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 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.