Here we are, on the road: We’re in St. Clair, Michigan

August 11, 2013 Lorraine’s report

Hello once more, this time from Thousand Trails, St Clair, MI. We moved again, this time to a 30 amp, water power and sewer here in St. Clair. While I loved being farther south, and I loved the free camping at the various casinos, I missed the various amenities like water, power and sewer. This morning Chuck got up and before we knew it, a site opened up that had 50 amp, water and sewer. So we moved once more, before I had even taken a shower. But now we plan on being here for a bit before we have to head out.

So last Sunday we headed on into St Ignace, MI. We did our blog after we set up, then toured the area and ended up at the casino. We had burgers for dinner and play a bit, I think we were up a bit. Monday we continued our tour, checking out the bridge, the various shops, then went back to see the lights they have up during the evening hours. The lights were pretty.

Tuesday was my birthday and Chuck decided we should go over to Mackinac Island. We got up and headed to the docks to go over. The ride was nice and we took the trip that took us by the bridge. The crew gave all kinds of information over the loud speaker, but I can't remember too much, but I found the brochure for it. There are 4,851,700 steel rivets on the bridge, it used 931,000 tons of concrete, there are 42,000 miles of cable in it, they used 85,000 blue prints for building it and the construction workers numbered 3,500. "Today more than 150 million people have crossed the iconic structure that is a memorable feature of any road trip." We crossed it two times and it is something to do.

So Mackinac Island was full of people. They have no cars or anything to get around so we had to go in a carriage to get around, with about 25 to 30 other people. . Our driver was fun, full of knowledge about the island and the area. He kept us entertained the whole trip driving through the Fort, the Grand Hotel, Surrey Hills, the Blacksmith shop, the Post Cemetery, and Arch Rock. Just before the driver headed back, I got a migraine; we had gotten off to walk down to the town and it hit like a big brick. I took the medicine and headed on down. It ended, so we got on the boat and rode home. Even though it happened, we didn't let it slow us too much. After a short rest, we went to a restaurant and enjoyed a very nice dinner. I loved the island, but having lived on an island, I know how hard it to live like that. And to have around 15,000 people come to visit you on any given day is pretty hard. The town was really packed!

Wednesday was a very quiet day, we took a drive on down to Petoskey, MI, stopped at Wal-Mart and right around the corner was another casino. We went in and had the buffet, it was really good and they gave me some birthday $, I ended up ahead.

Thursday found us leaving and heading on into Birch Run, MI. This is an RV park about 4 miles from Frankenmuth, MI. where Bronner's has his world famous Christmas store. I have never seen so much Christmas stuff. He had things for all your holidays, but Christmas was his main thing. There are so many things there, you find yourself in over load mode very quickly. Chuck took the camera and took pictures while I started looking. I know one thing, if you ever needed any from there and they didn't have it, well, I guess there isn't anywhere you can find it. There is so much there, it boggles the mind!

Friday found us going on down to St. Clair, MI Thousand Trails. We got in, set up and Chuck said we had to go to a walk in clinic to see about my foot. It hasn't been healing very well and hurts all the time. We get there and find out that the GPS is wrong, it was a doctors office, not a walk in clinic, but since it wasn't busy, the doctor there could see me. Well, I'm not sure, but I think I have some kind of infection going on. He put me on an antibiotic and took a culture of the seeping wound, and told me to soak it in Epsom salts. I will return to see him in 10 days.

Friday when we got here, we were met by Eric R. Earlier he had walked through the RV park looking for us. Chuck had pulled the rig over to unhook the car when Eric arrived. He told us where they were and we were just across from him and one road over. We moved today into a site right across from him. .

Well, Saturday he and Beth took us into the several small towns, where there was lots of activity from all the garage sales going on. We stopped at a big one and walked through the stuff. Eric commented that all the garage sales reminded him of "Ship Wreck Days" back in Anacortes, WA. I think last weekend was the Anacortes Arts Festival, something I really enjoyed going to.

So that is it for me. Hope everyone enjoys the rest of the summer. Take Care and see you down the road...

Hugs,

Lorraine

8/11/13 Chuck’s Report

We are at the 1000 Trials park here in St. Clair, it’s been awhile since we’ve been at a 1000 Trials park, there aren’t to many in the mid-west.

Let’s see, last Sunday we moved to St. Ignace, got set up then wrote our blog. The rest of the day was pretty quiet, we did walk over to the casino for dinner that afternoon, however.

Next morning we drove out to see Mackinac Bridge and check out some of the shops in town. I never did figure out why Mackinac Bridge, Mackinac Island and Mackinaw City are spelled different but all pronounced the same but we were told it was an Indian name. Later that evening we drove back to see the Bridge at night while it was all lit up.

Tuesday was Lorraine’s birthday, I forgot to say anything in the blog last week but lots of folks contacted her to wish her Happy Birthday anyway. We had made plans to go over to Mackinac Island for the day. There are three different companies that run tour boats from St. Ignace (or Mackinaw City if you happen to be on that side of the bridge) over to Mackinac Island.

Mackinac Island is in Lake Huron, between the UP and Lower Peninsula of Michigan. It can only be reached by boat or airplane except in winter time when the lake freezes and they have an ice road and use snowmobiles to/from the island. Motorized vehicles have been prohibited on the island since the late 1990s except for the snowmobiles in winter and a few emergency vehicles. There is a state highway on the island, the only state highway in the US that do not allow motorized vehicles. Travel is by foot, bicycle, horse or one of the many horse drawn carriages. We choose to purchase a tour via the horse drawn carriage, about 1 1/2 hour tour of the town, fort and part of the island.

Our tour started with a two horse drawn carriage through the town and some of the residential area. We also drove past the Grand Hotel but we declined the opportunity to see the inside of the hotel, they charge $10/person just to walk inside but they say it truly is GRAND.

We changed to a three horse drawn carriage and continued our tour of the Island and the Fort. One of our stops was at an overlook where there was a natural Archway in the rocks. It makes for a nice picture, probably the most photographed spot on the island.

After our tour, we walked through some of the shops along the main street in town, Lorraine found a couple of shirts and stuff she wanted and of course we had to sample some fudge from the many fudge shops along the way. The Island is well known for it’s fudge shops, in fact, the tourist are referred to as fudgies by some of the locals.

After we returned to the mainland and our rig, we drove back into town to find a nice restaurant for Lorraine’s Birthday dinner. We had a busy day on her birthday, may have done too much walking as she is still recovering from surgery on her foot but she did a good job keeping up.

Wednesday we decided to do a car tour vs more walking so we headed out to see the Tunnel of Trees on the East side of the lower peninsula and the towns of Harbor Springs and Petoskey. The Tunnel of Trees is one of the more scenic drives in the area, it goes along the coast of Lake Michigan and the tree limbs from either side form a tunnel over parts of the road.

While we were out, I noticed the left front tire pressure was lower than normal and on one of our stops I saw a small bolt stuck in the tire. We stopped at a repair shop where they pulled the bolt out, installed a plug and aired us back up. While I talking with the maintenance guy Lorraine checked the GPS and found there was a casino nearby and wanted to check it out. We stopped at Wal-Mart then drove over to the casino, signed up for our player’s card and they gave us $10 towards their buffet for Lorraine's birthday so we decided to eat there too. We had a good buffet and had good luck on the slots too. Plus we didn’t over-do it for Lorraine’s foot either.

Lorraine had heard about the World’s Largest Christmas Store located in Michigan and asked if we could check it out. It wasn’t too far out of the way so we added it too our route as we traveled on Thursday. The Christmas shop is located in the town of Frankenmuth and I found a RV campground located close by for us. We drove down, checked in and got set up before we headed into town to check out the Christmas Store. It is BIG and has lots of merchandise with lots of displays, both large and small. Lorraine started out trying to shop and take pictures too so I told her I would take pictures so she could shop. Some of the larger displays we on shelves above the shopping floor so I just walked around and took pictures for about 1/2 hour.

I found Lorraine and she was less than 1/4 of the way through the shop. I told her to continue and I would just wait for her. I walked around outside and took pictures of some of the displays they had then went back inside and set for awhile before I decided to find her again. By now she was almost 1/2 of the way through the shop so I returned to the bench and waited until she was done. After another wait in the “husband” waiting area, I saw her shopping her way back so walked over and “helped” her finish. I know she had a good time there as did most of the ladies I saw in the shop.

Friday morning we got everything ready for travel and headed out for our stop here at St. Clair. We knew one of our friends from Lewis and Clark FMCA chapter was here in the park too and figured we would find them after we got set up. We checked in and found there are two areas that have full hookups and 50 amp power. One section has been having power problems and the power was currently off and they were working on it. We chose the other section but didn’t find any spots that we could get enough southern exposure to get reception with our satellite antenna so we took an open spot that had 30 amp power right next door.

While we were checking out the area, looking for a good site, who should happen to see us and stop by but Eric and Beth from Lewis and Clark. They were in a site just across the road from where we were checking the sites, small world. We said we wanted to get set up and would see them later that afternoon for a visit.

After we got set up, I found a walk-in medical clinic on the GPS, I wanted to get Lorraine’s foot looked at by a doctor as it has been 6 weeks and it still hasn’t healed. Turns out the place we went too wasn’t a walk-in but they could get Lorraine into the doctor anyway. The doc checked her out, took a sample for a culture to check for an infection, gave her a new prescription for another antibiotic and wants her to return in 10 days for another looksee. He also suggested soaking it in hot water with Epsom Salt twice a day too.

Her original foot surgery was on June 27 and the stiches were supposed to come out on July 5th but the doctor said it was too soon and wanted to take them out the following week. So the stiches were in for almost two week and when they were removed everything looked good. It appeared to be healing very well but over the next week or so the wound opened and started seeping. She has been on an antibiotic for the last week or so and it still pains her and is sore and red and didn’t appear to be healing that well so that’s what directed us to another doctor visit. We’ve been cleaning it with hydrogen peroxide for the last two days and will soak in in the hot water/Epsom salt daily too. Here’s hoping this does the trick and it heals for good this time.

We had to stop and get her prescription filled which required one more trip to a Wal-Mart. While we were there we picked up some fried chicken for our dinner later too. After we got back to our rig we had dinner then I contacted Direct TV to change our local programing from Minneapolis to Detroit so we could get local news and weather. After eating, we walked over to visit with Eric and Beth, a good finish to our day.

Yesterday, after brunch, we walked over to see Eric and Beth once again. We were planning on driving around to see some of the local area and invited them along if they wanted. They agreed so that afternoon we drove around to check out some of the small nearby towns and see some of the scenery. They have been here for a few days and know the area much better than us and made good “tour guides” for us. This is the big garage sale weekend in the area, over 150 miles of garage sales according to info posted around the area. We had a good time and after we got back Eric and I played a couple of games of cribbage. It’s been years since I’ve played cribbage but it came back pretty quick and I actually made a good game of it. After we ate dinner, we returned over to Eric and Beth’s for another short visit before calling it a night.

We plan on being here for two weeks, the longest we’ve stopped since we left in Minnesota in July. Just for our records, since Minn. we’ve stopped in Ashland, Wisconsin at a city park and spent the rest of the time in the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. We stayed in Marquette at the Ojibwa Casino (where they paid us $30/day to stay there), Manistique, Sault Ste. Marie and St. Ignace at the Kewadin Casinos RV parks (free using the coupons they gave us when we got their player’s card) before crossing the Mackinac Bridge and leaving the UP. While in each of these areas we were able to tour the local area as well so guess we’ve covered the UP pretty well but there is still lots we didn’t see/do during this trip. Guess we’ll have to return someday!

We are still working on our itinerary when we leave here. I’ve contacted a few of the RV parks in the NE where we want to be when the leaves change and have a rough schedule that we may follow when we get there. Now we just have to figure out our travel plans to make it all work out from here to there.

The weather this week has been like last week, getting into the 70s during the day and dropping to the high 50s at night. We had one thunderstorm this past week, not too bad, mostly just lots of rain but nothing like the rainstorms the folks in Missouri and even Arizona have experienced so it could have been much worse. In fact, they had a big storm pass through here the day before we got here, that may have cause the power outage in “B” section they think. I heard they still don’t have the power restored there yet, it’s been out for over three days now, glad we picked this section for our stay.

We expect the temperatures to be a bit warmer now that we are out of the UP and away from the Great Lakes, at least a few miles inland from Lake Huron. We want to do more exploring of the area, may even take a chance and go into Detroit, it’s less than 100 miles from here. Lorraine just checked and said the forecast is for rain tomorrow so it might not be the best day for a car trip but we’ll see.

Now to go through the pictures we’ve taken this week and add some here. After that, I’ll get this posted and get on with our day.

The outside and inside of a bark hut at a museum we toured.