August 30,Sunday, Today we leave St.Ingrace, a beautiful waterfront town. Crossing the bridge with the airstream...Hurray the rain and Wind has stopped!! Easy drive over the bridge and down the west coast on Rt 22 of Michigan looking for LightHouses. We head for Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. We arrive about 3-4 pm and check in at DH Day Campground, we get the last site that has electric, there is plenty of other sites though. We stay here for $6.00(Golden Access Card) & $5.00/electric fee, we have a nice shaded sight. After setting up we went for a drive on Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive thru the dunes with 10 stopping places along the way. At stop #9 there is a breath taking view of the sand dunes 450 feet above the lake. At the top there is a sign telling you to be careful of the steep incline down to the lake. Many kids are sitting on the side of hill watching the lake water. Wow..what a View and place to take pictures. We are told come back at sunset..8:30 pm to see it. So we go back to camp for supper and relax. At 7:30 we drive back...WOW...The sunset is about 1/2 hour to drop and the sky is red already, many have tripods and cameras ready for that great shot. This was the BEST SUNSET we saw all summer..click..click.. By 8:45 it is dark...zzzzzz

August 29,Saturday, We wake up to a wet,raining day that will be with us all day. We drive over to Mackinaw City. The ride over the bridge was scary with the wind blowin' warnings were flashing for motorists to drive 20 mph. The bridge has a open steel grate in the passing lane all the way over the bridge, the outside lane was blacktop. On windy days the wind comes up thru the steel grate and I did feel the push!! We get to the otherside to Mackinaw City and drive downtown. There is a Corvette Car Show this weekend..expecting 700 or more. However I only saw about 50 arrive in town. The rain has kept many away, the rain was all weekend and did reduce the attendance. There was to be parade too but was cancelled. We drove over to the Light House and walked around the grounds and waterfront..yes we got wet. We then drove around to keep warm and dry. We then stopped at a local resturant "Darrows" there was a waiting line. After eating here I can see why!!! I had White Fish Basket, it came with 8 BIG Strips of fish and Real Mashed Potatoes & Salad, Carol had Roast Beef Dinner and needed a take-out box to eat the rest later. Yum..Yum!!
God Bless..AirstreamHobo & Carol

August 28,Friday, We drive around St.Ingrace today and see the shoreline, the water in the lake has white caps as it hits the shore. I did stop at the library to download the blog, and they have fast wi-fi so I download the pictures I have waiting. We then drive up to "Castle Rock" They have Paul Bunyun and the Blue Ox on display at teh base of the steps. You can walk-up 142 steps to the top of the castle rock to see all over the lake and waterfront. We then leave and see a sign for "Pastries", we pull into Bessie's Red Resturant to try them. It is a Dough bread filled with Beef,potatoes,onions,carrots then wrapped over and baked. When you get it it comes with a pot of gravy too. It was a good local pastrie to eat here, with the place filling up with patrons.

God Bless AirstreamHobo & Carol

Here we Go!! To Mackinac Island by Hydro-Jet Boat.....

August 27, Thursday, Today we drive over to the ferry crossing and used our free tickets for the crossing(We still don't believe the generosity of these Michigan People!!). The Ferry ride is on a Hydro-jet boat..what a fast trip..20 minutes and we arrive. Wow..what is that Smell??? Guess what ...The Horse liquid on the street is TERRIBLE!!! They do clean up the Road Apples but not the rest (YUCK !!!).

Main street is full of shops..mostly Fudge Shops..I heard 17 shops... Lots of specials on Fudge. We headed for the Horse Surrey guided tours of the island, we signed up for the tour and the ButterFly House too. We had the 1:45 tour, started with a downtown tour ...up to the Grand Hotel..passed it.. then pass the horse stables...to the ButterFly house...we spent about 45 minutes there. Then onto another tour thru the Mackinac State Park on the Island..Dave was our guide..one cool guy.. Next stop was the Stone Arch along the coast then back to the gift shop for a switch to the return surrey to down town. We passed the Grand Hotel, some got off for a look, we continued on. It was $10.00 admission to sit on the front porch of the Grand Hotel...I can sit under my awning for Free!!! The surrey tour lasted till 5pm,then we then headed for a pizza/salad buffet at the Murray Hotel on Main St. Then we walked around the shops and caught the 7pm ferry back to the mainland. Back to camp,Had a Great Day!!! ZZzzzz
Here is the Album..Mackinac http://picasaweb.google.com/AirstreamHobo/MackinacMichigan#
God Bless AirstreamHobo & Carol

Seul Choix Point Lighthouse......Read on....

August 26, Wednesday, We got going by 9 am today..Weather is sunny about 70* and a great day for travel. Down the road we saw a billboard for a Historic Light House..Seul Choix Point Lighthouse. We turned down the side road for 8 miles back to the waterfront. We took the $3.00 tour and saw the residence fo lighthouse keepers and walked up 96 steps to the light. While in the tower I talked to some other tourists there. In talking they told us how to get to Mackinac Bridge area. We talked about going to the Island also. They said them were not going there but had tickets for the Ferry crossing. WOW...They gave us 2 round trip tickets for the ferry, value of $50.00 how's that for friendly people in Michigan. We parted and kept saying Thank-You...and then waved good-bye to them as they drove off... What Nice People!!!

We left and drove another 60 miles and arrived in St. Ignace at Straits State Park. We got a space near the waterfront area in the second row, there are sites up on the hill away from the lake too. We paid for 4 nights to stay and see the area. We needed groceries so off to town we go to restock. Today was about 150 miles and we are now enjoying a campfire beside the airstream. I did get some night shots of the Mackinac Bridge from the shore line. We did not cross the bridge yet as we are on the north side for now. God Bless..AirstreamHobo & Carol

Everyone in "Yooper Land" Has a Car Snowplow!!!

August 25, Tuesday. We woke up to rain drizzle, but decided to leave anyways at 10 am for Mackinac City. We drove down highway 41 then down to the south coast of the UP on Rt 2 we drove all along the coast towns with Lake Michigan on the right side of highway. We stopped at a "Yooper" Tourist Trap Gift shop. Very interesting collection of odd vehicles made into some fun contraptions. I ask what is a Yooper? Answer is the upper peninsula people are nicknamed "Yoopers" and the south of the UP people are called Flat Landers!!! It finally stopped raining so the drive became a nice afternoon.

Around 4 pm we stopped for the night at Whispering RV Park. A nice level sites and full hook-ups with cable and wi-fi too. But the wi-fi would would recieve e-mails but would not let me e-mail out!!! I did download my Blog and 2 photo albums, I hope you saw them even though I didn't tell you to look. God Bless...AirstreamHobo & Carol

Camper on fire in the campground...read on....

August 22, Saturday, Continued, We went form a drive to Houghton. We saw the Quincy Mine Shaft Historical Site. We decided to stop and take the tour.This was a 2 hour tour in the building where they had a steam engine ...Big Ball Pulley... operate the mine cables to pull up the copper filled cars(7 tons) to the top of the mine and drop it into the mining buildings for mining the copper. There were 92 levels to the mine in it's hay day. Now there are only 7 floors down, the rest are filled with water. We then loaded onto a cog car for a descent down the mountain to the seventh level on the outside. We then loaded onto a outdoor wagon with bench seats pulled by a small John Deere tractor into the mine at one level into the shaft 2,000 feet, wet,damp,and dreary. We had hard hats and Carhart jackets on, it was 43* down here. I don't know how miners can do this everyday for a 10 hour shift. When working the mines are full of rock dust all the time. We then heard stories of how they worked here and the tools they used.( I will stay above ground to work!!!) We walked around a little then back up the cog railroad up the mountain. We saw interesting antique mining equipment all around the fields just rusting away.

We then drove around seeing the sights in Houghton, there was a RV park along the river, I stopped and she said they have been full all summer. Back to camp...zzzzzzz

August 23, we wanted to drive around today too but the Van just went grr..grr..grr..Battery Dead!! Being sunday, I said lets wait till monday when something is open to fix the van. we just hung around the camp and watched the waves on the shore then later tonight we watched the beautiful sunset!!! We collected rocks too just like "Lucy" in "The Long Long trailer" movie.

August 24,Monday..load up laundry and grr..grr.grr again, a neighbor camper helped jump start the van..Nope it didn't start. So I called CoachNet RV Airstream Road Service from the camp office..cell doesn't work here. They said someone will be there 45-60 minutes. 45 minutes later a tow truck showed up, he hooked up the van for the garage trip. On the way his fire pager went off..Camper fire in McLain Park, my ears perked up!!! They said site #12 I was in #33..relief. The scanner said fully involved camper and car. As soon as the tow truck dropped me, he got a call from 911 to respond to pick up the camper.

Off he goes, I am here to fix the van I hope. The man "Dave" checks out the battery and finds it ok, just wondering is there a second battery? YES there was..that was the one that was dead..guess what? It is under the floor at the back wheels in a box strapped up to the floor. The other man "Rodney" stuggles to retrieve the battery..got it...yes this is the one DEAD!! They order one and it is here in 10 minutes. Rodney installs it shortly and the Van starts!!! Yeah!! Problem fixed..

The tow truck man returns with the motorhome on tow truck rollback...sad..sad..completely burned out. The people were out walking and their 2 dogs were left inside and perished in the fire...sad..sad!! Carol was there at camp when the firemen arrived and grabbed the camera to take pictures from a distance, she got some pretty good shots too!! I am glad I trained her to take good shots these past 2 months...Great Job Carol!!! I made copies of the shots and gave them to the people. They also lost the car which was parked behind the motorhome.

Well we started to do laundry this am and we made it to the laundry by 5pm..not bad?? We will be leaving in the am for Mackinaw City on tuesday...Just follow along!!! Pictures are posted ...http://picasaweb.google.com/AirstreamHobo/UpperPeninsulaMichigan# 2http://picasaweb.google.com/AirstreamHobo/Rt20NebraskaIowaIntoWisconsinMichigan# new albums posted today

God Bless...AirstreamHobo & Carol