Tag Archives: Michigan U.P.

2013_08_04 (Sun) Return to Tiki

Today we drove US-2 from Ironwood, Michigan to St. Ignace, Michigan, a distance of approximately 317 miles.  We were on the road for about 7 hours, including rest/food/fuel stops, and lost an additional hour to the time zone change from CDT to EDT.  That’s more miles and more time than we prefer, but we have done 400 mile days when we needed to.  200 – 250 miles seems to be the sweet spot for us at this point, at least until we get better driver/passenger seats in the coach and seal up the wind leaks around the windshield and entrance door.  (The bus is 23 years old after all.)

Most of US-2 through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.) is good, 2-lane road with occasional 4-lane divided and 5-lane (center turn) stretches.  There are also lots of passing lanes, which are needed due to the hilly nature of the western U.P. and the volume of traffic in the central and eastern U.P.  There are places where the surface is rough and bouncy, but on balance it’s a good road to drive.  The speed limit is 55 MPH, but you have to slow down for the small towns.  Even so, we actually prefer traveling on US and state highways rather than Interstates when we can.  And this route gets us home in a reasonably direct way while keeping us as far away from Chicago, Illinois as possible.  My life will not be incomplete if I never drive in, through, or even near Chicago in the bus ever again.

[ A note on Michigan drivers:  speed limits appear to be lower bound suggestions.  One of the nice things about this, is that if you are driving a large vehicle at the posted speed limit, when you get to a passing lane the cars (and trucks) behind you don’t screw around; they step on the accelerator and get around you.  By the time you get to the end of the passing lane, all (or at least most) of the traffic that was behind you is now in front of you.  We did not encounter any blatant bone-headed drivers today, and that helped make for a better and more pleasant drive for us. ]

We had excellent weather for this leg of our trip.  It was 45 degrees F when we woke up this morning.  We pulled out of Curry Park, the city-owned RV park/campground in Ironwood, Michigan at 8:19 CDT.  There were enough discrete clouds to make the sky interesting and the high temperatures only made it into the upper 60’s.  There were plenty of hills and turns in the road, but the bus ran well; it really likes this type of weather and roads.

Although we are trying to learn to be more about the journey than the destination, the reality is that you have to end up someplace each night.  Most of the small towns we went through yesterday and today had signs about not parking overnight on streets and the one Walmart we checked in Ashland, Wisconsin did not allow overnight parking due to a city ordinance.  We took a chance last night (no reservation) and it worked out.  The sites at Curry RV Park were first-come, first-served, but we were in early enough to snag a “full hookup” site even though we only needed/used the electrical connection.  These sites were the only ones that would accommodate our size and turning radius.  That made four nights in a row of boondocking, at least with respect to water and sewage, and three nights for electrical.  We passed several casinos and more than few RV park/campgrounds.  Tonight, however, we wanted to make sure we could get into a RV park/campground with legitimate full hookups as we will need to refill the fresh water and dump the waste tanks before our final leg back to the house on Tuesday.  We also wanted to be positioned so that one more driving day would get us back to our house in southeast Michigan.

Our target was the Tiki RV Park on the north end of St. Ignace, Michigan.  We have stayed at the Tiki before when we had our Itasca Sunrise motorhome, and we liked the park.  We also like the town of St. Ignace, which sits at the north end of the Mackinac Bridge (Big Mac).  St. Ignace is a nice town on the water facing Mackinac Island which lies close by in Lake Huron due east of the town.  It has a marina, which is always interesting and pleasant.  There are plenty of things happening during the summer tourist season.  Like all of the U.P. it never feels crowded and is an unpretentious place.

The five mile long Big Mac connects Michigan’s Lower and Upper Peninsulas, bridging the Straits of Mackinac (pronounced Mack in naw), and is high enough in the center span for very large lake freighters to pass under with lots of room to spare.  We like both of Michigan’s peninsulas, but they are very different.  The U.P. is much more sparsely populated and has a cooler, harsher climate (especially during winter).  Trees and other vegetation tend to be shorter, and in many places it has an “edge of wilderness” feeling.

In spite of previous good experiences, we had an issue with our site at the Tiki.  We had walked to the site to make sure the coach would fit and not encounter any obstructions, but we did not walk the entire route to get to the site.  Big mistake.  The narrow gravel road took us around a sharp curve that did not leave me room to maneuver when I found myself facing low overhanging branches from a fir tree.  Pressing forward, the branches dislodged the top half of our broken searchlight.  Once parked, I had to get the ladder out, climb up, and redo the rescue tape that has held it together since I did this same temporary repair in Gillette, Wyoming back in June.  While I was up there I discovered that the limbs also scratched the paint on the driver-side of the roof.  The scratches are not visible from the ground, but that is not the point.  I consider the RV park responsible for this damage as Linda very clearly explained to them the size of our rig, both when making the reservation and when checking in.  We, however, should have known better than to take their word for it that our coach could make it to and into the site without any difficulties.  We are learning, sometimes the hard way, that we should never discount or dismiss even a minor concern that either one of us has about a situation, and to never take someone else’s word that our coach “will be just fine.”

Once settled in our site, we walked down the hill to Java Joe’s.  Java Joe’s is on the main road at the bottom of the hill leading up to the RV park, and is great place to get coffee, breakfast, etc.  It’s about 1.5 miles from there into town, a flat and very walkable distance on a nice day.  On our previous visits here the place was hopping, but it was mostly empty and quiet this evening.  The owner is a “parrot head” and has a Jimmy Buffett concert playing in an endless loop on a TV monitor the last time we were there.  It was still playing.  We went for coffee as we didn’t have any this morning, but ended up getting a couple of dinner salads, sans cheese, as we had not had sufficient greens for the last few meals.  Since the last time we were here the owner has opened a second location just down the street called The Garden that serves “vegetarian and vegan friendly” food.  We were told they are only open Friday through Monday, 11 AM to 3 PM, so we will probably have lunch there tomorrow.  BTW:  I’m not sure what “vegan friendly food is.”  Either it’s vegan or it’s not.

When we got back to our coach we opened the bottle of Yellowstone Howlin’ Pear wine we purchased at the store in Fishing Bridge, Yellowstone National Park and each had a small glass.  It was a very acceptable wine given that we did not get to taste it before we bought it.  As with accepting other people’s opinions about RV sites, purchasing wine without tasting it first is generally a risky proposition.

We will be at the Tiki RV Park for two nights and then head for home on Tuesday morning.  We have nothing planned for here except to relax and enjoy the local area.

 

2013_08_03 (Sat) Across The Northern Tier

Today was a travel day, and an uneventful one at that (the best kind).  Linda spent some time last evening and again this morning researching places for us to stay tonight somewhere between Ashland, Wisconsin and Iron Mountain, Michigan.  The choices appeared thin; the Walmart in Ashland didn’t allow RVers to overnight due to a city ordinance, and there did not appear to be a Walmart anywhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  (I know, I know, that doesn’t seem possible.  It turns out there is one in Ironwood, and probably others we haven’t discovered yet.)  As our route eventually put us on US-2 we settled on a city RV park in Ironwood, Michigan, just over the border with Wisconsin on the north side of the highway.  Based on available online information, this park appeared to have a variety of sites from “full hookup pull-thru” to “no hookup tent site.”  (Note: Full hookup in this case meant 20A electric power, barely sufficient to recharge our house batteries, and run the refrigerator, and run the air compressor.)  The sites were first-come-first-served; no way to make a reservation.  And being a city park, there was no one to call for information on a Saturday, the city offices being closed.  So we did something very unusual for us, we started driving with no guarantee that we would be able to get a site, much less one that our coach would fit in, or if the park was even still open.

We left the Forestedge Winery (very reluctantly) at 9:19 AM CDT and headed south down MN-64 towards Akeley where we picked up MN-34 heading northeast to Walker.  MN-34 ends at MN-200 in Walker and we headed east on MN-200 from there.  MN-200 appears on the map to run straight east-west, but in actuality it bends to the left and right, and goes up and down, through lovely forests and past bodies of water, large and small.  The forests eventually gave way to shorter, scruffier growth and marshy areas that reminded us a great deal of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  MN-200 ended at US-2 and we merged on headed southeast to Duluth, Minnesota 52 miles away.

The roads were generally very good, with smooth, quiet surfaces, and we rolled along at 55 MPH except for the occasional idiot who seems unconcerned about pulling out in front of a 41,000 pound vehicle traveling fast enough to turn their sub-compact into a splotch on the highway.  No, we didn’t hit anyone, but one of the things I do not like is having to suddenly get on the brakes.  Buses do not stop quickly (in a short distance) when traveling at highway speeds.  I know that–and I generally try to drive very, very defensively–but I have no control over what other motorists do, and I find in particular that it is not always possible to anticipate what a stupid/oblivious person might do next.  One or my other pet bus peeves?; drivers who wait until the passing lane is about to run out and then decide to try to get around you.  One &%$*(#! did that to me today and he ended up facing oncoming traffic.  I am not going on the shoulder and risking putting a 41,000 pound bus in the ditch for someone that stupid.  I did not encounter the most common peeve situation today, however, as it involves entrance ramps on limited access highways; people who don’t get up to speed and pay not attention to the traffic that is already on the highway and into which they are required to merge, i.e., get up to speed and blend in.

BTW:  The weather today was almost perfect; blue skies with lots of white puffy clouds (enough to create plenty of shaded areas on the highway) and afternoon temperatures in the low 70’s.

Paul had told us to just stick with US-2 east and we would soon find ourselves in Wisconsin, and so it was.  As you approach the northwest corner of Duluth MN-194 splits off to the left and US-2 goes to the right.  Signs make it very, very clear that trucks are to use US-2 to get into, around, or through Duluth; they are NOT to get on MN-194.  One of the interesting things about driving an motorhome that’s really a commercial bus, is there are times when you are not a truck (such as highway weigh scales), and other times when you are, such as any road situation that involves height, width, length, or weight restrictions.  Toll roads are a toss up; some go only by axles, thus treating you like a commercial semi, while others have special fares for RVs and the things they tow.  Also, if you have a Jake Brake (we don’t) local noise ordinances prohibiting their use apply to you the same as they do to commercial vehicles.  If you don’t believe it, try using yours.

US-2 takes you to I-35 south of Duluth.  From I-35 you travel a couple of miles north and onto the Bong bridge which takes you into Wisconsin, or 10th state.  It’s a fairly high bridge, but an easy one to drive over (sorry Nick).

The drive on US-2 across northern Wisconsin was a bit tedious.  The road is rough and noisy in a lot a places, and each town you go through seems to stretch out along the highway for miles and requires you to drive 30 or even 25 MPH.  It will be nice to be back in Michigan where speed limits are almost universally ignored.

We arrived at the Wisconsin/Michigan border around 3:15 PM CDT, returning to our state of origin.  As advertised, we found Curry Park right where it was supposed to be, and it was open for business and mostly empty.  We spotted a pull-through site with good ingress and egress and made pulled in.  It appeared to be an electric only site, so Linda filled out the form and put the required $15 in the envelope.  Turned out that it was full-hookup site, which is $20 per night and the camp host came around later to collect the extra $5.  Even though we only needed the electrical hookup, we were not about to move.

Our neighbors on either side appeared to be off doing whatever it is RVers do in the late afternoon, so we ran our generator for a while to at least bulk charge the house batteries before switching to shore power.  Linda went for a walk around the park and I put the finishing touches on the blog posting for yesterday while keeping an eye on our batteries.

We have to be very thoughtful about how we use the coach and its various (electrical) systems when we only have a 20A electrical connection.  Not cooking dinner avoids having to use power, so Linda (the smartphone/Google queen) found a well-reviewed restaurant in town that was a four block walk from the park on the same side of US-2, and had pizza on the menu; Federico’s MIKES.  Winner.  Well, maybe.  Since we don’t eat dairy products we order our pizza withOUT cheese.  That is guaranteed to get some strange looks and even questions, and the outcome is always a bit of a gamble.  (We had a fabulous vegan pizza in the Black Hills of South Dakota back in June but we have had others that just were not very good.)  The waitress took our order—16” thin crust, no cheese, with onions, mushrooms, olives (black and green), and pineapple—and a young man in the kitchen who obviously loved making pizza threw himself into the task.  He even came out part way through our meal to see if we liked it.  We did, and we told him so.  We saved a few pieces for lunch on the road tomorrow as it will be another travel day for us, boxed it up, and walked back to the park.

Tomorrow we have another travel day, and then plan to stay put for a couple of nights before our final leg back to the house.