4/29/07 (Sunday): We had a great hike late yesterday afternoon on the trail right outside our front door (that's our campground on the left)! The Betsie Valley Trail is 22 miles long. The part nearest us is paved, the remainder is crushed limestone. We're thinking about getting some yard sale bikes to take advantage of it.

We hiked from the campground to the town of Elberta (maybe 2 miles round trip). There was lots to see along the way and it was a beautiful Spring day. Some of the birch trees are just starting to leaf out.










The trail started out wooded near the campground and as it got closer to the Betsie River, turned to wetlands. This red-barked tree was at the edge of the wetland.











There were lots of birds, including this red-winged blackbird who was singing and strutting his stuff.






We also saw a pair of geese, the female sitting on a nest,












and a nesting swan (barely visible behind the vegetation).












This little snake was enjoying the sun at the side of the trail. We looked it up, and I think it's a western fox snake. Wilbur, the campground owner, thinks it's an eastern hog nose.










The wetlands didn't look anything like the ones in Florida. These horsetails were quite common. They look prehistoric, don't they? There were great views of the hills in the background and areas of flowing water. Quite lovely.















We turned back toward the campground in Elberta. It's a tiny town--a few dozen homes, the beach store and a diner. It had a nice park on Betsie Lake. On the opposite shore of Betsie Lake is Frankfort.









This is a charming tribute to the teachers who provided a good education to the children of the township for 110 years. It's made up of schoolbells from the area schools which were replaced by one modern school. I'll bet the kids aren't getting any better education from the modern school than they did from the country schools!













Today we're headed for the Betsie Lighthouse on Lake Michigan. Who knows what adventures we'll have on the way! Tomorrow is our first day of "work." Stay tuned!

4/28/07 (Saturday): Just a quick post (no photos!) to let all my faithful readers know that my friends, Julie and John, have started a blog to allow us to join them on their trip to Indonesia. John is Indonesian and Julie worked there for many years, so we'll get to follow along on the adventures of folks who really know the country. Here's the link:

www.wironoswanderings.blogspot.com

Today is laundry and house cleaning day for us. It's still cold, but very sunny. The weatherman says we might hit the mid 60's today!

4/27/07 (Friday): Well, here we are in Betsie River Campsite in Frankfort, Michigan! After a wet, cold couple of days, the sun is finally out this afternoon. We were so pleased to find that the owners have installed WiFi so that we'll be able to continue our blog!

Wiley is out metal detecting, and I have about an hour before I put together some dinner. Wiley is standing at the entrance, with the road to the left and the bike trail on his left side.



The owners live onsite in a lovely house. The office is located on the right side of the house. I think we'll be in campsite 87--for now we're parked next to the owners' house because the newly seeded grass is just coming up in the campsites and the ground is wet from 3 days of rain.



The campsites are mostly grassy, with scattered large trees (bare now). There are no campers yet; the ones you see were stored here. Many of the campers come for the whole season.











You can't see the bathhouse very well because of the bushes, but they are very clean and modern.












There are several really nice cabins. They don't have bathrooms or kitchens (they use the bathhouse and have a picnic table in front), but they have heaters, electricity and comfortable looking furniture.










We took a quick tour of the area today. We didn't stop much because of the weather, but we drove a big circle to Traverse City and back, noting the places we want to explore in more depth. The area is very hilly and covered with forests of maple and birch with scattered evergreens. There are no leaves on the tress yet. The hills were created by glaciers which dropped loads of sand and gravel. Later, the weather and waves of Lake Michigan created sand dunes. There were a number of cherry orchards, which should be gorgeous when the trees bloom!

There are also numerous lakes, many of them quite large. This is Loon Lake, in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Recreation Area, which was our first stop. I got a Golden Eagle passport, which allows me and everyone with me to enter Federal recreation sites free. It also gives a discount on camping, tours and other activities.








The visitor center is located in Empire, which is a quaint little town right on Lake Michigan. We had lunch at Joe's Friendly Tavern. Wiley had smelt, a local specialty, and I had a homemade vegetarian burger made with rolled oats, dried cherries, corn, red beans, onion, garlic and tomato. As Rachael Ray says: "Yummo!"

Empire was a bustling lumber town in the late 1800's. Lake Michigan made transporting the lumber easy. The town was named for the schooner "Empire," which was icebound in the area during a storm in 1865. The mill produced up to 20 million feet of lumber a year, but fire and the eventual depletion of the forests put it out of business in 1917. The beach and huge dunes were lovely, but it was cold, wet and windy, so we didn't linger!




Our stop in Traverse City was even more brief. We went there mostly to return a book on CD that we'd rented on our way up from Cracker Barrel. After we finished listening to it, we didn't pass another Cracker Barrel! Anyhow, we did stop at the Chamber of Commerce, which is on the Boardman River (it runs right through town). There's a river walk along its shores, and a statue called the "River Guardian."





Our final stop was the little town with the big entrance--Frankfort. It's the closest town to our campground, and it's where we'll shop and do our laundry. It was once a major port, but now is largely a tourist town. As soon as you crest the hill and pass under the arch, you get a great view of Lake Michigan.


Like Empire, Frankfort was once an industrial town. It had a large iron works (these are the ruins). There are two banks and a number of interesting shops. There are also a number of parks on Lake Michigan and Lake Betsie.





Frankfort will probably also be Wiley's favorite hangout. It's got a long breakwater with a lighthouse at the end, and fishing is supposed to be great there!






That's all for now, folks! Stay tuned for the next installment of our great adventure!

4/25/07 (Wednesday?): Wow--you know you're retired when you can't remember what day of the week it is!

We're at a KOA campground almost to Holland, Michigan, now. Yesterday, we left Ypsilanti and headed for the Sunnybrook RV factory near Elkhart, Indiana. We still had a few warranty issues we needed addressed and we wanted to take a tour of the factory.

Unfortunately, about half way there, we were stopped at a roadblock (just the second vehicle in the queue). There had been a fatal accident just ahead of us. The road was closed for about an hour. We took advantage of the time to go in the camper and have a little lunch. We were pulled over right beside a little pond with a pair of geese on it. I read for a while and Wiley perused his ever-present maps. It wasn't too bad, but we missed our appointment time. We called ahead and rescheduled for the next day, and we still made the factory tour. It was quite informative!

The process starts with the steel trailer and wheels that the body of the camper sits on. It's brought into the factory through a big door and turned upside down. (These pictures are dark because the lighting in the factory was poor, but I thought the process was so interesting that I'm posting them anyhow.)

The sides are assembled on large tables. The framework is all aluminum to keep the weight down.

The wires are run as soon as the framework is complete. Then all cabinets, appliances and the shower and commode are installed. The next step is insulation all around.



Side panels and end caps are assembled on the floor and then attached with glue and screws.

All components except appliances are made onsite from raw materials, but they're made and stocked in advance (in assembly line fashion). These are solid oak cabinet doors. They make about 6-12 RVs per day, and they do all the ones with the same options on the same day. So, for instance, our 5th wheel was made on the same day as those of others who had chosen the light oak cabinets and the tan color scheme.

The final step is the decals and gel coat.

We were surprised to learn that there's no final inspection. Supposedly, each work station completes an inspection before that component moves to the next work station. We're not particularly impressed with this system. Our slide leaked when we picked our RV up, and the set screws on the awning were not properly aligned, which caused it to retract crooked. Then we had a water leak at the fresh water inlet. All of this before we ever left Florida! The reason for our stop at the factory was that the hot water heater kept overheating and spraying steam and dripping hot water outside the camper. We also had some cosmetic issues (insulating foam showing over the slide and some other minor problems). Both the dealer and the factory seemed reluctant to address these issues. The dealer seemed to want us to go to the factory and the factory thought we should go to a service center.

All ended well, though, because I was pleasantly persistent. Unfortunately, it took most of the day today to get all the issues resolved. It was also very rainy and cold, so we didn't feel like touring the area. This part of Indiana has a large Amish population. There were horse and buggies everywhere and lots of Amish-related tourism. We did drive around a bit and we ate in an Amish restaurant that was quite good. We finally left at about 2 PM and arrived at this campground around 4 PM.

We stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Berrien Springs. I got to talking to the owner because I thought he had a Norwegian accent. He was actually from Iceland! He's married to a Mexican. It seems Berrien Springs has a large 7th Day Adventist population and a local college attracts students from around the world. The food was excellent--the owner makes everything from scratch. It's an interesting world, huh?!

That's it for tonight! Tomorrow we should arrive at Betsie River Campground. I'll blog again as soon as I can.

4/23/07 (Monday): I just found out I've got WiFi here at my son's house in Ypsilanti! Apparently one of the neighbors has it and there's no password. So I'll do a blog before we leave after all! Anyone who's not into family adventures probably won't enjoy this one too much, so feel free to sign off now. We've been at my son's since last Thursday, and will be leaving tomorrow morning for the final leg of our journey to Frankfort. More about that later.



So far, we've enjoyed a trip to the zoo,














played on the deck (bubbles and rock painting),













and played with chalk on the driveway.













Today I went to preschool with Anna. It made me want to be 4 years old again--songs and stories, playing on the playground and snacks--what could be nicer.








My granddaughters have grown up so much! This is Anna. She's 4 years old and will be 5 in September.











This is Margo. She's 2-1/2.












This is Claire. She's 9 months old.

That's the Michigan contingent of my family.

Have a good week. I'll blog again as soon as I can.

4/16/07 (Monday): The third great adventure has begun! We traveled from Maine to Babson Park, FL, and now we’re on our way to Michigan. We feel so fortunate to be having this life.

We almost got delayed leaving Wiley's parents' home because a baby mockingbird had left the nest and was sheltering in the driveway. He was so cute!

We spent Saturday and Sunday nights with our friends, Julie and John, in Ocala, FL. They have a lovely home. We enjoyed some wonderful homemade soup and then lounged around the pool. We took them to Applebees for dinner and then made it an early night. The weather was potentially very bad, so we decided to stay the second night. We sure appreciate your

hospitality, Julie and John!

We saw this baby bunny in Julie and John's back yard. We left about 8 AM this morning. It was cool and windy, but not too bad. We headed up U.S. 27, and it was a beautiful drive. There was

very little traffic and we enjoyed seeing the farmland and little towns along the way. We crossed the Ichnetucknee River and had some fond memories of inner tubing trips there with our Florida Trail Association friends. We also crossed the Santa Fe River and the Suwannee River and recalled several overnight canoe trips that we had enjoyed.

As we got into Georgia, Spring was not quite advanced as in Florida. The pecan groves had that new green flush, the corn was only ankle high, and the calves looked much younger than in Florida. Several farms had newly plowed fields and the newly turned clay made a bloody gash through the soft green trees.

We wound up just west of Macon in a small campground set in a pecan grove. We had a nice walk up a dirt road through the pecan grove. There were lots of deer tracks. Now Wiley is out metal detecting and I have dinner simmering on the stove while I watch the news. Tomorrow we’ll go through Warm Springs (where Franklin Roosevelt came to get treated for polio) and Pine Mountain. It should be a lovely ride. We won’t stop because we’ve been to both places before. We should make it to my son’s home by Thursday or Friday. We’ll camp at a KOA very close to his home. I’m looking forward to showing off the new camper. We’ve already done a lot of work on it, including adding hooks for coats and clothing, a nifty shoe storage system that I invented, and some other conveniences. It feels like home!

We miss everyone already! Stay in touch.

4/17/07 (Tuesday): Hello from Chattanooga, Tennessee! We had another pleasant day of driving. We left our campsite west of Macon, Georgia this morning around 8 AM. We took U.S. 27 most of the way. It was quite hilly (we Floridians would call them mountains, while Californians would call them hills). Traffic was light until we got near Tennessee, but we didn't have any problems. We stopped several times for snacks and gas. We ate deli sandwiches in the camper beside the highway. There was a nice view of a horse farm and small pond. Nice!

For those of you who didn't get a chance to take the "grand tour" of our new camper, here are some pics. We love our kitchen--it has a large pantry (to the right of the refrigerator (not visible in this picture), a double sink and plenty of solid oak cabinet space.

The bed is queen sized and lifts up on hydraulic jacks with storage underneath. We keep all our linens under there. There's a closet on each side, to which Wiley added shelves, because there's another closet for our hang-up clothes. The cabinets over the bed are a nice place for books.

The commode is in a little room of its own.


















The shower is in the bedroom, opposite the commode room. It's quite roomy! The vanity under the sink and the medicine cabinet are also solid oak.

There's a queen Hide-A-Bed couch in the living room and the dining table makes into a bed, too. There are lots of large windows and skylights, so it feels airy and light.

We feel very much at home in it now. We prefer it to hotels, even!

That's it for now, folks. I'll post again as soon as we get internet access (probably when we're in Michigan with Tom and his family).