Movin' Right Along

Munising MI 6/22-6/25 This travel day was fairly short.  We decided to travel fairly close to Judy and John just to be sure that all went well and it did.  We got to the campground and suddenly something someone told us at our Heartland Rally this year quickly came to my mind.  BIG MOSQUITOS!!!! up there!  Yes they told me they were plentiful and be sure to have bug stuff.  Luckily our site was out in the open and there were a few but Judy said when they were setting up it was worse than a Horror Mosquito Movie, there were swarms of them.  Their site was more wooded than ours.  They tried to change but the campground was pretty booked so they put up their screen room just to have somewhere to go without getting attacked.   Soon after we got there David(Elizabeth's brother)arrived.  He had driven up from Minnesota for a couple of days.  Nathan and Elizabeth got in later afternoon.  They had gone on a hike and Nathan was...

Mackinaw City/Mackinac Island 6/20-6/23 We packed up to head onto Mackinaw City.  With both parents having to travel with the campers, the kids had their own car so they headed out to do some exploring on the way up to our next stop.  Judy, John, Steven and I decided to just head right to the campground.  That is the one tricky thing with the campers, if you want to stop along the way you have to be sure there is parking that will accommodate the camper and truck, not always easy to find.  We were almost there and as we were driving we saw a camper(actually similar to Judy and John's)stopped on the highway.  As we passed the trailer we realized it was Judy and John.  So we quickly pulled over.  They said their car just totally died.  They had AAA so they were going to call them and figure things out.  Unfortunately they didn't have towing for the camper on their AAA.  So we told them once the car got towed we would head back to them a...

Traverse City, Michigan 6/16-6/19 So after Nathan and Elizabeth got married they talked to us about an idea they both had.  With her family in Minnesota and us living in Massachusetts and they would be heading to St. Louis they wanted to create a yearly combined family camping trip to a new destination each year.  We all thought it was a great idea.  Last year, since they had just relocated to St. Louis, we made that year destination-St. Louis.  We had a nice time last year but with the unusually HOT summer we all said next year we are going somewhere that is much cooler and we came up with the idea of the UP of Michigan.  So that will bring us to the next week of our trip. We decided to call it the yearly Thompson/Jacobsen Rendezvous. Ok so the last 8 days have definitely been more "Vacation Mode".   I am going to break the trip up into the 3 different areas we stopped at.  This first post today will cover our Traverse City stop. ...

Elkhart Indiana 6/7-6/16 Well, got the first couple of posts out fairly on time.  Since then it has been very busy.  We attended a Heartland National Rally that was held at the Elkhart County Fairground.  It is basically over a week long get together of a group of campers that have the common thread that we all own a camper made by the same manufacturer-Heartland.  There were actually 230 rigs and over 500 people at this one rally.  It is a great way to connect with campers from all over the United States.  They have numerous activities throughout the time we spent there.  There are many vendors of camping accessories, cool add ons for your RV, new products that make the camping experience better etc.  They also put 13 new rigs to entice people to purchase some of the new models.  They have technical seminars all about the care and maintenance of your RV.  They have lifestyle seminars with many different subjects.  I took a pole ...

Sauder Village in Archbold OH 6/4-6/7 We love this stop.  We have been her a couple of times and absolutely love it.  They have a historic village(somewhat comparable to our Sturbridge village)and an Inn and amazing bakery and restaurant.  As you can see from the pictures the view from our camper was amazing.  We were able to take long walks right at the campground.  We even walked out to the Barn Restaurant which was a good thing since they have amazing food and I filled up on their famous fried chicken and Steven on their famous roast beef.  So after eating dinner, the walk back definitely did us good after that amazing meal. We also enjoyed the waitress she was very interested in our travels as she was looking forward to do the same soon with her husband.  It is always great to talk to the locals, as she also gave us some good info on the things to see and do in the area.  She suggested a state park close by for a hike. ...