting our route, and how much ground we covered.
In reality, the first week of our ‘Year On The Road’ was effectively the “shakedown cruise,” the testing ground for our ability to actually drive this remarkable vehicle (that’s Indefatigable, or Fati for short, plus our tow vehicle or ‘toad’, Nippy).
Our initial route, through Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana, before arriving in Michigan
In all we covered 1,289 miles through the first seven days, traveling from our home base in Orlando to Lansing, Michigan. That’s a LOT of miles for an RV in such a short time, and we had some challenges along the way but, in general terms, Fati handled it with aplomb.
Our first target was to reach Michigan, to set up the second phase of our route, which will take us into the Northwest of the country, via Minnesota and the Dakotas. Realistically, we achieved our main target and have got the hang of the driving and setting up camp at each location.
Normally, regular RVers wouldn’t travel and set up camp every day, but we wanted to see if we could manage a tough schedule before moving on to Phase 2. We certainly have a few issues to deal with (including the lack of hot water!), and we’ve had to consult various RV authorities, including the excellent MyRVResource.com, but we’re happy that we’ve grasped some of the essential principles of RV travel, and we’re ready for more adventures in the weeks and months ahead!
Armed with actual information we actually bothered to look up, we headed out on Saturday for a day in Marquette, Michigan, nestled on the shore of Lake Superior just 38 miles west of our campground. Highway 28 afforded a tantalizing view of the great lake nearly all the way.
We stopped at several overlooks along the way, one of which led down to a beach, where we met a couple from Wisconsin who were knee-deep in the calm, freezing-cold water searching for agates, those pretty, banded rocks that, when shined up, make lovely jewelry. We didn’t know at that time that it’s (say it quietly) illegal to collect rocks along the lakeshore, so after a pleasant chat we wished them good luck in their endeavor.
We marveled at how still the water was, and could only imagine it at its most wintertime angry.
Marquette itself is a city, but also not a city; bigger than a town, but still entirely approachable, with a few streets that make up the downtown area. It can call itself a city because it has a cathedral, but we were here for its fabled dog-friendly nature, with Presque Isle Park as our goal.
Downtown Marquette. Apologies for the windshield glareDowntown Marquette
Iron ore was the main economic driver in the area, starting in 1911, and the massive ore dock in the harbor is still in use today. We stopped for a quick photo of this impressive piece of engineering, and that’s when we saw the first of many, many NO DOGS signs.
The ore dock loads freighters up for moving taconite (iron ore pellets) from Marquette to distant places
You can’t fight city hall, especially when you’re a tourist, so we drove around the park, then searched for any lakeside parking area that didn’t forbid our sweet Ruthie. None found, we decided to pick up some fresh produce at the Saturday Farmers Market, which also had the glaring red circle with a slash through it, superimposed over the image of a dog.
All we could enjoy at Presque Isle ParkProbably a very nice Farmers Market, but we’ll never know for sure
In the end, we simply enjoyed the downtown architecture, which was impressive, and started our search for a dog-friendly lunch stop.
Of the five options outlined by the Visitor Center’s leaflet, one was closed, one had no outdoor seating, two had just a couple of tables outdoors, all of which were filled, and the fifth we never found. But none of that mattered when we found the Co-Op Grocery, Marquette’s answer to Whole Foods.
Three little pasta-based salads, an iced coffee, and a sparkling water later (with a scone thrown in for good luck) we ventured over to the sadly-named Dead Lake (so called not because it’s dead, or people who use it get dead, but because the Native people here recognized it as a place where their ancestors dwell), and after a small false start we came upon Tourist Park, a cozy picnic table in the sun, and a little girl named Amelia who fell in love with Ruthie. Lunchtime perfection!
With so much success in the wake of failure, we agreed another trip out to Pictured Rocks State Park was in order the next day, this time with actual knowledge of its location as our guide. And what a pay-off! We took short hikes, we walked on beaches, and we saw magnificent waterfalls, the final one being the majestic Miners Falls.
You can’t really get the size of this majestic falls, so check out the video Simon posted on our Veness Travel Media Facebook page
It was during this hike that we realized most of our photos were of the forests, and it really hit home how starved we’d been for nature. Florida has plenty of fascinating natural features, some of which hold a deep desire to kill you, but there’s something about a forest – deep and dappled and filled with the promise of frolicking deer and racoons – that touches a heartstring and plays a soul-stirring tune.
Life is good with a forest and a river as your companionsWe marveled at how far into the forest we could see, and loved all the little springtime wildflowers
Lunch this day – the 18th anniversary of the day we married – was in the remarkable Grand Marais on the far eastern edge of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The Midwestern version of a wild west town, it had a single street that made up the downtown area, with just a handful of shops and dining outlets.
Grand Marais downtown
Dog-friendly patio? Check! Stunning view of Lake Superior? Check! Lots of Midwesterners and their amusing accents? Double check, with a heaping helping of off-road vehicles and a pint or two of beer for all of the over-21s. Chilly temperatures that required a run back to the car for our sweatshirts? That happened, too.
How the cool kids get around
But none of the inconvenience mattered when we found Lake Perch on the menu. It’s Susan’s childhood in a basket, along with sides of coleslaw and French fries, and, with a pint each of local beer to toast our massive good fortune, we celebrated our anniversary to the strains of country music with lyrics that mentioned sex on a pontoon boat (“a slow-motion party”), sexy girls on tractors, and something about one man’s distain for another man’s testicles, complete with that word actually sung for all to hear.
Cold, but happily splitting an Anniversary basket of Lake Perch with her beloved
Tomorrow: What in the name of all that is holy is that banging sound?
We managed to crack one of the ceiling fan vents during our charge north, while the hot water has also stopped working, for reasons unknown. Oh, and the seal on the toilet looks to have failed, and the leveling jacks won’t work properly. But, apart from that, everything’s fine.
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What happens when an RVer’s essential tire pressure monitoring system goes wrong? It’s a nightmare.
It’s probably saying the obvious that a typical RV is a complicated piece of kit. It is packed with different systems, gadgets and other operational parts that then need to survive the “earthquake” of traveling along highways that can be highly unforgiving.*
(* That’s a euphemism for roads that are little more than pot-holed and scarred relics – yes, Alabama, we’re looking at you)
There are plenty of ways they can go wrong, including the all-important tires that keep you rolling down the highway. That’s why many RVers use a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (or TPMS) to keep close tabs on the most vital part of the whole vehicle.
But what happens when your TPMS itself goes wrong? Today, we found out. It’s infuriating.
We’d had a pretty good morning, following a lovely overnight at the Tennessee winery. We had traveled through the pretty rolling hills of eastern Kentucky when we opted for a break at the Pilot Service Station in Jeffersonville, just south of Louisville. The tire repair center was quiet, so we thought we’d see if they could check the pressure and general well-being of our 6 tires after 4 hard-driving days.
No problem. They took it in and had several technicians working on it while we enjoyed a coffee and iced tea, and took Ruthie for a walk. There was a serious issue with the valve on our front right tire, so that needed changing, but everything else seemed OK, and off we went again. For about another 20 miles.
Having just crossed the spectacular bridge into Indiana, we got a warning on the TPMS. Our front left tire had ballooned to 393 PSI. Considering the normal operating PSI is 90, that was a pretty startling figure. And quite impossible. If it had been 393 it would have exploded well before reaching such a bloated figure. So it had to be the TPMS malfuctioning.
OK, we had a standard tire gauge to hand and were able to get off the highway and find somewhere to park. Checking the tire pressure, though, means removing the tricky little monitors on the tire valves, and this one wasn’t having any of it. After removing the monitor and checking the tire pressure (a solid 80PSI), the valve wouldn’t shut off and was fast losing pressure. Simon had to scrabble behind the wheel to try to get the monitor back on, leaving several strips of skin on the tarmac in his hurry to prevent losing too much air.
A quick call back to the Pilot tire center revealed another tire specialist nearby, so that’s where we limped, with our hazard flashers on, to get this new problem seen to.
Fortunately, the Best One Tire & Service Center at Jeffersonville was nearby and they had an empty bay ready to check things out. The outcome? Another tire valve issue and more hassle with the TPMS, getting it off and back on again.
Suffice it to say, it was a highly stressful and worrying afternoon, wondering if we’d even get back on the road again today. We’d also lost a shedload of time in trying to reach our overnight Harvest Hosts stop in Indianapolis and had to scramble to find something else closer by.
Fortunately, Susan found the lovely Ashmoor RV Campground in Scottsburg. Small, quiet and wooded, it was the perfect place to sit and de-stress after the TPMS issues.
How the day started: waking up in an empty farm field with all the RV windows and the door open. Our Harvest Host location was the Von Glahn Farms family business in Baconton, Georgia. Pure rural bliss.
Breakfast included beautiful picked-fresh blueberries, and blueberry honey. Truly delish.
How the day continued: stopping to help a (very) slow turtle cross a busy road before he got crushed. And Simon copped for a broadside of turtle pee for his troubles. And that’s a sentence we NEVER thought we would write.
Later on: A truly excellent drive through rural Georgia on Highway 82, avoiding the usual I-75 route north so we could A) Avoid Atlanta and it’s bad traffic, and 2) So we could dodge the mountainous part of the highway through Tennessee and Kentucky. The scenery was wonderful and the route easy to drive.
How it finished up: Alabama did not impress us. At all. Instead of avoiding the traffic of Atlanta, we hit road construction south of Montgomery, and heavy traffic in Birmingham. Instead of missing the mountains of Kentucky, we hit the potholes of I-65, and it felt like an ongoing earthquake until we were finally able to get off the highway for an RV campground (Carson Village in the Birmingham suburb of Pinson). We also got cut up and cut off about a zillion times by Birmingham commuter traffic as we tried to navigate by GPS. Not a happy experience, and we won’t be back in a hurry, if at all.
Neither photo even hints at the gruesome nature of the road surfaces we encountered, and even now, having stopped at the RV park, we can still feel the shocks and shakes in our back teeth.
Tomorrow we head north for Tennessee and a potential Harvest Host brewery in the town of Franklin. Turtles not invited.
How we ended up in a field on a pecan farm in Georgia.
One day down, another 364 to go….
So, after a frantic day’s packing on Saturday, we left nice and early on Sunday at, er, 11:30am. Well, we had a few more tire issues, and, by the time we had everything sorted out (and Simon stopped swearing), it was about an hour and a half later than planned.
We don’t have specific daily targets for the first 5 days, as the object is just to get up to Michigan by next weekend for Susan’s mom’s memorial at their Okemos home. Our dear Kathy Prelesnik died in April 2020, and we hadn’t managed to get back there for a whole heap of reasons until summer 2022, and then Susan’s step-dad Gene took a major turn for the worse and he passed away last September.
In truth that was the final catalyst for our Big Trip, a kind of “it’s-now-or-never” moment. Anyway, that’s the background, and we are ‘winging it’ to start with, just heading north and seeing where we end up at the end of the day.
Today, that was Georgia, with Valdosta soon left in our rear-view mirror, and then Tifton, where we turned left aiming for Alabama. As a member of the Harvest Hosts system – where various businesses offer overnight stays to RVers – we started checking for any opportunities in this part of the state, and lo! and beold, we found ourselves in an open field, all on our own in a pecan farm.
It makes for a great start to our Year On The Road, and we can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.
And here are the happy crew (all together now, “Me and you and a dog named Boo…..”)
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