Arriving Frankfurt Area

 8-24-2021 - Tuesday

We got a good start this morning, 9:20.  I fixed breakfast and we didn't have to dump, so that helped our timing.  We got off the road at 1:15, so just a 4 hour drive.

A pleasant, uneventful drive to Benzonia today, just southeast of Frankfurt.  Parts of bumpy highway, but otherwise it all went well for our 199-mile drive.  It was pretty warm when we got up this morning, and it reached a high of 88 here before a little rain storm blew in after we got parked for the day.  Some of the little towns we drove through were quite pretty, some had harbors, lakes, Grand Haven had a drawbridge that we crossed. 

drawbridge

 In Manistee, another pretty town on the water (Manistee Lake), we saw a huge ship, the SS City of Milwaukee, which is advertised as a "ghost ship," "a venue for thrilling and scary adventure."  

Another little town had really pretty flowers along the roadside, different than the towns with hanging baskets or big pots of flowers.

Our campground here, Vacation Trailer Park, is nothing exciting, very small spaces, but right on Highway 31.  It does have a pool but we were under a thunderstorm watch so we didn't walk over.  We drove into Frankfurt to check out a couple of beaches for rocks here -- Pointe Betsie Beach just north of Frankfurt, and Empire Beach in Empire. 

 It was raining when we left but slowed down to just a few drops by the time we got to the first beach.  There was another rockhounder on the beach, filling a bucket.  The beach looks very promising, lots of colorful rocks, several layers deep as well as in the water.  I gathered a few in my bag while Joe took pictures of the lighthouses here, one off a ways and the other right here beside the beach.

sandy beach even though there were rocks a the shoreline.

Lake Michigan looked very pretty with the evening clouds following the rain.

I looked hard for some pretty rocks.  I didn't find any Petoskey stones, though, but the other rockhounder said there were some small ones there.  I look forward to coming back here tomorrow, better prepared to spend some time.  This was just a pre-check tonight.

We left there to check out Empire Beach, which turned out to be further than we expected.  I guessed 30 miles, Joe thought it was at least 50, but we took a shortcut home and it was only 23 coming back that way.  But we hadn't gone through Frankfurt or followed the shoreline, so it was probably somewhere between 30 and 50.  There were good rocks there too, not as plentiful as Betsie Beach, and the beach ended in private property on both ends, so we may not come back here.  I did pick up a handful of pretty rocks but hadn't taken a bag with me, so my space was limited.  I will be satisfied with the first beach, and hope it is not a rainy day tomorrow.

Joe got a nice photo of the Jeep on the beach -- I was surprised to see that on the camera.

He also got a photo of this tower right at the beach, but we don't know what it was for.

as we left the beach, I snapped another picture of the sky and lake.

We stopped in the town of Empire for dinner at Joe's Friendly Tavern, then headed back on our shortcut way home.  We had seen 2 deer on our way to the beach, and we saw another 5 or 6 on the way back (one might have been a statue, it was in a yard).  We made it home before dark, and it had quit raining, so all was good.  I am excited about tomorrow -- hope to get at least one bucketful.

Benton Harbor

8-23-2021 - Monday

I forgot to post this picture yesterday of this great bear we saw looking down on us from a ridge right above the  highway, U.S. 12 in Union, Michigan.  It was quite a shock when I spotted it.

 

So this morning, after breakfast, we headed south toward Benton Harbor and St. Joseph.  We drove into some roadside parks along the way, and one actually had a paved ramp down to the beach, Rocky Gap County Park.  The other ones had cliffs of sand you had to walk down and clamor back up, so we didn't try any of them.  Apparently, rip tides and shore erosion are a problem along these sand-dune shores.  But Lake Michigan is beautiful, just like all the great lakes, and they all look like oceans -- without salt water or sharks.

 Anyway, I got to pick up a few rocks before we headed on into town.  I forgot my sand digger of all things, I left it in the Jeep, so it didn't take long for my back to tell me to quit.  I got doused by a wave right away, but I did get a little bag full and they look like they have potential to shine.

There was a lighthouse on down the shore, which we got a better look at from the St. Joseph beach.  And I wasn't the only rockhounder out here.

 St. Joseph is a nice, beachy town, beautiful beach, a street of shops on both sides, huge, beautiful houses overlooking the water.  It had a nice harbor too, with lots of yachts and a yacht club.

One of the streets by the water was bricks (cobblestone?) and it was very bumpy.  Later on, we saw a paved street with a pothole.  Under the pavement are the bricks.  These towns could use some infrastructure money.

I went to the Visitor Center to pick up a Michigan state map, and we both walked into the 5 & 10 next door (which was pretty pricey, not anything for a nickel or dime).  I ran across the street to a small book store, but we didn't spend any money.   This street was brick too, and very bumpy.  

We drove up and down lots of streets, over the harbor, across bridges.  We saw an old turnstile railroad bridge.  It was turned sideways but we don't know if it is still in use.

There were a lot of sculptures around town too.  We thought this one was noteworthy. As with most of these kinds of things, we are not sure what it represents.

Here is the downtown street full of shops, and it is one of those brick streets too.  I had told Joe earlier that I wanted to have lunch at Panera Bread today.  When he saw the restaurant on the corner, he couldn't believe I didn't change my mind.

On the way to Panera Bread, which was out toward the interstate, we saw this building with a classic car on top -- a very cool 55 Chevy.

After lunch, we tried to find the old Farmers Market, but where the GPS sent us was just a deserted park.  But we continued on to the Fruit Market, and we did find that.  It was mostly deserted but it did look like what Uncle Marlin would have brought watermelons to.  

Joe thought there was surely a downtown area of Benton Harbor, similar to St. Joseph, but we never did find it.  He took us through some questionable areas, where we were definitely the minority.  The whole town seemed to be going downhill, including the streets.  We finally gave up, and chased down the KOA that Tommy and Katie had stayed at last month.  We found it, then headed back to the camper. but on one of the country roads in that area, we found this hibiscus plant with the largest hibiscus blooms we had ever seen -- plate-size.

We got back to the RV and started looking for our next campground.   After several phone calls, we finally found a place to stay, up near Frankfurt.  I had found some rockhounding places in that area that I want to check out.  That's as far as we have planned at this time.  But I got out the rocks I had picked up today -- they seem to have some potential for polishing.  Of course, they were wet when I picked them up, and looked more colorful.  I also picked up a couple pieces of driftwood on the way up the ramp to the Jeep.

After a rest, we drove into South Haven for dinner.  Our first choice was Clementines, but there was an hour and 45 minute wait there, so we walked down another block to a bar.  They said a 20-minute wait there, but in about 10 minutes they seated us at the bar.  In the meantime, I walked into a shop next door.  I didn't buy anything but I found these cute driftwood houses -- if I ever get the right size pieces of driftwood, I thought I could make them.

The bar was loud and busy, but they were practicing social distancing.  They had one of their "social distancing" tables filed with some strange characters.

these were my favorites.

The streets in downtown South Haven were busy tonight, shoppers window shopping, and the restaurants had people outside waiting to get seated.  

There are sculptures decorating the streets in this town too.  I liked this one, and I could even tell what it was -- a hummingbird and a tulip.

We drove back to our campground and stopped by the beach parking lot again, but we still decided it was too far to walk.  But I caught the sunset between the trees.  The colors don't do it justice, but it was beautiful.

Tomorrow we move further north in Michigan, but still in the "thumb".  Hoping to collect more rocks.  the weather forecast is 50% chance of rain, so that might put a damper on that idea.

Leaving Indiana

8-22-2021 - Sunday

 I rousted Joe out of bed about 8:30 and we were first at the dump station at 9:00. Mosquitoes just swarmed Joe as he did his outside work. After a stop in town for breakfast at Maria's PancakeHouse (large parking lot), we were on our way to Michigan at 10:10. Joe went into the restroom before we left the restaurant and snapped this picture--lol.  I didn't check out the ladies room so I don't now if they were nicer to us or not.

Found another buffalo — in LaGrange. I know there was a buffalo at our campground in Kendallville when we stayed here before, but apparently he has gone missing.

Crossed Michigan state line at 10:55, so no more Indiana buffalo pictures.  We arrived at our campground between Benton Harbor and South Haven about 1:10, but check-in wasn't until 3:00.  The person at the campground station checked us in but said there was about 140 people leaving by 1:30, and there was a back-up at the dump station, which blocked the road.  So they were having people drive their campers down to one of their beach parking lots until 1:30, at which time they thought they could let everyone in.  By the time she got us checked in and all our charges/fees tacked on, it was almost 1:25.  The park ranger had come in so she asked him if she could let us in.  He asked us to wait 5 more minutes, then he thought we could get by, so we just pulled over the the parking lot right there and waited it out.  The dump station was just a few yards past the check-in gate, and there were 7 people lined up to dump.  It looked like they had 6 dump stations right there together, but they were so close together I doubt that more than 2 people could dump at once.  Anyway, we got to our spot just about 1:30, hooked up the electricity, and took a nap.  Neither of us have been sleeping very well, and we were both exhausted (too many late night Mexican train games).  We only drove 143 miles today, but I don't think either of us had many more miles left in us.  We were glad to see that our site is not grassy - we think that's why that last campground had so many mosquitos and gnats, which we fought the whole time we were there, especially the gnats.  We had little bowls of apple cider vinegar/sugar/dawn in the bathroom and the kitchen, and still kept getting more gnats every day.

Anyway, after our little rest, we drove into South Haven.  It's a pretty, beachy town, lots of shops, nice beach and boat harbor.  We crossed this bridge with bright red flowers in planter boxes along the sides, which were very pretty.

 ,   

We failed to notice this was a drawbridge.  It's a wonder we didn't end up falling through it when they raised it, although I'm pretty sure there are barriers that come out (if we noticed them).  We made several loops through town looking for a place to eat dinner, and saw the bridge was up the next time through.  Ah Ha.  We did get lucky on that one.

coming down

That little inlet goes right down to the beach and out into Lake Michigan, which was pretty rough.  But the beach looked nice.

beach

There were lots and lots of boats in the harbor, and that inlet goes quite a ways into town and on out of town.  We drove in and out of a couple parking lots to see the water and boats. Some of the boats in the marina were HUGE.

As we drove around town, there were lots of yard decorations and flowers, but I spotted this really cool bicycle planter that I thought Mazie should have.  I think it needs to be some color other than white so it would show up better.

Another interesting site was this building with flowers in boxes on both sides of the entry way.  Very pretty and eye-catching.

There are lots of food places in town, but a lot of them were just snack shops, ice cream shops, etc., and some were closed -- maybe because it is Sunday, but we don't know.  We actually had a hard time finding something open, other than fast food or pizza.  we settled on a Mexican restaurant, which was very good.  They had a nice waiting bench at the front.

We finally headed back to our state park and drove up and down through the roads in the campground.  It was nice enough to sit outside, and the bugs didn't seem to be bothering us, so we got to enjoy the smell of campfires in our 75 degree weather.  I took my computer outside to the picnic table and started working on this blog outside, so Joe got up out of our chairs he had gotten out, and took a couple pictures.

I think the point of this next picture is that obviously I had disturbed him and he had to vacate his chair.

Our weather forecast is a low of 64 tonight (sounds wonderful) and a high of 84 tomorrow with a 50 percent chance of thunderstorms both Tuesday and Wednesday.  We are going to explore Benton Harbor tomorrow.  This is a town we heard a lot about when Joe's brother and uncles and cousins were trucking produce back in the day.  Benton Harbor was one of their main destinations, and I think his Uncle Marlin was a melon broker there for several years.  Katie and Tommy had spent a few days here last month on vacation, so it seemed like a place we should check out.  Then we will move on north, we don't now how far.

Last Day in Ft. Wayne

 8-21-2021 - Saturday

Another warm day here, predicted high of 88 degrees.  The campground filled up yesterday, I doubt there is one site left.  As we left the campground today, we saw there were events going on next door at the athletic field, so I would guess some of the campers are in town for baseball games or something.

As we turned onto the highway leading into town, an Amish family came by in a horse and buggy. This is the only one we've seen in this area this time.  But we did go into a restaurant that had Amish bread and noodles.  Unfortunately, the restaurant had already quit serving breakfast (it was after 11:00), so Joe paid for his coffee and we went back to the one we had been using.  

Joe wanted to see where the interstate was from Kendallville, so we drove over to I-69 and went to Ft. Wayne that route.  We stopped at Costco on the way to Dixie's - they don't have near the selection of items here that we are accustomed to in Arizona.  We got to Dixie's about 1:30, Lori was there too.  After we visited for a while, we started another game of Mexican Train.  Jim even played this time, so we had a table full.  Again, I forgot to take a picture, but Lori took one with her phone.

After our game, we went out for dinner, then came back and played part of a game -- until 10:00.  This time I remembered to take a picture.  Jim thought he needed to let his dinner digest, so he opted out of this round.

We said our goodbyes and left a little after 10:00.  This is our last time to make the 30-mile drive from Kendallville back to Dixie's but we had a great visit, saw several family members, and had a really good time.  We are hoping the next time we see Jim and Dixie, it will be in Arizona this winter.

Joe keeps sleeping in later and later, which makes for a short morning.  I figured out today that we just need to head to different time zone so his internal clock readjusts.  We don't change time zones until we get though Michigan to Wisconsin, but at least I see hope ahead.