Between Manton and Cadillac

We were still traveling with our friends today.  We left our spot at Walmart and headed into a bit of rain.  It was on country roads and we weren't trying to make time, so it wasn't bad at all.  

This is their rig ahead of us.

 We arrived at their cabin home near Manton, MI and they have two dogs and two cats that travel with them.  This is Buckshot and he was getting some lovin' from Craig and vice verse. 

They have the best camping area we have seen, yet!!!  They have about 10 acres here and this is the two spots for the RV's.  We tried to come up with a name for their Motorhome.  Since we are "The Whale" and they are larger I was calling them, "Big Fish".

 The inside of the house is very beautiful and roomy and we enjoyed some new friends that came by to visit.  Randy and (you guessed it) his wife, Cathy.

They even have a nice "kumbaya" area.

Craig and Vern just had to fix the thrown breaker because I forgot to turn off the electric heater while I ran my hair dryer.

Tomorrow they are going to show us around the area.  We plan to be here for a few days, if they don't run us off.  Ha.

Blessings,

Kathy

Yoopers to Trolls

We traveled yesterday from Michigan's Upper Peninsula to the lower part of the State.  We had lunch and then a tour of the Cut River Bridge along the way.  It was amazing to think that we were parked on the same lake that if we the Whale could swim (hmmmm) we could boat straight down to Chicago. 

 Crossing the Cut River Bridge

The River Below

The last time I was in Mackinac they were just finishing the building of the 5 mile long bridge.

Vern and Kathy owned a cabin on the Lake in St. Ignace, MI.  They had a friend who has a fishing business. Jamie gave us a tour of his fish cleaning operation.

This machine scales the White Fish and Walleye

The machine below filets the fish

He also has a way to remove the pin bones with these machines.

Jamie's operation is so clean that it hardly even smelled like a fish processing place.  What a wonderful couple.

He not only sold us some fresh White Fish and Smoked Salmon and White Fish, but he let us park on his property while we fired up the grill and had a wonderful meal!!

This is the beach by their cabin they once owned.  What a gorgeous day and this is Mackinac Island in the distance.

We drove the Honda over the Mackinac Bridge. We had a wonderful time getting the grand tour around Mackinaw City, too. We saw a video on the construction of the Big Mac and then walked through a little mall area called Mackinac Crossing.

We stopped and listened to a couple, "Toast and Jam" playing for the tourists.  They were pretty good, too.

After crossing back over the bridge to St. Ignace, we looked at the weather and decided to drive the Motorhomes on across the Bridge to a Walmart lot in Potesky, MI.  The people that are Yoopers, call the people on the lower part of Michigan, Trolls (because they have to go over the bridge to reach them.

We are up and about and going to have a little breakfast before driving on to their home in Cadillac.

Blessings,

Kathy

Escanaba with the Uppers (Yoopers)

We headed to Escanaba, MI yesterday morning and just had about 200 miles to go.  Most of route 2 looked like the below picture.  It was a gorgeous day for travel and the only issue we had was that our GPS had the Vagabond Campground we were going to in a very wrong location.  I knew it wasn't right when it wanted us to turn down a dirt road that turned into a tractor path.  We didn't take that turn, but then had to call Vern and Kathy to get directions in. I also want to thank the nice farmer that had a large circular driveway that we used to turn around so we didn't have to disconnect the Tail from the Whale.

It was wonderful to see Lake Superior on our travels the day before to our north and then to come into the northern bays of Lake Michigan yesterday on the south of us.

I haven't taken many pictures on my Sony Tablet because the modified case that I have sometimes covers the lens.  I took off the cover and tried a few with it.  Here's the co-pilot for the morning and Craig is actually awake, but was glancing out his mirror as I snapped this.  At least that's what I was hoping.

Our friends already had a spot picked out for us so we got set up and took the short walk down to Lake Michigan.

Vern, Kathy and Craig

I met Kathy while waiting to serve on Jury Duty while we lived in Bonham, Texas and the Lord just knit our hearts together and now our travels, too.

Below is the dock out to the lake.

There was a good breeze blowing in and stirring up some sand.

 This is our first visit to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  We learned something new, they refer to themselves as "Uppers" (pronounced with U sounding like YOU).  I hope I'm spelling it right.  Someone will have to let me know.
CORRECTION: it is spelled Yoopers.

Above is Kathy's brother, Don and wife, Kim.  Please pray for her as five years ago she was cleaning a field up of debris and a rusty peace of barb wire went into her eye and she has had severe pain and loss of sight since then.

 Kathy (the campground owner) and our friend Kathy are sitting in the swing at our campfire and music time.  Their friend Ron plays a mean guitar.

We sang and breathed in smoke until I was nearly hoarse.

There's that cool front coming in and we haven't decided if we will be staying here for another day or moving on down to Vern and Kathy's place in Cadillac, MI.

Hope the winds and sand won't cause any damage that are blowing across AZ and NV.

Blessings,

Kathy

From Minnesota Through Wisconsin to Michigan's Upper Peninsula

Friday we fished for a couple of hours in the morning and in the afternoon, Bob and Pam came by to say good-bye to us.  We'll miss seeing them.

This morning we heading out on our Michigan tour.  The Whale had never traveled through the Great Lakes Area before.  We only drove 230 miles today and we are parked in a Walmart in Ironwood, MI.  On the below map we are about half way between 1 and 2.  We will go on to the Vagabond RV park near Escanaba, MI (#2).  We are meeting good friends of ours there that we know from our time in Texas.  If the timing works out for them, we'll go by their place in Cadillac (#3).

We drove through part of Duluth and I was surprised at how hilly the area is as you come upon Lake Superior. The next photos are from around that area as we crossed over from Wisconsin to Michigan.

This is a very different way to open a bridge for ships to go through.

What a huge train yard!!!  Our minds tried to comprehend what a different way of life it has to be living so near the Great Lakes.  We wondered where the good fishing spots are.  HA!!

We drove over this huge bridge and of coarse they were working on it.

We did some shopping, made some dinner and managed to get connected to the Internet so I could post a blog.  We are now on eastern time and it's dark here at 10:45 pm.  We hope to step out and see the Supermoon before turning in.

The skies cleared up just in time for us to see the Supermoon over Super Walmart right out our window.

This Walmart closes at 11 pm.  It will be a nice quiet night.  There's only one other Motor home here and the night stock crew.

Hope you have a Super night.

Blessings,
Kathy