Our journey began on June 2, 2015. We had drawn a line in the sand of June 1 but we missed it by a day.
The first destination was Richmond VA to drop off some family stuff to Joan's nephew. On the way, we spent the night in Walterboro SC. Some of the personal "stuff" we had to liquidate was our fleet of 11 canoes and kayaks. We were down to 6 boats, 4 canoes we're keeping, three in storage, 1 on the truck to come on our travels and 2 white water kayaks. One of the kayaks was sold on Craigslist to a fellow in Columbia SC. He and his son (the ultimate owner of the kayak) and daughter met us at 9:30 that first rainy night to complete the sale. The next day we continued to Richmond, staying about 10 days visiting and getting organized.
Our next stop was Asheville NC, via an overnight stay in a State Park outside Durham NC. Our reasons for going to Asheville were 3 fold: visit friends (Suzanne and George); sell the remaining kayak; and simply spend some time in the Asheville area. We found a really nice campground just outside of Asheville that only has 6 sites, all backing up to a "babbling brook" with many trees. We liked it so much, we stayed a month.
Here's some of the things we did while in the Asheville area...
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Bear Creek Lake with
Suzanne and George. |
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Another section of the French Broad
with the Asheville
Mildwater Paddlers.
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3 canoe trips.
The first one was by ourselves on the French Broad. The Asheville Outdoor Center (next door to our first campground after arriving in Asheville) ran the shuttle for us.
The second was another section of the French Broad with the Asheville Mildwater Paddlers meetup group.
The third was with Suzanne and George on Big Bear lake.
We generally don't take tourist tours but a friend recommended the LaZoom comedy bus tour. It mixes a some Asheville history with a lot of (non G rated) laughs. Just reading the
guides bio's will give you a chuckle. Here's some pic's from our trip...
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| Earlene Hooch, our tour guide |
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| Sister Ooh-La-La |
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Bee man, tried to pollinate everything,
and every body. |
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| Beer man, and offspring?!?! |
Asheville has a paved green-way path along the
French Broad river. We spent a day riding as far
as we could with out getting on the city streets.
Something else to like about this campground, raspberry's grow wild. Joan would pick this many every few days. This is when we started drinking Raspberry vs. Strawberry Daiquiris and started making raspberry pancakes, but not at the same time.
We saw a play, The 39 Steps, at The Hart Theater in
Waynesville (about 25 miles west of Asheville).
"Only 4 actors played a multitude of characters.
Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel,
add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps."
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Joan enjoying a dark brew at the Asheville
Outdoor Center after a hot day on the river.
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Another theme was to sample as many local micro breweries as we could.
We could've spent the whole summer in Asheville, but there were other adventures awaiting us on the road.
Note: We found most of the out of the way campgrounds through
Passport America.
July 16 2015
Left Asheville heading toward the New River gorge area and Little Beaver State Park in West Virginia. I-26 heading north is very scenic with mountains more rugged than we've seen so far. West Virginia continued the scenic/rugged theme with a few tunnels thrown in.
We approached the campground from the south and the last turn onto the road towards the campground had an ominous sign referring to "dangerous curves". As we proceeded slowly, evaluating our options, we decided to pull into a church parking lot and decide what to do next. A local followed us into the parking lot, apparently noticing our slow driving and apprehension. After telling him where we were going he said the bad curve is just
after the campground, so we were okay. Through out our travels, we've had a lot of very friendly locals help us out in various situations with valuable information.
Little Beaver State Park has existed for many years with a small lake created by a dam and many hiking trails. The campground is relatively new (2011) and has very nice facilities including WiFi repeaters every few campsites. We had a nice site, up on a hill.
We've noticed a trend. There must be a lot of criminal activity among the firewood population. They keep the wayward wood locked up in full view, presumably to deter the younger generation growing in the forest. Apparently it's working, we had no problems with any firewood misbehaving during our stay.
We spent 4 days at Little Beaver, exploring the park, it's many hiking trails and the New River Gorge area. Along with the great views of the Bridge and the gorge, there's a self guided driving tour on the old road used before the new bridge was completed in the mid 70's. Again, there were signs warning of tight turns and low ground clearances. The "Big Ass Truck" made it with out issue and we stopped at the bottom for a few pictures.
As we were walking from the parking area to the old (small) bridge, we saw a full size school bus come by to pick up the white water rafters. I don't know if he came down the same road I did or if they use another road but my driving skills were duly humbled, again.
July 20 2015
After West Virginia, we were on a mission to get to western Michigan, near the Silver Lake sand dunes. We were going to Mears, Michigan to watch Joan's grand nephew (Dillon) do some sand drag racing on the weekend of August 1. We stopped in Ohio for 2 nights during a heat wave with temp;s in the 90's. The Ohio State Park we stayed in (Caeser Creek) was huge. It had 287 sites but only a few with Electric AND water. This was our first situation where we had to use our on-board water tank. I neglected to sanitize the water tank before leaving so we took one of the few full hookup sites. I spend the next day sanitizing the water tank and doing some other maintenance on the camper in the 90 degree heat and humidity. Heck, I could have stayed in Florida for these conditions! The heat wave broke and we woke up to a very pleasant 50 degree temps the next morning. We didn't get to enjoy the cooler weather, it was ... "
On the road again..." towards Michigan.
Somewhere in Ohio we ran across a wind farm. Those huge wind turbines appearing on the horizon sprouting from the corn fields was an impressive sight. We happened upon a rest area right in the thick of them and stopped for lunch.,
July 22 2015
Our next destination was a small campground outside Jonesville Michigan. The campground was, well, OK! They were very friendly and gave us 2 sites to use as a pull through. The bath house was clean and well appointed. The water wasn't very good, with a naturally high salt content so we bought some drinking water. The site was well shaded, but it was all sand. A river ran right past the campground and we talked about a canoe trip but the heat and a low water dam chute didn't make it sound very appealing. We enjoyed the first few days in the Jonesville and Hillsdale (another small town 5 miles south). Both towns are very picturesque (something we found common in Michigan) with quaint town squares, some with old time courthouses and clock towers.
On Saturday morning they had a farmers market at the square in Hillsdale and we made it a point to attend. Here's a tip that should be obvious but we didn't realize it till we walked through all the stalls. If you go to a farmers market and you see an Amish family selling their wares, theirs are the best and cheapest.
Our campground neighbor was a construction foreman who was finishing up a project. He had a cookout for his crew and we got to talk with some Michigan natives about their state. The consensus was since we were going that far into Michigan, we HAD to go to the "UP" (Michigan Upper Peninsula)! We had no real plans after Mears, so we decided it was a great idea and started making long range plans. But for the short term, we were on a mission to Mears, MI.
July 27 2015
We stayed way too long in Jonesville, 5 days. The heat and mosquitoes were wearing us down. This is when we adopted a new policy, never pay in advance for more than 2 nights, that way if we don't like it we can move on easily.
Our next destination was Lucky Lake Campground about a half hour south of the Silver Lake / Mears area. We had to kill a few days before our reservation at Sandy Shores campground. Lucky Lake was another of those campground that caters more toward tent campers with centralized water and only a few RV sites with water and electric. We had a good time at Lucky Lake. There was a rail-trail (
Hart-Montague) close by and we took a day to ride our bikes to a nearby town (New Era) for lunch at a bakery/bar/sandwich shop/night club named Morats.
This is where we had our first encounter with Oberon Ale, "
An American wheat ale with a spicy hop character, mildly fruity aromas and the color and scent of a sunny afternoon.", best served with an orange slice (see picture below). This became our favorite new beer, up to that point.
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| Morats |
At Lucky Lake we met Debbie, another neighbor who was camping with her two rescue dogs Bear and Stella. She invited us to share her campfire and we shared our raspberry daiquiri's. Another native Michigander, she was a wealth of information about her home state. She even gave us a book of detailed Michigan maps (similar to a Gazetteer) to help us on our journey. Debbie also recommended we have lunch at the Brown Bear Restaurant/Pub in Shelby MI, another small community nearby. Brown Bear had tons of atmosphere. It was packed with locals having a few drinks, having lunch and just having a good time. Burgers were good and the beer was great!
We happened to be in Shelby the day of a street fair with and antique car show. A good afternoon!
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| 1953 Ford |
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| 1964 Plymouth |
July 30 2015
Arrived at Silver Lake Sand Dunes area. This is a tourist town to rival anything in Florida, wall to wall attractions, restaurants, hotels and people. Navigating the hordes with a 30' travel trailer was... interesting. We were staying there because it was the only campground near the drag racing venue where we could get a site for that weekend.
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| Paddle tires |
Joan's grand nephew, Dillon (one of our 4 de-facto grand kids) was coming to compete in the West Michigan Sand Drag Nationals. He's been doing it since he was very little (what they call the "Mighty Midgets") and now at 13 he's in the junior class. Almost any vehicle that can hold it's own in the sand is eligible: 4x4 trucks; ATVs, custom built trikes or top fuel dragsters with "paddle" tires. Dillon was racing an ATV.
The format is bracket racing on a 300 ft track vs. a 1/4 mi. The drivers make a few practice runs to "dial in" the time it takes to run the course. When the racing begins, the starts are staggered so the slower car has a head start over the faster car. In theory, the skill and consistency of the driver is what's tested, not how fast or slow the car is. Invariably, the adrenaline will kick in and many drivers "break out" and run faster than their dial in and are disqualified. Dillon took 2nd place in his class, his best showing yet. Maybe we brought him some luck.
Here's a few more videos to give you a feel for the action...
Trike and Rail
Diesel dragster in the far lane.
Tractors drag track after every few runs to smooth it.
The West Michigan dunes are quite impressive. Supposedly, as the last glaciers receded the westerly winds piled the sand up on the western Michigan shore line. We climbed up the dune from the parking area. It's quite a steep climb and the sand is very fine. You go 2 steps forward only to slide down 1 1/2.
Finally made it to the crest and started walking, taking a few pictures and watching the ORV's crest a hill to the north and rush down a very steep slope. The pedestrian and ORV sections are well marked so there wasn't any danger of getting run over. There's even a picnic table so you can sit and watch all the activity. We planned to walk to Lake Michigan, about a mile away, but the wind was blowing so hard that it felt like we were being sand blasted. Took a few more pictures and headed back.
The road leading to the parking area ends at a cul-de-sac with a 50 foot dune encroaching onto the asphalt. It's a little surreal and we dubbed it "The END of the road"
Coming soon, on the road to the "UP", eh!
All these little townships have a museum with volunteers to help with the local history. We learned that the town became a major rail hub in the late 1800's and attracted many small industries. Most notable was the Wooden Bowl Company, which made wooden utensils. They built a factory and a small dam on the Cedar River. The factory is gone, replaced by the city park where we parked the truck and eat our picnic lunch, but the dam still exists. Just past the park is a series of Victorian homes now serving as B&B's.
