2018 Road Trip – Day 6: Van Riper State Park

We left Porcupine Mountain State Park sometime around mid-morning after tearing down the camp. My fiancé’s truck doesn’t have anywhere to charge our electronics, so we stopped inside the park visitor center to charge at a wall outlet while we used the WIFI to get our directions to the next state park. It’s been both refreshing and a little frustrating to not have any cell service up here in the Upper Peninsula. We are forced to write down the Google Map directions from one park to the next when we have WIFI and then, because many roads up here aren’t marked that clearly, we have to use the truck odometer to keep track of how far we’ve gone since the most recent turn. We did pick up a map, but it is incomplete and an error (even though we could eventually fix it) would take us miles out of our way. Fortunately we haven’t had a problem with our system yet.

Today we continued along the coast of Lake Superior until we came to Van Riper State Park. We checked in and managed to get a nice campsite with an electric hookup… joy! We brought the big surge protector so we could charge everything at once while we have the chance. You ever know what type of camping will be available at these parks if you haven’t made your reservations in advance.

After setting up our tent and the rest of our camp, we headed across the street to another section of the park for a hike and moose hunt. We’ve heard this is moose country, and they are often spotted up here, but we have yet to catch a glimpse of even a small piece of one. Our hike proved fruitless in the Moose department, but it was a lovely setting full of a variety of natural beauty.

After our hike, we spent a bit of time at the park’s beach. I ended up heading back to the tent sooner than my fiancé because I was really looking forward to sitting in the sun and reading my book. It’s a bit of a pain to read by flashlight when bugs are out and about at night and when we’re driving I have to keep a close eye on the odometer, so there’s been little chance to get through my library books. I’m currently enjoying “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah and find myself wanting to get back to the story.

Our evening ended with another nice dinner of beans, quinoa and veggies, followed by smores, around a glowing campfire.

2018 Road Trip – Day 5: Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park

It was really a relief to stay put today and not have to pack everything back into the truck. There is so much more to explore in Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park that I don’t imagine we’ll even get that much time to relax. That’s too bad, because I’ve brought a few library books along and I’m barely making a dent in them.

Today we decided to hike around the Presque Isle Scenic Area, which was clear on the other side of the park from our campsite. It was actually about a 15-20 minute drive through the park just to get to our hiking location. This really is a huge state park! The Presque Isle hike is not for the hiking novice and I recommend you taking hiking sticks if you have them. There are times when the “path” really doesn’t exist and you are climbing loose rocks, along a ridge, next to a steep drop, scampering up tree root “stairs” like some kind of mountain goat, or carefully making your way across the wiggly rocks scattered across the front of a waterfall. The only way you know you’re still on the “trail” sometimes is to look for the trees with the blue dots on them and keep moving towards the next one. I brought along my really nice set of two hiking sticks, so we split them up and each used one. If you can manage it though, the hike offers a lot of diversity and is well worth the effort. We got to see the waterfalls along the river, but also spent some time rock hunting along the shore of Lake Superior. We got a toe in, but not much more, because Lake Superior is a VERY cold lake, even in the end of July.

After a brief afternoon nap, we spent the sunset hour at the Summit Peak Scenic Area, where we were able to watch the sun set majestically over Lake Superior. The tower at Summit Peak is the tallest point in the entire state park and offers up some amazing views of everything the park has to offer. As a BeachBody Coach, I was looking forward to the opportunity to do some of the BeachBody on Demand yoga videos I had stored offline on my phone in some remote locals. The top of the Summit Peak tower provided just that opportunity, and just enough room for both my fiancé and myself to get our Yoga on while we enjoyed the colorful sunset. At one point, the Lord of the Rings fan in my was completely thrilled to clearly see the fires of Mount Doom clearly depicted by Mother Nature in her evening display.

If you’re going to the top of the tower to watch the sunset, make sure to bring along a flashlight, and maybe a light jacket, for the trek back to the car, because without much light pollution, it gets dark and chilly very quickly on the trail once that sun goes down. We headed back to camp to make a nice warm fire, eat a little supper and get a good night sleep before we hit the road again in the morning.

 

 

2018 Road Trip – Day 4: Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park

We got up early, left the motel, and headed the rest of the way to Porcupines Mountain Wilderness State Park, which boasts the title “Michigan’s Largest State Park”. It’s located at the northwest tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, right on the shore of Lake Superior. There are lots of rustic campsites available here and the hiking is supposed to be spectacular. While we’ve gotten along very well this trip, setting up camp each night plus tearing down and packing up the truck every morning is starting to get on both our nerves. Motel nights are often nice, but if we resort to that too often, we’ll completely blow our budget. We decided to stay for 2 nights, leaving us some nice time to relax and enjoy this beautiful campsite.

This campground is remote and very rustic. After we set up camp, we decided to drive to the nearest down and stock up on water and marshmallows… the camping essentials. Not surprisingly, marshmallows in towns that support local campgrounds tend to be way overpriced and I wish we’d brought our own.

We stopped back at our campsite for lunch. Since my fiancé can’t have dairy or gluten, we were limited on camp-friendly lunch options. I brought several packages of rice cakes, lots of bananas and a jar of peanut butter. We had planned to pick up fresh fruits and veggies at roadside stands along the way. While these farm stands are a frequent sight in the lower peninsula, things are much more spread out in the UP and they are scarce. We picked up the blueberries and peas at the store on our marshmallow run.

We took an afternoon hike up to Lake in the Clouds Overlook and then spent some time hiking the trails around that area. It was absolutely beautiful and we made a mental note to consider coming back here to stay sometime when the leaves are changing. The only drawback would be the nights. Even at the end of July, the nights up here in the UP are VERY cold. If you decide to camp up here, be sure to bring plenty of warm covers. We also use a propane tent heater to keep us comfortable. Usually we can make it through the night if we keep the tent warm until we fall asleep, but a couple nights of the trip we did need to run it all night, so bring plenty of propane.

After our hike, we returned to the campsite for dinner and some relaxing time around the fire. This is probably a good time to talk about planning and packing dinners for a 13-day camping trip. Before we left, I made big batches of rice and quinoa. We also packed a dozen cans of different varieties of beans and a few cans of veggies like carrots, corn, beans, etc. I brought onions, broccoli, mushrooms and a few other fresh veggies that were easy to pack. We also threw in a bag of potatoes and gallon ziplock bag filled with spices.

This made assembling dinners really easy. I would sauté some onion and other veggies on the camp stove, add a can of beans (or 1/2 can of two different types), add a couple scoops of already prepped rice or quinoa, and then spice everything up. We used Tupperware containers as bowls, so if there were leftovers we could just seal them up and put them back in the cooler. Since we didn’t bring any meat, chicken or dairy, there was nothing that would go bad if our ice didn’t get filled as quickly as we’d hoped. We had our non-vegan meals when we ate in restaurants along the route. We picked up fresh fruit and more fresh veggies when we felt like it or saw the opportunity. We were able to pack for our entire 13-day trip in a single cooler. Plus, other than a couple s’mores over the campfire each evening, we were eating exceptionally healthy foods.

2018 Road Trip – Day 3: Fayette State Park, Bewabic State Park, Agate Falls, Bond Falls

After a lovely, and quiet, night in the field all by ourselves, we started the day touring the historic village at Fayette State Park.

The Johnson Iron Company was based in Fayette on the shore of Lake Michigan from 1867-1891 and the workers and their families created a town surrounding the company buildings, which is now Fayette Historic State Park. Many of the buildings are well restored and many are furnished, allowing visitors to experience another layer of the history of the region. There is a beautiful view from Slag Beach, which used to serve as a dumping ground for the waste (slag) produced by the company in the iron making process.

We only spent a few hours wandering the historic village, but it would have been easy and interesting to spend a whole day there. Unfortunately we had a long drive to get our next overnight camping spot, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park and we didn’t have time linger.

Yesterday we found out that only AT&T phones work in the Upper Peninsula and both our phones quickly ran out of roaming minutes. Since we planned to use them for navigation. We headed into a larger nearby town, Esconaba, and had lunch at a place with Wi-Fi so we could write out all the directions. It was an excruciating process, but ultimately very useful. We also bought a pretty detailed road map in case we somehow got off track. As we travelled down the road, we stopped a few times at planned locations along the way to stretch our legs

Bewabic State Park wasn’t much more than a lake with a park on one side of it. It was a nice place to get out of the car for a few minutes and stretch our legs, but there really wasn’t much to see.

Another roadside stop for leg stretching was Agate Falls State Park. Sometimes what the DNR calls a state park is actually a just a quick roadside scenic site. That’s the case with Agate Falls. Just a quick 5 minute walk from the roadside parking lot and you’re at a lookout over the top of the falls. There weren’t really any good angles to get photos, but the sound of the water was awesome and could be herd right when you got out of the car.

 

Bond Falls Scenic Site was definitely a more substantial area. We spent over an hour traipsing around, up, in and alongside the beautiful falls and a lovely trail that ran next to the river. This was my favorite stop of the day. I absolutely love playing in waterfalls. I also got to play around with the long exposure feature on my iPhone, which is quite satisfying.

We continued driving and were about an hour from Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park when we decided we just didn’t want to drive any more today. We pulled over at a cheap, roadside motel and checked in for the night. We walked across the street and ate a restaurant supper at the only restaurant that was still open in the small “town” after 8pm and then went back to the motel room for hot showers and a good night sleep.

 

2018 Road Trip – Day 2: Petoskey State Park, Mackinac Bridge, Palms Book State Park, Fayette Historic State Park

We left the hotel well rested and continued our trek north. It wasn’t long before we arrived in Petoskey, Michigan.

Petoskey is a very busy town and Petoskey State Park is just outside of town, so it was pretty busy as well. Today was a Friday in July, which probably added to the number of people there. We spent a couple hours searching the beach for the infamous Petoskey Stones.

“A Petoskey stone is a rock and a fossil, often pebble-shaped, that is composed of a fossilized rugose coral, Hexagonaria percarinata. The stones were formed as a result of glaciation, in which sheets of ice plucked stones from the bedrock, grinding off their rough edges and depositing them in the northwestern (and some in the northeastern) portion of Michigan’s lower peninsula.” – Wikipedia

We learned while there that the Petoskey stones are more commonly found in the spring, just after the ice melts. We’ll have to make plans to head back during that time I guess, but we did find a few small ones, pictured above.

After leaving Petoskey, we stopped for some cherries to snack on, since we didn’t plan to have lunch until we crossed the Mackinac Bridge. We thought about stopping and seeing Mackinac Island, but figured since it was a Friday we would save it for after we finished our tour of the Upper Peninsula. It took us a while to make it across the bridge, due to wind and weekend traffic, but we did eventually get a quick roadside lunch before journeying on.

It was a bit of a haul to make it all the way to our first state park in the upper peninsula. We usually like to stop more frequently to stretch our legs and walk a bit, but the sights at Palms Book State Park were worth a bit of leg cramping. This was one of the most unique things I’ve seen in Michigan. The crystal clear water allowed an amazing view of an underwater spring (Kitchi-Iti-Kipi) and all the nature surrounding it.

There is a glass bottom boat that takes you across the spring so you can get the best views of the crystal clear underwater world. If you’re headed here, plan about 1-1.5 hours, depending on the lines for the boat. We were fortunate to get right on, but there were lines waiting when we got back.

You can’t stay overnight in Palms Book State Park, so we continued on to Fayette Historic State Park for the evening. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at Fayette, all of their campsites were full. This is the price we pay for spontaneity. Fortunately, we were prepared to camp rustic (no electric, or even toilets nearby) and they let us camp in their auxiliary field for only $15. This field is usually used for larger groups. It didn’t have facilities, but it did have a fire ring and picnic table, so we had all we needed and we drove down to the bath house in the campground to use the toilets. It was actually quite nice because we had the whole field to ourselves. After setting up camp, we had a nice supper and settled in for a rainy night. We saved the historical village part of the park for tomorrow.

 

 

2018 Road Trip – Day 1: Ludington State Park

We had planned to leave the house before noon, but a combination of sleeping in and not packing ahead of time delayed our start by a few hours. Unfortunately it also made us a bit cranky for our first day… not a good way to start an extended camping trip. Our original plan for today was to drive north to Ludington State Park for a late lunch and then to head up to Petosky State Park to set up camp. Unfortunately, our plans were going to have to change due to our late start.

We sis make it to Ludington State Park. This is one of the sites that was high on my list. In my third year of architecture school, I did a project in which I used the beach house lodge at Ludington Sate Park for inspiration. I loved the detail work and the way the light played off the building as the sun moved around it. I’d never seen it in person though and photos can often be deceptive. I was very excited to see it in person and had hoped to spend a little time relaxing on the beach. The beach house was everything I’d expected and was designed to be quite useful. We didn’t have much time to spend, but since we both liked it, we decide to come back again for a weekend sometime.

After Ludington, we decided to call it a night and get a hotel. It was starting to get dark and we didn’t want to make ourselves any more frustrated than we already were by trying to make it further north and set up camp in the dark. We chose a hotel about an hours drive north, stopped on the way for dinner, and spent our first night “camping” in a nice, fluffy hotel bed. This is the great part about not having any reservations booked. We were completely flexible to alter plans as we saw fit along the way.

Road tripping again: The dreaded planning process

We really enjoyed our road trip last year, especially all of the amazing new sites we got to see, so we’ve been chatting about taking another road trip this year. My fiancé likes to be exceptionally spontaneous and I’m more of a planner. To make this work, he gives me a budget and a general theme or location for the trip. I then go to town researching the areas we are considering and how that will fit with our goals and budget. We don’t usually pre=book anywhere to stay along the way, so we can play it by ear as we go. This enables us to stay longer in areas we like and not waste precious time in areas that aren’t holding our interest. It also comes with some challenges though, especially when things are booked and we have to drive further than expected to find lodging for the evening.

This road trip proves to be exciting and challenging at the same time. We plan to road trip for 10-13 days around the perimeter of the state of Michigan, visiting state parks along the great lakes. We have thrown in an added challenge in that we will be camping for most of the trip. This means that every time we want to move locations (almost daily), we will need to tear down camp and then make sure we arrive at our next location early enough in the day to have light to set up camp again. It also means planning our food ahead of time. Our diet since the juice fast has been drastically different than our previous camping adventures have been and I need to rethink our camping food choices to find something that works with our new diet. Our entire budget for the 10-13 days is only $1500-1750.

I began by trying to find out which state parks in Michigan might have something interesting to offer that we can’t see elsewhere. There are over 100 state parks in Michigan, so we obviously can’t visit them all. We live in Southwest Michigan, so we have already decided we won’t spend a lot of time on the western side of the state, since we can get to most of those parks as a day or weekend trip. The same is true of the southeastern corner of the state, below Detroit. So, we will focus the bulk of our time in the upper peninsula and the northeastern corner of the state. I have compiled a map of 36 state parks, plus other attractions, that we might be interested in visiting.

Next step is budgeting. I’ve calculated basic driving distance between select points in the state and determined we will probably drive about 1500-2000 miles and our vehicle gets about 20 mpg; this means we will need about $300 for gas alone. Our basic admission to the state parks is free because of the license plate I mentioned, but we still have ot pay to stay overnight. Camping fees in the state parks vary from $17-35/night, so I’ve budgeted $30/night for 13 nights, totaling $360. Our menu is pretty simple also. I’ll make rice and quinoa ahead of time and bring canned beans for dinner. Since it’s summer, we will stop at farmers markets along the road and pick up fruits and veggies to supplement. For lunch we’ll have rice cakes and peanut butter with fruit on top. Since I’m a BeachBody coach, we’ll have Vanilla Vegan Shakeology for breakfast each day. The powder is easy to mix with water and keeps you full for a few hours. Our grocery budget for all of this (minus Shakeology, because I already have it) is $260. We also have 2 meat days each week. I don’t really like taking steak in the cooler, so I’ve budgeted $180 for us to eat in restaurants on our meat days. This leaves us $400-650 for miscellaneous spending like hotels (if it’s cold or rainy), extra restaurant nights, admission to other attractions, etc. I don’t count souvenirs in the budget; if we decide to buy them, they are extras.

BUDGET $1500-1750

• $300 – fuel
• $360 – camping fees
• $260 – groceries
• $180 – restaurants
• $400-650 misc.

After all of my planning, I can see that our trip is actually doable and looks like it will be fun and full of new sights and adventures. When I told my fiancé it was a go, he decided we should leave in 4 days! I already have a camping packing list to work from (I’m a planner), so it won’t be too hard to get things ready in time. Fortunately for my fiancée, my obsessive planning allows him to be as free and spontaneous as he wants to be. This is why we work so well together.

2017 Road Trip – Day 5: Worlds Biggest Stuff

Today is the big travel day home. We aren’t even stopping much along the way. We’ve decided to take a short detour east so we can go through Indiana and miss most of the horrible traffic that exists between Chicago and Michigan.

We began the day driving through massive downpours almost all the way through Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas. We stopped at a Perkins somewhere in Arkansas because I’ve never been in the state and I can’t count it as having been there if we simply drive through and never set feet on the ground.  Now I can say I’ve been there, although we didn’t see much through the rain. We did count our blessings that the rain had held off for all of our earlier adventures though, because we had pretty darn good weather for most of our trip.

We headed north through Missouri then southern Illinois, where we found Casey, Illinois. I have always loved the idea of road trips because of those fun roadside attractions that you can spend 5-10 minutes at. These are often unplanned finds and, for us, Casey was one of those places. Casey is home to some of the World’s Largest Stuff… a lot of it actually. With 8-1/2 hours of driving this day, we didn’t opt to drive around Casey and see them all, but we did see the World’s Largest Wind Chimes, World’s Largest Rocking Chair and World’s Largest Mailbox. There were giant pencils, rulers, and other items scattered around town as well. It was a fun break and something that we had been missing the rest of the road trip.

We stopped for dinner in Terre Haute, Indiana. It wasn’t too far past Casey, but we were getting hungry at this point and wanted to see the city. Terre Haute is a nice size city and we found Taj Mahal Indian Restaurant and had very yummy supper.

We still had about 3 hours of driving left and arrived back in Michigan shortly after 10pm… not too shabby for a 600+ mile drive in a single day. Looking back, I think if we were to do it over, I would have stayed in Indianapolis for the night and stopped a few more times along the way. Spending almost the entire day in the car was a bit of a challenge. In the end, we came pretty close to our $1000 budget and Indianapolis would have pushed us too far over, so it was the right choice at the time and we made it just fine.

As I mentioned in Day 1, here are our final Road Trip stats:

• Elapsed time: 5 days, 4 nights
• States visited: 7 (Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana)
• Major Cities visited: 2 (St. Louis, Memphis)
• Miles driven: 1430
• Steps taken: 34,438 (we did really well the first couple days, then fizzled out)
• Attractions/Sites visited: over 20
• Hard Rock Shot Glasses added to collection: 2 (St. Louis & Memphis)

I hope you enjoyed following along, but more importantly; I hope this brief road trip, planned on the fly, has inspired you to get out and start living your bucket list. I’ve added as many links to these 5 blog posts as I could, to give you more information if you want to see any of the places we did, so no more excuses.

It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be big. You don’t have to do it all. You just have to start… somewhere.