Lesson UP in Serendipity

Since we left the EAA Airventure show in Oshkosh, WI – we decided to explore an area of the country we’ve never been before. The Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. With a goal set to get to Florida by early September, we figured we have a little bit of time to do some exploring. We started out by asking for seasoned advice on routing and places to hit.

And wow did you guys inundate us with options (thank you thank you thank you!!).

As there’s lots of water around these parts, our first goal was focusing on finding amazing waterfront spots with decent connectivity. We also wanted very short driving days, of around 2 hours or less inbetween stops. We’re total view junkies, and our CampWhere app that helps us find public campgrounds showed there were lots of options along the various lakes and bays.

We figured we’d keep stopping at parks until we found one that had all the elements we love – and plop ourselves down for a few days.

So off we set north and eastward from Green Bay.

First Stop (B): Oconto, WI

For our first stop, we didn’t escape Wisconsin quite yet.  We found our first lakeside possibility – North Bay Campground (our full review) run by Oconto County.

We were disappointed when we pulled in that despite being right on the water, there were no waterviews to be had.  Dense trees were between the shoreline and the campground. But with storms inbound soon, and a nice shaded spot available with no nearby neighbors  – we decided it was good enough for the night.  But definitely not a spot we felt drawn to stay at longer.

We also had very faint 2G signals on both Verizon and AT&T which made it frustrating to try to get anything online done – such as research options up the road.

Cost: $25/night (30A Electric)

Second Stop (C): J W Wells State Park

The next morning we got up fairly early, crossed the state line into Michigan and continued the hunt for a waterfront view! We headed up the coastline of northern Green Bay, and drove through Kleinke County Park. While this park was indeed wide open to the water, we didn’t feel all that called to it. The spots were mostly unlevel & sandy, and not much distinction between them.  Aside from great views, we also like a decent amount of privacy and room around us.

But never fear – there were lots of options on up the road awaiting us.

The next park on the way was J W Wells State Park (our full review).  After checking that we had some cellular signal that could be boosted up, we pulled up to the registration office and asked if there happened to be any waterfront spots available for a night or two.  The perky and helpful young lady at the desk said ‘Absolutely – I have a great one for you in fact!’.  Before we knew it she was booking us in, and when we looked at our receipt we realized she had us paid up for 2 nights.

Gulp.  Better hope we like the spot!

We got to our spot and realized we could pull in parallel to the shoreline, giving us a private gorgeous front yard.  It was… magical. Glorious. Perfect.  We went to work setting up our full outdoor area – chairs, hammock, lights and BBQ grill.

Our cellular devices were getting usable but faint 2G signals, and a whiff of Verizon LTE on and off (our guess is they were playing with new towers… or we might have been in one of their roaming partner areas.)

Then our WiFiRanger Air sniffed out an open WiFi network across the park that was quite fast.

And then a full moon rose right in front of our site.

How much more magic did we need?

If the office had been open that late, we probably would have seen about extending our stay for as long as we could (rest of the summer?).

But then we started thinking about where we wanted to be for the weekend, which is not just any weekend. It was my birthday weekend.  With all of the recommendations coming in, Pictured Rocks was frequently recommended.  It too sounded magical, and we decided that’s where we’d celebrate my birthday.  So we started researching campground options, and found a city run park on the water. It sounded great.

But alas, in the morning, the open WiFi network was absent. Our best guess is it left when the camp host pulled out.  Our cellular signals were usable enough to keep on top of our support e-mails and some very light browsing. But not enough to get real work done, or continue our research of options in Pictured Rocks.

It’s ironic to note that when we started off 6 years ago, a usable 2G signal in a beautiful location would have been considered a glorious day – now it’s a frustrating one. Oh how spoiled we get!

Given that the internet likely would not improve – we decided to focus the day on enjoying our magical location, and stick to our 2-day stay.

Cost: $21/night (50A electric only), plus purchasing an annual MI State Park ‘passport’ for $29.

Third Stop (D): Pictured Rocks – Munising, MI

This stop is our reminder about serendipity. We totally failed here, and deserve the misery bestowed upon us.

So I told you about the city park we found in Munising that sounded perfect?  There are rare times that we feel compelled to have reservations – but when we know we want to be somewhere, and it’s a popular destination over a weekend, those are such times.  I asked Chris to call ahead.  No room left.

Then we found Wandering Wheels Campground (our full review), which looked on Google Maps to be right next door – also on the water.  Chris called, and they had a couple spots left.  Feeling a bit pressured to have to make a reservation if we wanted to be near town over the weekend, we decided to book 3 nights (they had a 2-night minimum anyway) even though their rate was pretty high.  It was a special weekend afterall!

Our day started out by ripping ourselves from our found paradise and then being disappointed when I confirmed directions. Turns out the park’s address, even on their own website, doesn’t include a street number.  So Google and other RV Park locator apps have the location totally wrong.  You have to search deeper to find the actual location – which is 4 miles from water, and far away enough from town to be annoying.  *sigh*  Ok.  No chance of a waterfront stay for my special day.

On the plus side, the sites are quite huge for a private campground – we were impressed with that. However our site was right in the middle of several other sites, and close to the playground.  Given our own choice, we’ll always lean towards sites with more solitude along the edge. We like having as few neighbors as possible, and now we had neighbors in front, behind and on both sides.  Ugh.

And to make matters worse, the campground is a family vacation destination complete with pool, playground and a mini mini golf course. Now, we can enjoy hanging out with cool kids in small doses – it’s not that we don’t like kids.  But we’re just not comfortable being surrounded by lots and lots of them. And this weekend, there were 30-40 kids within our view. All of them happy and behaved, and just being kids on vacation – but that many kids is just too many.  Lots of people in close proximity, we’re just in general not happy campers.

So fine, we go out for a nice Thai dinner, explore town, get tickets for Friday evening’s Pictured Rocks cruise and come back figuring we’ll get caught up on laundry. We start 2 loads at the campground’s laundromat, hardly noticing that there’s three washers and only two dryers.  30 minutes later we discover there’s a huge back-up for the dryers, because only ONE of them is actually working (no sign on it, and it still accepts money).  We started our loads at 7pm, and finally got half our clothes dried by 2am – including our bedsheets.  The rest we had to hang around inside the bus using our space heater to dry them individually.

On top of all the other disappointments of the day and this campground – we were beyond frustrated at this point.

We even contemplated just pulling out in the middle of the night, but we were way too tired.  We started fantasizing about stomping into the office in the morning and demanding a refund. We slept it off and resolved to make the best of the experience.

It’s my birthday afterall.. and we’re going to have a good time!

We did explore the shore by car and enjoyed a sunset cruise along the rocks on Friday evening, despite the very poor narration full of thoughtless jokes. (Seriously, you don’t go on joking about motion sickness for 5 minutes. For those of us that battle motion sensitivity, just being reminded of it can be a recipe for a bad time.)

The rocks are very pretty, and worth seeing.  But my experience was already pretty soured by this point. Seeing Pictured Rocks just didn’t live up to all the anticipation.

Our lesson learned from this is that by and large, making reservations in advance hardly ever works out for us. We so much prefer trusting in serendipity, instead of trying to force it.  We should have just gone with the flow instead of feeling stuck in an undesirable situation.

We decided to pull out Sunday morning in search of that scenic waterfront spot – which is what I so desperately wanted for my birthday weekend.

Cost: $39.95/night (30A electric & water)

Fourth Stop (E): Tahquamenon Falls State Park

We drove up the national seashore, having spotted a few waterfront campgrounds – some of them first come first served. The national ones had a RV length limit of 36′, so we thought it would be cool to make use of our 35′ choice of bus.  We toured 12 Mile Beach campground, which was quite lovely.  But not a single site open. On a Sunday late morning, in a no reservation park, they were all already taken for the night.  Wow.  We knew snagging spots this time of year would be tricky, but we weren’t prepared for just how difficult it could be.

We moved on up to Grand Marquis, where we spotted a city run waterfront park.  Turns out, had we shown up over the weekend – they were wide open. D’oh!  We should have totally followed our first instincts and ditched Munising. But alas, the park was now full for Sunday night, as a music fest was starting that week – and everyone arrives early to make a week of it.

We were starting to learn – Michiganders take their summer camping seriously!  We have some tough competition for the prime spots.

With no more waterfront campgrounds anywhere nearby, we were both pretty frustrated and I particularly sad. Nothing seemed to be going right for my weekend.

Tahquamenon Falls State Park (our full review) however was a potential next stop for us anyway. (It rhymes with ‘phenomenon’ by the way). While it was another 2 hour drive out for us – Chris decided to call ahead and see what was possible.  A very helpful state park representative was able to reserve us the very last spot at the lower falls campground – and it was even along the tree line.

We made the drive over, and arrived early enough to enjoy a wonderful 6 mile hike along the Tahquamenon River before nightfall. It was just what we needed – a lot of time with water in view, and getting our bodies in motion.

We were also very pleasantly surprised to discover the state park has its own BREWERY!!  Previous to this, we thought we had struck gold by finding a state park with free laundry. The bar (ahem) has been raised!

Things are starting to look up for us .  We thought about staying longer, but without a water view and absolutely no AT&T signal for our phones – it wouldn’t be ideal.

Cost: $21/night, plus $8 reservation fee (Michigan, what’s up with all the extra fees??)

Fifth Stop (F): Sault Ste. Marie, MI

Up until the point we fired up the 2-stroke of the bus, we hadn’t quite decided where to go next. One option was popping on down to St. Ignace and grabbing a spot to explore Mackinak Island from.  The other was heading over to Sault Ste. Marie.

Tempted by a couple waterfront options, and a sweet reader offering us boondocking on her Sugar Island land if we need it (awesome to have a back up plan) – we made a last minute decision to head to Sault Ste. Marie.

We pulled into Aune~Osborn City Campground (our full review), right along the St. Mary’s River. It was looking pretty full, so we thought we may have arrived too late.

The campground agent was absolutely welcoming and helpful.  While there wasn’t a waterfront site available for the night, she did point us to several sites where the view was pretty good. We took one for the night, and then headed over to the Soo Locks Boat Tour – which we thoroughly enjoyed.

We had a great evening soaking in fast bandwidth all around  (I think we were in withdrawal at this point) and watching barges go up and down the river.

Yesterday morning Chris went back to the office to see what was possible for extending – and came back with an upgrade to a site with an amazing panoramic water view. Ahhhh…. it’s been a wonderful day.

Cost: $27/night (30A electric & water)

What’s Next?

We reached the realization that we’re tired and in need of some still time – we had yet to plop down for a bit somewhere amazing like we intended. We were also starting to feel pressured to meet our own self imposed deadlines of reaching Atlanta by Labor Day weekend.

We forgot how much work it is to be constantly researching and trying to find an ideal spot, and feeling rushed to have to leave a good one in the name of making miles and experiences.  It’s been a while since we’ve been in truly extended wandering motion like this, even us seasoned nomads keep learning.

Sault Ste. Marie seems like a great place to spend a few days.  Unfortunately, the camground we’re at doesn’t have a site we can keep through the weekend without moving around a lot.  But the commercial campground down the road can put us in a canal front spot for the next several days. So we’ll be moving over there for some much needed plopping.

From there, we have a reader in Grand Rapids, MI who has invited us over… which is perfectly on route for heading to Flint, MI for the Mid Michigan Bus Rally starting on the 16th.  So we’ve decided to follow that path, with a stop likely on the way at a western MI waterfront location.

From there, we’ll still be heading south with a stop in Chattanooga, TN for bus maintenance before we head into Florida for the rest of the year.