We love going back to Michigan for several reasons. Not only do we enjoy Michigan as a pleasant place to stay, but a lot of our family and many of our friends are still here. We also maintain our doctors, dentist, and financial advisor here.
Our first stop was in Grand Rapids. Our “go to” campground for this area is Woodchip Campground. Woodchip is like a wilderness oasis in a residential neighborhood. Here we feel like we are “up north” but have a short drive to shopping.
We had my cousin, Barb, and her husband, Karl, join us for lunch so we could catch up on what they have been doing. We are close friends with two of Pat’s high school classmates and we were able to meet them for dinner at a local pub. They had recently returned from a river cruise in Europe. Their stories got us thinking about taking another cruise sooner rather than later!
Our next stop was Bad Axe where we “moochdocked” in Pat’s brother’s backyard. Geri and his wife, Marcia, are always great hosts. I was able to wash our trailer and truck and get some other small maintenance items completed. It is so much fun to crawl under the trailer to grease our suspension! Pat and Marcia shared the meals and Geri and I did the grilling. One of our “go to” RV dealers is Marlette RV, south of Bad Axe. We arranged for them to check and repack the seals on the trailer wheels on the day we moved from Bad Axe to Lansing. Marlette RV is very dependable. If you find yourself in the Michigan Thumb and need RV repairs or service, check them out.
Our final stop in Michigan was where we started our RV journey over ten years ago, Lansing, MI. Our favorite campground here is Lansing Cottonwood Campground. Once a KOA, it is now family owned and the staff does a great job. We make an annual pilgrimage here to see our doctors, dentist, and financial advisor. Between initial examinations, test, and follow-ups we were pretty busy. Of course, we had time to see our son, David, at our favorite pizza place. Our friends, Sue and Gary Aten had us over for dinner as well. My sister, Susan, drove down from Canadian Lakes to join Dave and us for lunch. After a week taking care of business, we began our drive south to Florida.
Our plan was to stay at Patrick Space Force Base’s RV park, Manatee Cove, before we continued on to Key West. The problem was that Manatee Cove doesn’t take reservations. We really didn’t want to drive down there and find there were no sites available. We decided we had to “sprint” from Michigan.
We drove 1,256 miles with a Walmart stop in Lancaster, OH, a KOA campground in Wytheville, VA, another Walmart in Walterboro, SC.
Our final en-route stop was at Naval Station Mayport near Jacksonville, FL.
Finally we made it! We pulled into Manatee Cove shortly before noon on our fifth day (Oct 18) on the road, and were able to get a nice site. There were eight sites open, but only two that we liked. It was good to get somewhere to stay for a while. We had a busy afternoon washing the bugs off the front of the trailer, borrowing a mower to mow the grass on our site. (Yes, the park does it, but no one knows when they will get around to it and the camp host had a loaner.)
We are here until December 9th when we will move to NAS Key West. We are hanging out, doing some serious relaxing. This is the first time we have stopped for more than a week since we left Washington on September 7th.We have already met two other couples that we know from previous stays and are looking forward to some kayaking, rocket launches, and some beach time with swimming in the Atlantic.
Michigan Traveler 