Life Away from the 172

Our Vacation April 21st to April 24th, 2021

Our trip around Lake Michigan and the detours we took:

This year for our anniversary we decided to do a Circle Tour around Lake Michigan. If you know us, that entails a few other things along the way. As well as avoiding major highways as much as possible. We slept in the Prius every night. The good thing about the Prius is that you can leave it running all night. It is like a giant generator that runs off the battery until it gets too low then the gas engine kicks in and charges it back up and shuts back off. Which is great. What about gas, you are wondering, we used about a half a gallon a night. It was cold outside, but we were warm. Here is some of our adventures away from the 172.

Here is a map of our trip. (All of the red spots may not be from the trip, but most are.) Total trip 1374.2 miles in 4 days.

Getting Ready:

Before the trip could begin, we had to get the Prius ready. Eric cut the coroplast (white corrugated plastic sheets) for the windows. Then I put black fabric and Reflectixs insulation on the outside of them. Not sure what we want to put on the inside yet.

We also ordered a portable pop-up pod. 

Eric made a board that fits between the back of the front seats and the top of the back seats when they are laying down to keep our heads level with the rest of our bodies. A blanket was used at the hatch end of the Prius to level that out. Next was our sleeping bag then our pillows and blankets.  We took freeze-dried to food to save on room and 2 three-gallon carboys of water. Then we were off.

April 21, 2021

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And away we go.

First stop being Costco in Bellevue WI for gas and a quick look at their Costco. Next, we went to Kingsley North in Norway, MI, a great place to get lapidary supplies and rocks. https://kingsleynorth.com.

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We bought several different kinds of raw rock there. That include Red Tiger’s Eye (I cannot wait to see it polished), some Quartz Points, Fluorite for slabbing and also some for tumbling, a chunk of Biggs Jasper for slabbing, some Crazy Lace Agate and Carnelian Agate to tumble, and a nice piece of Sodalite for slicing and making cabochons. Eric also got him a Convoy C-8 365nm long wave UV LED he has been wanting. It is a real hand warmer. 

Do Not look at the light! Do Not shine it on your skin !!

Hiawatha Forest

From there we went up to the Hiawatha Forest in the UP of Michigan (which we do not understand, it should belong to Wisco, it is attached to us not them), https://www.fs.usda.gov/hiawatha

and to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

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It is beautiful (going to plan another trip there in the future). https://www.nps.gov/piro/index.htm. On the way to Pictured Rocks we saw a waterfall by the road in Munising, it was so cool.

Side note: We time warped somewhere along the way.

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At Picture Rock National Lakeshore we saw this…

 It was getting late in the day, so we went back to the Hiawatha Forest to find a place to park for the night.

The first place we looked at it looked as if someone had a set up there, so we went to another place. We parked on a side road looking thing and I turned the Prius into a camper while Eric made dinner. 

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April 22^nd (April Twenty-Tooth) our Anniversary number 7, we have been hanging for 16 years though. YAY!!

When we woke up it was 26 degrees, but it was nice and warm in the Prius. Yes, there was still snow.

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After breakfast and turning camper Prius back into a car Prius, we drove around the Hiawatha National Forest. What a beautiful place. The forest had a lot of bumpy areas in it. It looked like it was from heavy machinery doing logging, but not sure. We saw a cool weird bird. It blended in with the gravel. 

Pictured Rock National Lakeshore

Then it was off to Pictured Rock National Lakeshore again, but in true Eric and Margaret fashion, we had to see stuff on the way. We stopped at Wagner Falls just before Munising. It was a beautiful walk back to the Falls and the sounds were amazing, between the birds and the water. Then we crossed the road to check out the railroad trestle. It was cool.

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Next stop, Picture Rocks National Lakeshore. We went to Miners Castle, it used to have an arch, but not anymore. It is still amazing. 

From there we went to Miners Beach for a walk along the beach and to search for rocks. Not many rocks there, but there were some weird bugs. It is a great looking beach (bet it is crowded in the summer). There was a cool tree washed up on shore with some nice ice on it. So in true Eric and Margaret style, we checked it out. I thought it was kind of cool the way the bird walked around the driftwood. 

After that we headed for Miners Falls. On the way we stopped at the Sea Lamprey Barriers. What is a Sea Lamprey… https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/sea-lamprey.html

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Finally at Miner’s Fall’s, which are very cool and the were some gnarly trees as well.

Tahquamenon Falls

Onward to Tahquamenon Falls (Owen told us about this place). 

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https://www.michigan.org/property/tahquamenon-falls-state-park. There are 94 stairs down to the falls, (94 back up), but it was well worth it. We even saw a beaver sunning itself on the rocks. 

It was another 116 stairs down to the gorge. Pretty cool down there. Well worth the climb back up. They even have a brew pub on site, not technically part of the park and not open when we were there.

Back on the Lake Michigan Circle Tour

Back on the Lake Michigan Circle Tour and the scariest part of the whole trip, Mackinac Bridge, a 5-mile-long bridge that connects the UP to the mitten of Michigan.

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https://www.mackinacbridge.org/.  I was petrified at first with knots in my stomach. Once we got on the bridge though all that changed. It was so cool, I loved it. We drove 45 miles an hour and the diesels drove 25 miles per hour.  Eric would not drive back over it, I wanted to go back and forth, he wanted to find a place to stay. So we did that instead.

A Place to Park for the Night

We were not sure where we were going to stay, but Eric looked on Google and saw we were not far from Michigan’s Dark Sky Park (we have wanted to go there for years). https://www.midarkskypark.org/.    So that is where we went. It said no camping, but you could park overnight, so we did. Prius camping is the best. We walked down by the lakeshore and got to see a volunteer give a talk about the stars, planets, and the Lyrids meteor shower. We did not get to see it because it was not until 3:00 in the morning and it was cold. 

April 23rd, Back on the Road

April 23^rd, we drove through Dark Sky Park and then headed on down the road. We went to Wilderness State Park.

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Drove through the Tunnel of trees, stopped at a road side park for a snack.

There was a peace sign cut in a field in Bliss. Stopped at Petoskey State Park https://www.michigan.org/property/petoskey-state-park. Took a detour to Traverse City to Costco for gas. Saw cherry orchards on the 45^th parallel, which is the same parallel our cherry trees are on. This was just kind of a day of driving and sightseeing.

Off to Sleeping Bear Dunes,  https://www.nps.gov/slbe/index.htm, where we climbed the dune all the way to the top. It was great. The wind was fierce, and I thought I was going to lose my phone. Getting down was fun too. 

A Night in a Meijer’s Parking Lot

That night we slept in a Meijer parking lot. No one bothered us. 

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April 24th, a Stop at Keith’s then Home

April 24^th, heading to Keith’s today and then home. Stopped at Costco for gas and to meet Keith and Ella . Then we headed over to check out Keith’s apartment, hung out for a while, then we all went to South Haven Beach and walked around. It was a little chilly but enjoyable. 

Eric and I then headed home. 

Time warped again.

Badness in the Making

We decided to pull off the highway and get some chicken but instead we got hit. 1040 miles of perfectness and when we are less than 300 miles from home we get hit.

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I was livid. Eric said, let us turn around because we did not see any place to get food and as he was turning, he yelled and turned quickly (I thought the car coming towards us was far away) then I felt the hit. The guy that hit us stopped and Eric called the police. Said guy admitted to the police that he was going too fast, following too closely, and not paying attention. We went and got duct tape and continued home. It was pull cheese (string cheese) and chocolate. Chicago traffic was horrid and I thought I was going to rip our book in half Owen gave us to track our adventures. Eric said,” imagine how your steering wheel felt”. We finally made it home safe, thank the good Lord.

Things we learned…

We need a rack and a Spock coffin (car topper).

Eat what you have in your car on the way home.

We would like to start spending more time in one place and do less time driving.

And as always remember…

Nice matters.

 And in a world you can be anything, be kind.