2018 Summer RV Trip – Days 12 & 13 – Sleeping Bear Dunes & Pegtown

Today was primarily devoted to checking out the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Seashore but the first order of business was breakfast along the way at PegTown Station  located in small, unincorporated Maple City, MI.  It has a population of 207 and per Wikipedia – “Maple City had its beginnings in 1866 when William Parks and J. T. Sturtevant built a shoe peg factory on land containing several hundred acres of maple timber, and the community that grew up around it was at first known as "Peg Town."  

The restaurant was pretty full the entire time we were there and when I asked the server what brought people to Maple City she answered “We do, our food is fantastic” meaning the restaurant.  Bev and Pat both ordered the breakfast sandwich and I ordered the corned beef hash plus we shared a very good cinnamon bun to start.

2018 Summer RV Trip – Days 10 & 11 – Checking The Area & Suttons Bay

On Monday, we decided to drive around the upper part of Leelanau Peninsula but before we left, six year old Sophia from next door knocked on the door to ask if Teddy Bear could come out and play – I thought that was so cute.

Today’s trip was to just get a feel for the area and see where we might want to re-visit, especially for the shoppers.  We went up the west side of the peninsula and passed through the towns of Lake Leelaneau, Leland, and North Port before stopping at The Leelenau State Park.  The park is located at the very top of the peninsula and is the site of a light house constructed in 1858.

2018 Summer RV Trip – Days 8 & 9 – Farmers Market and Moving Day

We awoke to a beautiful Saturday morning and after breakfast, we made the 15 minute drive into downtown Muskeegon, where I dropped the girls off at the farmers market, which looked to be really bustling.  I didn’t take any shots but here are some from the web that Bev advises were accurate except she said it was so crowded it was hard to move around.

2018 Summer RV Trip – Days 6&7 – Muskegon Area

On our first full day in the Muskegon area, we drove north to check out the Silver Lake Dunes, a couple of wineries, and have lunch.  Silver Dunes State Park, which is popular with off-roaders and tourists taking mutli- passenger dune tours, lies between Silver Lake and Lake Michigan.  

2018 Summer RV Trip – Day 5 – Muskegon

The guys showed up at 8am to look at our coach water leak and couldn’t find anything obvious but fixed several possibilities so I’m hopeful all is good.  After they finished we headed north on IN-13, US-131, MI-89, MI-40, and US-31 and while none of the roads were great none were really bad either.  Most were paved-over concrete roads with joint cracks in the asphalt that were readily felt by the high pressure RV tires.  Traffic was moderate until we got on US-31 which is obviously a main artery along Michigan’s west coast.

We pulled into Duck Creek RV Resort mid afternoon, got set up, relaxed and decided to order pizza delivery for supper.  Based upon Bev’s research, she chose Bernie O’s in north Muskegon and we ordered a 10” Twist and a 16” Mack the Stack.

2018 Summer RV Trip – Days 3 & 4 – Shipshewana, IN

I was prepared for 90+ degree weather here but a cold front moved through and the highs were around 80F, which I much preferred.  Since this stop was primarily for my girls to hit the shopping trail, we began the day with them heading for a few places within walking distance.

It is obvious that all of the RV factories and large Amish community bring in lots of tourists, like us, and there are many places to drop your cash and so we went to one for lunch – the Blue Gate Restaurant and Bakery  In addition to the restaurant, there is a bakery, a theater, and buggy rides from this location.  The restaurant offers three dining options – buffet, family style, and order from the menu and we chose buffet.  As they are the primary place to eat in town, they are pretty busy most of the time but this day wasn’t too bad.

2018 Summer RV Trip – Days 1 & 2 – Roads and Campgrounds

We’re finally back on the road with a plan of getting somewhere to beat the summer heat at home so we headed north to the coastal areas of Michigan and Wisconsin with other stops along the way.

We started out on Sunday morning, leaving Cindy in charge of the home place and drove north on I-75 to our first night’s stop near Cincinnati, OH.  During previous travels, I’ve often commented about the good roads in Tennessee but I couldn’t say this about the stretch of road north of Knoxville.  Once we got into Kentucky, the road surface improved quite a bit and stayed that way until north of Lexington where it was mostly good with a few rough patches.  We also experienced very heavy traffic (lots of semis) between Clinton, TN and the top of Jellico Mountain and we ran for many miles at about 30 mph.

We pulled into Indian Springs Campground near I-275 west of Cincinnati about 3:30 and were assigned site 12 which was a pull thru that was long enough to leave the car attached.