Hi all!

We left Appomattox on Sunday, October 21st on our way south.  We spent some wonderful time with family and friends during the annual Railroad Day festival.  The weekend was great fun being with friends and family.

We had hoped to spend time with our friends Deb and Ron in Suffolk but Deb didn’t feel well and since we didn’t go to Suffolk, VA on Friday the 19th, we stayed in Appomattox until Sunday the 21st to do some renovations on the RV and wash the truck and RV which was no simple task. We decided the dining area was uncomfortable so we ripped out the benches and put in two chairs which are much more comfy to sit in for any length of time.

We headed to South of the Border, SC for our first stop and stayed at Camp Pedro. Now if you haven’t been to South of the Border, you are missing out!  LOL!  It’s pretty cheesy but still has lots to offer for the tourist in us all.  We spent one full day geocaching and found 7 caches in and around the area.  We ended up walking about 4 miles looking for the caches.  Geocaching is a great way explore the area you are staying and we highly recommend you try it out.  It’s cheap fun and a learning experience.

From South of the Border we headed to James Island Campground in Charleston, SC. This campground was great and had the best dog park that had a huge pond for the dogs to play in and of course Codey Bo enjoyed that big time!  Once again, he made claim to the camp site by hopping onto the picnic table!  We really enjoy Charleston and even took a tour of a 55 and older community with model homes in Summerville, SC (very close to Charleston).  No decisions made but this area is a contender!  We were fortunate to spend time with a friend from the “water” industry Gary Visser whom Jeanne has known for over 20+ years.  We met him at a local Greek restaurant to catch up.  It was great to see him.  We also contacted our former Physical Therapist whom we have become very close with (she helped us feel so much better with all our aches and pains).  Jessica and her husband Sean moved to Charleston and we invited them to the RV park for a cookout.  It was so awesome to see them.

Now we are in Kingland, GA which is on the FL/GA border.  Nice campground and great parks to explore.  We definitely achieved our 10,000 fitbit steps and over 4.5 miles yesterday on a hike. It’s beautiful here as well. We actually did some bird watching (that’s for you Deb and Sherrill)!  We had no idea what we were looking at but it was fun nonetheless!!

Today we are going just over the border to Florida to a state park for more geocaching, hiking and exploring.  So that being the case, I’ll finish up here so we can enjoy the sunny day!

We head to Melbourne, Florida tomorrow for 3 nights and then we will be in Naples, FL for a week starting November 1st.  Looking forward to visiting with friends there as well.

Later gator…no pun intended but there are lots of gators here!  UGH!!

From September 26th to October 2nd we attended an RV conference in Elizabethtown, KY.  We learned all kinds of neat things about full time RVing; how to fix just about anything on our RV; how to drive to Alaska in our RV; the best meals to make while RVing; and how to drive our RV; back into a campground space; and finally we now know how much our RV and truck weigh together and separately.  Come to find out we are below the weight limit we can go to but we have to redistribute weight in the trailer and truck to balance the tires and axles.  We will be paring down for sure.  We had a terrific time and met some great folks who are full time RVing; getting ready to buy their first RV or RV on the weekends.  This conference would have been excellent to attend before starting our journey but nonetheless we learned a great deal of useful information and learned what we are doing wrong as well.  LOL!  Nothing that we can’t fix easily. Our last night in KY, we received a call from our buddy Gloria who was about an hour away on her way to Branson, MO.  She came and stayed the night with us which was a pleasant surprise. After Jane’s driving and parking lesson, she drove for the first time to our next campsite and parked the trailer on the site.  That was not easy but she did it!  After the conference we headed back towards Virginia with a stay in Horse county of Kentucky (Lexington) and an over night in West Virginia.  Both were beautiful locations and unfortunately we were only there an over night so didn’t get to explore too much.  As we were driving from West Virginia to Virginia, we talked about all the beautiful sites we have seen but both of us commented on how beautiful Virginia was and nothing can beat the Blue Ridge Mountains in fall.  Of all the states and places we have visited the last two months we had to come to Virginia to see the most beautiful sunset!!  We arrived at Jane’s mother’s house around noon on Thursday, October 4th and backed it into her driveway like a champ.  We plugged it in to keep the refrigerator going and promptly went into Jane’s mothers house and showered in a nice big shower with lots of hot water and slept in a nice big bed for a restful sleep.  On Friday, October 5th we headed to Fairfax, VA where we stayed with our BFF’s Jim & Tom for a week.  We had appointments with all of our doctors (8 docs to be exact).  Despite all the hiking and walking we have been doing we both found out we gained a bit of weight but we are back on the right track to continue to take more off (we both had lost quite a bit before heading out). As they say, muscle weighs more than fat – that’s our excuse for now and we are sticking to it!! 

We also spent time with as many of our friends in the area as we could including Dawn & Pam; the Millers and our God Kids; Jane’s co-worker Dianne; and our buddies Guy & Paul.  We decided next time we are in the area we need to stay longer to see more friends than doctors!!

We are headed back to Jane’s Mom’s house for another week to spend time with family and friends in that area as well as redistribute the weight in the truck and trailer and take a few things out we don’t need.  We are also going to do some renovations for more comfort and ease of use in the RV.  

On Friday, October 19th (Jeanne’s birthday) we are headed to Suffolk, VA to spend a few days with Jeanne’s former co-worker Deb and her husband Ron.  After that we are headed south for the winter (YEAH!)  We are staying in SC, GA and FL for a few days with our final destination of Naples, FL for a week.  We have reservations until March 15th all across the south including in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona!  After that we are thinking up the California coast and head into Canada for more exploration.  We suspect we will be back in Virginia something around this time next year.  We will continue to blog and keep in touch.  We do miss all of our friends and families very much but thanks to modern technology we talk, Facetime, email and text often. 

Until next blog – take care all….

We left South Dakota and headed back east.  Per the title, this part of the country is clearly full of amber waves of grain!!  We made our first stop in Lake McConaughy, NE for a few days.  It was in a nice state park right on the lake.  Who would have thunk that Nebraska had a beach to play in.  It was a gorgeous lake and the weather was beautiful making a day at the beach awesome.  We believe it was unseasonably warm hitting in the upper 90’s!  We noticed that there were numerous campers set up right on the beach.  We were in a campground as we didn’t realize it was legal to camp right on the beach.  So one of the days we were there we had a beach day and drove the truck right onto the beach and hung out for a while.  Codey especially loved it as he hung out in the water most of the time.

From Nebraska we headed to Iowa and stayed in a couple of places including Newton (near Des Moines) for one night and in Marion, Iowa at a nice county campground named Squaw Creek.  We were able to take a long bike ride and do a good bit of hiking & geocaching which was nice.  We also had our friend Tim Wilson come and have dinner with us before we left.  As mentioned Jeanne has friends all over the country who work in the water business.  It was great to see him and catch up.  Jeanne cooked on the fire pit between being eaten alive by mosquitoes.  OMG!  We have never seen so many of those little buggers in one place.  Thankfully we rode the bikes fast enough that they couldn’t catch up and the rest of the time we hung out in the RV!!  Sorry no pictures from this stay as we couldn’t stay outside long enough without the mosquitoes forming a plan of attack.  We believe they were hanging outside of the RV just waiting and planning how they were going to get us!!!

From Marion we headed to Chillicothe, Illinois and stayed a couple of days there as well.  We were one of maybe 4 RV’s there that weren’t seasonal.  In Chillicothe we found some great hiking trails, one in particular we liked was the Canyon Trail which was literally down into a canyon.

We made our way to East St. Louis where we had set up to stay 5 days but realized our next destination was over 300 miles away and pulling a trailer that far does not bode well on the butt and pulling a trailer makes it a longer drive.  We did however spend three days in St. Louis and had a great time doing all the tourist things including a ride up in the  Arch, a visit to the Cathedral Basilica and and a river boat cruise.  We also had the opportunity to visit friends who live very close to St. Louis.  Tye and Rhonda Beasley.  Tye is Jane’s mother’s best friends son (Nina Beasley) (did you follow all that) and we felt that if we didn’t go visit them, Nina would have given us holy heck and she scares us!! LOL!  They took us to an awesome Mexican restaurant!  YUM!!  Our campground was at the Casino Queen and honestly it was a parking lot just around the corner from the casino.  NO, we didn’t go and gamble, we didn’t even go into the casino but it appeared that most of the folks in the campground did.  They set up and most of the time their RV’s were sitting empty where we surmised that they were away gambling!!

After three days in St. Louis we headed to Grayville, IL (on the border of Indiana) and stayed for two nights.  It was kinda creepy because we were the only campers in the campground the first night. The second night there was one other camper. We head to Elizabethtown, KY tomorrow for a week.  We are attending a RV conference on Safety and other important things about being full-time RV’ers.  One of the seminars is about driving to Alaska – we totally psyched about that one.  Jeanne is excited about the electrical and maintenance stuff whereas Jane is going to the “how to organize your RV” and how to drive it (which she haven’t done yet).  After that week we head back to Appomattox, VA (Jane’s mom’s house) to park the RV and head to visit friends (and doctors) back in Fairfax for a week.  Mid-October we start our descent south with our first reservation in Naples, FL, November 1st!!

Yes, we know we haven’t done an update in a while.  We’ve been having too much fun in South Dakota.  That’s probably something you wouldn’t think you’d ever here, but what a fantastic place with so much to see and do.  So, that being the case, here goes….

Hey boo boo!

We left Minnesota and headed to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  We stayed at a Yogi Bear Jellystone RV park for Labor day weekend.  Us and what seemed like 400 other families with kids!  They had alot of activities mostly for the kids.  We (Jeanne, Jane and Jane’s sister Cindy) spent most of our time exploring Sioux Falls.

We visited the memorial to the South Dakota battleship which was fascinating. We also met Michelangelo’s David, God’s Moses, and visited the falls in the middle of town, thus the name Sioux Falls.  We drove to Nebraska and Iowa which was only a few miles away, just cause we could.

Talk about Corny…

On our way to Custer, SD we stop in Mitchell, SD at the Corn Palace.  Yes, Corn Palace.  The building is a brick and mortar but it is covered in panels of corn cobs and husks! The best part was standing on the balcony and being on the corn cam so we could wave to our friends and family back home. And for your history lesson:  The world’s Only Corn Palace is Mitchell’s premier tourist attraction. Some 500,000 tourists come from around the nation each year to see the uniquely designed corn murals. The city’s first Corn Palace was built as a way to prove to the world that South Dakota had a healthy agricultural climate. Eight years before the turn of the 20th century -1892- when Mitchell, South Dakota was a small, 12-year-old city of 3,000 inhabitants – the WORLD’S ONLY CORN PALACE was established on the city’s Main Street. During its over 100 years of existence, it has become known worldwide and now attracts more than a half a million visitors annually. What was really neat was Jeanne’s grandfather worked on the Corn Palace in 1911!

50 feet of Dignity…

Since this was a long drive, we stopped several times to walk around and “rest”.  At the rest area just before crossing the Missouri River, which is beautiful by the way, we were introduced to Dignity.  Another history lesson for you: Dignity is a sculpture on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River near Chamberlain, South Dakota. The 50-foot high stainless steel statue by South Dakota artist laureate Dale Lamphere depicts an Indigenous woman in Plains-style dress receiving a star quilt. 

After what felt like 10 hours on the road, we finally arrived at our campground in Custer, SD.  We were never so happy to stop driving/riding as Jane’s sister brought back memories to all of us with saying about 100 times,  “are we there yet”? Every time we passed a campground in Custer, she’d point it out and then asked if we picked the last campground in Custer.  We knew we were in trouble when she said, “get me the heck out of this truck”.  If you know Jane’s sister she didn’t use the word “heck”!  LOL!!

The next day, Jane’s mother flew in to join us for a week of fun.  We started by visiting Wall Drug for a day.  Since it’s been a couple of paragraphs since we’ve given you a history lesson, hear you go: Wall Drug has a rich history in the state of South Dakota. Nestled in the city of Wall in the western part of the state, Wall Drug has grown from its humble beginnings in 1931 to a thriving oasis. Wall Drug offers dining, activities, gifts and souvenirs, visitor information and, of course, free ice water. Many road-worn travelers stop at Wall Drug and leave awake and refreshed, just like they did more than 80 years ago. With more than 76,000 square feet, it was quite fascinating to see and explore for the day.

Nothing bad about the Badlands…

After leaving Wall Drug we drove through the Badlands National Park and Custer State Park. We saw wildlife including: deer, bison, and big horn sheep.

Great faces…

The next couple of days, we visited Mt. Rushmore and the Crazy Horse memorial.  We’ve all seen these as we grew up but to see them up close is amazing.

A little stroll around the lake…AKA – Mom’s a bad ass!!

We took at “stroll” around Sylvan Lake which was a mile. We started on this lovely level path which was an easy walk until…we took at turn around the big rocks (seen in the photos).  This is where the easy path became a walk up and around boulders!  Jane’s mom started the walk with us and said, “I can walk the mile”.  Little did we know what that entailed.  As we made it to the boulders we asked Mom if she wanted to continue and her response was, “I’ve made it this far, might as well keep going”.  She walked, climbed, slipped (a little bit), and ultimately made it to the end without falling or getting hurt.  There were multiple offers from others on the trail to help but she was clearly determined to make it on her own terms.  All of those we encountered were impressed by her perseverance at 87 years young! It was awesome to be there and witness her strength.

Thread the needle…

We took the Needles Highway Scenic Drive.  It included driving through three tunnels blasted through the granite rock. The “needle” title came from the rocks coming to a point. Lots of breath taking views including Jeanne’s white knuckles as she drove through the mountains and tunnels.  We all sucked in our breath when going through each tunnel.

1880 train ride…

Before ending our trip we took a train ride from Hill City, SD to Keystone, SD on an 1880 train.  It was a nice relaxing ride and we didn’t have to climb any boulders, just sit and relax and enjoy the beauty of the landscape. The gift shop had some interesting wine with even more interesting names.  We’d be okay to taste the “Calamity Jane” wine but have reservations on tasting a wine with the name “ass” in it!!

Last but not least:

We took Jane’s Mom and Sister to the airport on our last full day in SD.  After the drop off, we headed around the Wildlife Loop scenic drive and ended in Hot Springs, SD to visit one of Jeanne’s friends, John Scheltens, on his 600 acre ranch. Jeanne has friends all across the country from the water industry, so we were excited to get together with John.  He is an engineer and created a solar paneled horse that he takes to parades and festivals.  Even though he is retired, he said once and engineer, always an engineer and he had to do something with his time besides tending to his 600 acre ranch and horses!

While on the Wildlife Loop we found the herd of bison!!! We also came across a group of burros, prairie dogs and deer – so it was clearly the wildlife loop.  There are two pictures of Codey Bo – not because he is wild but just because he is cute!!!

The time we spent in South Dakota was phenomenal.  We recommend to all of you that you take a trip and enjoy the landscape, scenery, and wildlife.  It is so worth it.

This addition to the blog is mostly our travels and history lessons and not too much of funnies but rest assure we laughed till we cried and needed depends most of the week.  Some we can share and some we can’t!  Next time you see us, just ask about the family dollar towel story; playing card games (and cheating); or what Cindy really said about the long trip from MN to SD!  Until next time, we hope you enjoy more of our adventures.

Yep, we survived our day at the Minnesota state fair. If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience the fair, put it on your bucket list! That way you can have anything you want fried and/or on a stick.

We spent last week in Coon Rapids, MN at the Bunker Hills Campground in Anoka County. It was a very nice campground and park. It had lots to offer including a water park, however we were too busy spending time with our BFF’s, Jim and Tom; Janes sister Cindy – all who flew in for the week and Toms cousin Cheri and family. We had a fantastic time.

While at the fair we did indulge in some yummy eats, after all we walked over 12,000 steps. That being the case we justified the many treats we had. It’s probably a poor justification but it works for us!

Full disclosure here: we had a corn dog, pork chop on a stick, sweet Martha’s chocolate chip cookies, Tiny Tim’s tiny donuts and ice cream! That was just at the fair – LOL!  The others had adult beverages whereas Jane stuck to water – she knows the necessity of cutting back somewhere!! 😝🍩🍦🍺

While in MN we took a trip over the state line to Wisconsin and visited a cheese factory! We have never seen so many types of cheese.  One was chocolate nut cheese! Not sure how that is made but is sounds delicious!  We did buy a nice assortment of cheese including cheese curds which are to die for (especially when fried)! We also went to fresh meat market. We bought a few goodies there too. One good thing about living in an RV is limited storage space – we can’t buy too much for lack of space. Trust us, we could have bought lots more cheese and meat but couldn’t! Bummer!

Since we were going to be out and about so much, we used the services of Rover.com to care for Codey Bo for a few days. He appears to have had a good time with the couple he stayed with and their two Labs!  When we got him back with us to the campground it appears by pictures below he has claimed the site as his. We turned around while outside and he was on top the picnic table as if to say, “this is my space, I am home”! It was too cute.

We spent our last day visiting Tom’s cousin Craig’s place on the lake – it was beautiful and nice to meet more of his extended family.

We had a great week with family and friends and are now in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and are headed to the Black Hills to explore that area including Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Memorial, and Custer State Park. Janes sister is still with us and her mother flies in on Wednesday to join us for this part of the trip.

We are excited to explore this part of the country and will share with you all soon.

 

Well, we left Wisconsin behind and are in “Min-e-soda, yeah, you betcha”!  And we found out that Minnesota has cheese too. We were concerned about leaving the land of cheese but all is well – whew!  We stayed in Apostle Island Area Campground last week and we were there for a week. This is the longest we stayed anywhere so far. It was a fun week. We had beautiful weather all week including a day of rain. It was great, we spent the day in the RV which surprisingly was good. Unfortunately, it wasn’t great for Codey – he doesn’t like the sound of the rain hitting the roof and kinda freaked him out. In addition, we were parked under an oak tree, so acorns hit the roof periodically and it sounded like gun fire and scared him silly. These were the biggest acorns we have ever seen!!

We had a week full of adventure including hiking, boat tours, geocaching and spending too much money on supplies to make our hiking adventures more comfortable. Wisconsin like Michigan has numerous hiking trails and water falls to explore which we did. Once again Codey swam in various bodies of water much to his delight.

We took a boat tour to the sea caves (pictures below) which are awesome to behold. We also took a ferry ride to Madeline Island, one of 21 islands that make up the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. Here’s a small history lesson for the day: “The 21 islands and 12 miles of mainland coast host a unique blend of cultural and natural resources. Apostle Islands National Lakeshore has more lighthouses than any other site in the National Park System with 9 historic towers on 6 islands.” You are welcome for that brief lesson.

Jeanne finds it important to stop and read all history plaques on the side of the road. Jane finds it important to stop at every ice cream stand along our travels. Janes adventures are more fun but more fattening!! We do make a point of learning about the areas we are traveling in as well as tasting the local cuisine.

Speaking of tasting local cuisine, we are headed to the Minnesota State fair where you can sample every kind of food on a stick and fried!! Looking forward to pork chop on a stick and fried cheese curds – yummy!!

We are excited to be back together with our BFF’s Jim and Tom. They flew in and we are all going to the fair together along with Tom’s cousin Cheri and Wally and Janes sister Cindy!! Today we are all taking a road trip back to Wisconsin for cheese and more exploring.

For the first time we used the services of Rover.com to find a place to board Codey this week since we will be out and about so much. We found the sweetest young couple for him to hang with this week. They have two Labradors as well and they all get along. She sends us pictures every day and he appears to be having a good time. It was hard for us to leave him but glad to know he is safe and happy.  After dropping him off we had dinner with our dear friend Biff Dunsworth whom we haven’t seen for about 5 years.  It was so great to see her and catch up. We did miss her!

We pick Codey up at the end of the week and head to South Dakota. Janes mother is flying in to join us for a week of exploring in the Black Hills!! Until next time….

 

We left Michigan having enjoyed many water falls, campgrounds, water towers, hikes, some beautiful old churches and Great Lakes! We did enjoy ice cream from “The Stand” in Iron River, MI. You pull up and the waitress comes to you at your vehicle to take your order. Only thing missing were the roller skates. We spent three weeks exploring Michigan and the UP. It’s amazing looking at a huge body of water and knowing it’s a lake and not an ocean! They have a saying, “no salt, no sharks, no worries”!

We are now in Bayfield, Wisconsin in the Apostle Island area Campground. There are lots of islands here and Jeanne said there are more than 12 islands and they are not named Matthew, Mark, Luke or John! After saying that she realized she was thinking of the disciples and not apostles! Lol! It might be prudent that we go to church once in awhile during our adventures. Don’t want to forget all that we learned over the years! Google just told us that every apostle was a disciple but not every disciple was an apostle. That’s not confusing at all.  With that definition, she was right in what she said, we think!

Jane made it on probably 10 hikes before falling which in and of itself was a miracle. No injury besides a scraped elbow and and hurt pride (embarrassed)!! But getting to the water fall was worth the fall!

We have cooked lots of meals at the RV on our outside grill and inside the RV. We try to take supplies for lunch when we go out as a means of eating more healthy and saving money, however there have been times that eating out has been the choice usually after long hikes! Today we took a five mile hike and Jane said “I’m not going to feel guilty for eating lunch out today after that walk”! OMG! We found a restaurant that allowed dogs on the outside eating deck so Codey went with us. You would have thought he was a new born baby as much attention he got! Probably laying his head on the table helped. So cute! The waitress brought him a small bowl of vanilla ice cream. Didn’t offer it to us. Guess we don’t do the puppy eyes as well as he does.

We’ve decided that walking five miles is too much for the old man Codey. As much as he loves to be with us on the walks, he gets warn out fast. He has some issues with his larynx (some paralysis) so he starts wheezing during the walk and it takes a while for him to recover. He will sleep most of the day tomorrow after today’s walk. We do a bit of wheezing too! We wish we could blame our wheezing, sweating, walk slowing and for Jane, evidently falling down on a poor larynx, however for us it’s enjoying good food and Dunlop’s disease (our stomach done loped over our belt)! 🤣

We are in this location for a week so we have lots to do including a boat tour of the sea caves, a ferry ride to one of the disciples, oh we mean apostle islands, more water falls, hikes, cheese and hopefully no falls from either of us.  Until next time enjoy the blog and pictures! (Debbie & Sherrie, we’re including some water towers pictures too)!

 

 

 

We sent the last two nights in Christmas, Michigan! Yes, Christmas! It’s about a mile long town and has several Santa statutes. They even had a Christmas casino! This town is next to Munising, MI which is much bigger. We headed to this area having left our previous location a couple of days early so we could take a tour of Pictured Rocks which were pretty spectacular (pictures below). We spent the better part of two days visiting waterfalls in the the area. They were amazing (more pictures below). Of course Codey enjoyed jumping in and laying down in the water.

I spent time pointing out waterfalls and Jeanne spent her time pointing out water towers! I now have waterfall and water tower pics on my camera! She has decided we need to take a picture of ever water tower we see.

We are now in Iron River, MI at the Kline Safford Memorial RV Park which in right in the center of town. First place we visited was the local farmers market. We try to do that in every town since Michigan is a huge farming state.

We need to clean house tomorrow then figure out what to do the other 23 hours and 55 minutes of the day! We don’t miss house cleaning, fixing things, repairing things or modifications at all!!

This is our last stop in Michigan. We head to Wisconsin for our next campground. And hopefully lots of cheese!!

We are in our fourth RV campground in Michigan. This is a big state with lots to see. We are in Garden, MI now. Prior to this location we were in Cheboygan. It was there we finally did some bike riding. Unfortunately about two miles from our RV Park my bike blew a tire. I took off on Jeanne’s bike while she walked my bike until I could get to the truck and pick her up. We took the bike to a local shop for repair (for the second time)! While there we looked at bikes and ended up buying Jeanne a new bicycle that “fit” her better. Plus it has a nice cushy seat which she loves. He took her bike as a trade and gave us a good deal on the new one. She’s excited to ride now! Of course with the new bike we need a new bike rack as the one we have won’t work on holding a ladies bike! In the meantime the bikes travel inside the RV while on the road.

One day we headed to the Ocqueoc Falls and it was amazing! Of course Codey couldn’t wait to get in the water. The place was full with folks swimming and playing in the water. This time we did wear our swim suits and got in as well. We’ve decided that Codey is a chick and dude magnet. So many people love on him and just admire him saying they are amazed at how much he can do physically as an 11 year old.

We headed to our current location yesterday. We drove the Mackinaw Bridge with white knuckles and as my sister would say “putting button holes in the seats”. It’s similar to the bay bridge but higher and longer.  We did fine and breathed a sigh of relief once we were over!! We were to take an exit just over the bridge but some a-hole coming off the exit didn’t yield, so we missed our exit. Just after we missed the exit we saw a sign that said Sault Saint Marie – 50 miles. We took it as an omen and decided to keep going! We had wanted to see the Soo Locks so decided to go. Unfortunately, we had to watch a ship come thru the locks thru the fence as they don’t allow pets into the park. It was cool nonetheless. As we were leaving we saw a sign that said Tahquamenon Falls and decided to take another detour to see the falls. It was beautiful as seen in the pictures. The only issue we had there was it poured rain which Codey loved. The best thing about that, we live in an RV and had dry clothes and shoes we could get too. Finally we were on our way to our current location which we have decided is our favorite site. We are at the top of the park and the way the site is set up it feels as if we are alone in the park. Nice and cool and lots of trees so no need for AC. This was the latest we arrived at a park and got here at 6pm and set up in the rain. We figured it was going to happen some time so might as well be tonight.

We talked about visiting Pictured Rocks however it is 1.5 hours away and the tour is 2.5 hours. We decided that was too long to leave Codey in the RV. So we decided to leave this campground a day early and stay at a campground in Christmas, MI, YES – Christmas, MI, so we can take the tour and not feel bad leaving Codey for a couple of hours. We are taking the sunset cruise and can’t wait!!

We have one more stop in Michigan then off to Wisconsin! Hope we aren’t boring those of you reading the blog but rest assured that if you were here you’d love seeing and visiting all these places.  Until next time….

We just left Harbor Beach, our second stop in Michigan. It’s a cute little town. Being the southerns that we are, we are not Michigan savvy or for that matter we are not northerner savvy! As we were diving to Harbor Beach we noticed that there were multiple companies with the word “thumb” in there names. For those of you who are familiar with Michigan know exactly what that means. For those of you, like us, who are not familiar are probably wondering what that means. Well, we encourage you pull up a map of Michigan and notice it’s in the shape of a mitten. Therefore you will see why there are areas of the “thumb”!! For those of you who knew this, stop laughing! Needless to say, we are from the south through and through. We do however love learning about other states and exploring what they have to offer. So one day we drove around the “thumb”. It was awesome! The small towns on Lake Huron had so much to offer including farmers markets, light houses, docks that one can walk out into the lake, fantastic state parks and trails that go on forever! Our goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day and most days we did more than that! We spent a couple of days geocaching and yesterday we finally joined Codey and swam in Lake Huron. OMG – it may be 90 outside but that water in no higher than 70! Brrr!

We took a tour of the Harbor Beach light house and learn a great deal about the light house as well as the town.

For the first time in the four campgrounds, there was another travel trailer just like ours (Grand Design Imagine). We compared notes and shared various modifications and cable hook up.  As we were driving to our current location we passed another Grand Design Imagine owner who high beamed us as if to say hi as we passed each other.

We are now in Cheboygan, MI which is only a few miles from the Mackinaw Bridge! We will be here until Friday this week. I sent Jeanne to get groceries for the week and that was an hour ago so now I’m scared she’s bought too much for the frig and cabinets. So I’m going to stop writing and try to make room in the kitchen for what she bought – AND she went shopping while hungry. I thing we’re screwed!!