Roadkraut

One of the reasons for us to visit this area is the famous Mackinac Island between the Upper and Lower Peninsula of Michigan. Originally a strategic place for the Great Lakes fur trade, it later became a tourist attraction and summer playground, thanks to the Grand Hotel.

Shepler’s Ferry, one of the oldest ferry services

offererd tours to the island that pass underneath Mackinaw Bridge twice daily

On the 20 minute ride to Mackinac Island, where only horse drawn carriages and bicycles are allowed.

And that goes for everybody, including the police and city hall employees

as well as the moving and drayage company

Beautiful Victorian houses turned into Bed and Breakfasts

the stately 18th century Island House

beautiful churches

Fort Mackinac

The Grand Hotel and the Governor’s Mansion next to it

All in all, a beautiful place to visit. Maybe a tad too touristy, especially with all the shops. But overall worth the visit, especially if you like ferry rides.

Next stop on the Michigan tour – Waterways Campground in Cheboygan, Michigan. We had chosen this Campground as the others in the vicinity were either too expensive or did not have 50 AMP full hook up service. And the right choice it was. From Mark, the new owner, who is a more than pleasant host and his ammaculately clean Campground on the Cheboygan River

with the trail system ideal for hiking and biking right next to the campground

to the vicinity of Mackinaw City (20 mins) to the north

and Mullet Lake and Topinabee and it’s beach to the south

a perfect setting.

The two weeks in Port Hope turned out to be interesting for the people we met, the sights we saw and the stories we heard.

From Leslie and John the “Germany travelers” to Mark our Camp Host, who was looking forward to closing the Park down mid-October and go back to Oregon.

The sunrises over Lake Huron, we enjoyed every morning

the rainbow after it had gotten colder and wetter

The Store, with it’s self baked bread and weekend self made pizza deals

The German Lutheran Church, a remnant of the German population at the turn of the 19th century

and the Port Hope Hotel, where Leslie and John took us to the weekly fish fry

Small town America at it’s finest. Even on Labor Day weekend when the crowds gathered at the Campground for one last time before the summer was over.

One lighthouse we almost missed out on is the Harbor Beach Lighthouse

in it’s namesake city just down the road from Port Hope, Michigan. Harbor Beach is also home to Sandmann’s Grocery where they still grind their own meat and make their own Bratwurst. A place we definitely needed to visit and buy some.

Not much else to see in Harbor Beach unfortunately.

One evening the flies seemed to take over. Hundreds and hundreds of flies were everywhere there was light, including the screen door to the RV

so we went to the local hardware store to see if they had fly traps or/and spray to combat these masses of flies. There we met John and Leslie the proprietors. After a short history of farming and fertilizing John explained that everybody around the area had fertilized their fields the past few days, as the weather forecast called for rain. But since the rain did not happen, the flies are looking for food elsewhere.

Upon further delving into where we were from, John explained how he had spent a lot of time in Germany, first as a military brat and then as an officer with the military. Him and Leslie have been going back once a year until this day. And, to everybody’s surprise, to a small village close to where Kirsten’s parents had lived the last few years.

They came back to Port Hope, as Leslie not only was born here but is a born Stafford. Her ancestors founded the town.

Small world, and not someone we expected to meet in Port Hope, Michigan

And pleasant company on top of that.

Today we took a drive around the top of the thumb to see the many lighthouses, small villages and check out a smoked fish place we had found to be recommended online.

Our first stop was the Point Aux Barques Lighthouse built in 1847 to mark the turning point of Lake Huron into Saginaw Bay until 1939.

The next stop was Port Austin, its beach

and the Port Austin Reef Light (in the distance)

We followed MI 25 around the tip through Caseville, Michigan

to the Bay Port Fish Co., known for its excellent fresh fish as well as the smoked fish

it may not look as much (as we would be reminded later on in our travel) but the vacuum sealed, frozen fish and especially the smoked fish were delicious.

We turned east onto MI 142 back to Port Hope and followed endless miles of small villages

farms

wind turbines

and fields upon fields of sugarbeads and their processing plants

not until later, when we researched the history of the area, did we find out that the “thumb” is the sugarbead capital of the U.S.

After 6 weeks in Ohio, we started on our adventure to the northern most points of this trip.

Michigan to most means Detroit and maybe Ann Arbor and Lansing due to the well known Universities. We wanted to see what places outside these cities had to offer. We decided to take a wide detour around Detroit and went through Ann Arbor to Flint and then East to Port Huron, the last exit before the bridge to Canada.

Leaving the Interstate and heading up the eastern side of Michigan’s thumb to the village of Port Hope

were we had a reservation at Stafford County Park right on Lake Huron

We had chosen this park as it is half way up the eastern side of the thumb and a look on google earth had shown us lots of shade trees. Unfortunately the ash borer beetle also decided to visit this park last January and the trees are now gone.

Port Hope used to be a lumber mill town until 1881 when 2 fires destroyed the forest and farming has since replaced the lumber mills. The sawmill chimney, erected in 1858, is one of the last remnants of this era and is a national historic site just on the edge of Stafford County Park, named after Port Hope’s founder William Stafford.

The smallish city with 130+ households proved to be just the right place to relax

and makes a perfect platform to check out the rest of the thumb of Michigan.

Recommended to us as a day trip we took the ferry to Put-in-Bay, Ohio, which is actually a city on South Bass Island.

Named so because the schooners sailing on Lake Erie would “put into this bay” to wait out the bad weather on the lake.

We got off the ferry and were faced with our first choice of the day. As there are hardly any cars on the island it was either the “downtown bus” or renting a golf cart or bycicle. Never having been here, we opted for the bus that took us to the sleepy little downtown.

We were told to check out the Boardwalk by Jack in Sandusky, so we did. Kirsten has been trying to talk me into buying a wind breaker for a while, so we checked the Lobster Trap Boutique on the Boardwalk were we not only bought a windbreaker but met Donna who (after recognizing Kirsten’s accent as German) asked us to meet with her husband Berni (the Harbour master) who was born in Germany and needed to practice the language (according to Donna).

We went down the boardwalk and had a more than pleasant discussion with Berni about his dad leaving Germany for a job in the U.S., why he chose Put-in-Bay as his residence and how quite the Island is after the tourist season is over. Please keep in mind that according to the 2010 Census, the island had 138 inhabitants. And we just met two of the loveliest people on the island.

We then headed for lunch and were advised that local fish was walleye and perch, so we ordered one of each. Delicious!!

We were reminded that we were far away from Florida

but close to Canada (way in the background)

So we started on our way back and took the bus to the Ferry when we discovered that there was a lighthouse on the Island with seeing.

Since we had not done the golf cart, we dedicated it was time to check out another famous Put-in-Bay attraction – there are golf cart rentals on every corner of the island -.

A very different lighthouse to what we are used to seeing.

We hopped back on the golf cart and took the short ride to the ferry after a very, very enjoyable day on the island. It was pure coincidence that we met two lovely people in Donna and Berni, and we will definitely stay in touch.

One of the reasons we came here was to see the second oldest amusement park (opened in 1870) in the United States and it’s wooden roller coasters.

The park features 71 rides, including 16 roller coasters. The weather was beautiful, we had purchased the discounted tickets and parking online and were told by the locals to go Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday as these were the least busiest days.

We arrived shortly after it opened and already had to park in the 20th row. Less busy – we do not want to be here when it is really busy.

The plan was to head towards the end of the park, where we hoped there were fewer people and thus shorter waiting lines and slowly work our way back.

In order to prepare folks, the park developed a scale from blue (boring) to red (risky) in 5 steps to prepare riders for what to expect. A fact we did not pay attention to until after the first ride.

The first roller coaster we rode was the Maverick, described as “nothing wilder in the West”. It looked simple, we got in, rode the roller coaster, and were glad we did not have breakfast.

That’s when we discovered the 5-step thrill level scale and found out we had just done one of the red (5) rides. Maybe we should have started with a blue ride.

We walked through the park and every red level ride made our stomachs churn and look for something less dramatic. After all we had come to ride the wooden coasters. We found it amazing to see the younger generation stand in line for up to 45 minutes to ride all the level 5 roller coasters.

We found the Blue Streak and were amazed afterwards that a 53 year old coaster could still provide as much thrill to us older folks as the other rides did to the younger generation. One of these “you know you’re getting old” moments.

After a lunch of famous Cedar Point fries, we headed out of the park, feeling like we had just discovered our age related limits, but still feeling like kids.

Good fun and definitely worth the money.

Moved from the slightly overpriced and noisy KOA to the East Harbor State Park 30 minutes away.

Right on Lake Erie with a few spacious full hook ups

Beautiful surroundings

And plenty of wildlife

And Kirsten got to swim in Lake Erie