Vacation, 2013

I know that this is kind of like breaking out the vacation pictures and forcing everyone to look at them but our just-completed trip was a hoot and I want to tell you about it.

For the past several years, we have gone to Colorado to escape the summer heat but, for several reasons, we decided this year to go to Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  The National Forest Service in Colorado has gotten "stinky" about camping in their campgrounds, to the point of making us decide to go somewhere else.

When we started talking about the U.P, our friends, Mary and Luther, indicated that they would like to go with us.  We decided to leave on July 17.  We got the motorhomes ready and prepared for the trip.  Our first stop was to be Wallace State Park in Missouri and that was the "kickoff" of our trip.

Our next stop was Clear Lake, Iowa.  For "rock and roll" fans, you know that this was the site of Buddy Holly's last concert before his death in a plane crash.  He, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson ("The Big Bopper", were killed when their plane left Clear Lake.  A side note is that Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup who were also members of the band but were not on the plane that crashed.  Many years later, we had the pleasure of meeting Tommy Allsup in Mannford; he was a friend of a good friend of ours, Faye Carroll.  We also toured the Winnebago factory in Forest City, Iowa, and got to watch Winnebago motorhomes being made.

Our next stop was Minneapolis where we went to the largest shopping mall in the United States, Mall of America.  Luther and I weren't thrilled with it but Mary and Louise were.  We also paid a visit to the nearby IKEA store which is amazing.

The next stop was Duluth, Minnesota.  Although I had been there on business several times, I had never been impressed with the city.  Being on vacation was different, however.  We found a campground right on the water.  In fact, our motor home was backed up right to the water on the pier.

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing the parade of "tall ships" come through Duluth.  We were close enough to walk from our campground to the channel to see them.  These are mostly replicas of the sailing ships of the 1700's and 1800's.

From Duluth, we went to Grand Marais, Minnesota for a couple of days where we camped in wilderness area.  We took a side trip while there to Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Then we were off to Copper Harbor, Michigan, a peninsula in northern Michigan.  We spent four days there and the scenery was beautiful.

From Copper Harbor, we went to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan for three days.  A highlight of our visit there was a boat tour through the Soo Locks and back through the Canadian side.  Once again, we were parked in an RV park right on the water.

After leaving the Soo, we went to St. Ignace, Michigan.  St. Ignace is a tourist town on the north end of the Mackinac Bridge and is a ferry ride away from Mackinac Island.  Mackinac Island is a famous tourist spot and is known for its lack of gasoline powered vehicles.  Everything on the island is "horse driven".  By the way, "Mackinac" is pronounced "Mackinaw" - I don't know why, it just is.

After we left St. Ignace, we spent a couple of days getting to Elkhart, Indiana.  Luther and Mary's motor home was made in Elkhart and we took a tour of their factory.  We also had some good Amish food to eat there!

After a couple more leisurely days of driving through Illinois and Missouri, we got back home on August 16. All in all, it was a fantastic vacation.  I must admit that Luther and I both did some minor body damage to our motor homes but all that can be fixed!

OK, I promise you I won't do any more of these vacation rambles until the next trip!

The Vacation from Hell

Did you ever have one of those vacations where everything seemed to go wrong?  Louise and I, and our granddaughter, Gabby, just returned from Colorado two weeks early because nothing about our trip was going as it should.

Our first sign was a lack of water.  For years, we have taken our RV up there empty and filled the water tank at White Star Campground near Twin Lakes, a small town near where we camp.  When we got there this year, we discovered that the US Forest Service had cut the bibs off the hydrants so no hoses could be attached!  Apparently, this is the way our government insures that they are in compliance with anti-siphon faucet regulations.  Instead of installing anti-siphon faucets, just whack the old ones up where they can't be used!

When we got to our campsite, we discovered that no one else was there except for the host.  This was on July 2, two days before the biggest summer holiday of the year and no one was there!  I occasionally like a little solitude but this was just plain eerie!  At any rate, we decided to stay for a week and there were a few campers who came and went during that period.  I should point out that the Forest Service changed their rules: you can now stay in their campgrounds only 14 days out of every thirty!  We don't understand this new rule; its certainly not because the campgrounds are so crowded with campers.

After a week in the Forest Service campground, we decided to move to a commercial RV park.  Gabby was a bit unhappy because there was no one to play with and we also needed to be able to hook up to water and sewer.  Our friends Tom and Alice were coming up and were going to stay at the KOA in Buena Vista so we got a spot there as well and paid for eight nights.

The first couple of days in the KOA were not too bad but then our dog, Buddy, got sick.  I don't know what was wrong with him, but he really was lethargic.  We were going to find a vet for him but he managed to recover on his own.

About this time, I needed to receive and send a fax in order to change over some insurance so I sent Gabby to the office to obtain the fax number.  "Fax Services" was one of the items listed on the RV Park's brochure.  She came back in a few minutes and said that the owner wouldn't give her the number, that I had to come up there!  Well, to give you the short story, my "Okie" temper kicked in and the owners wound up suggesting that we should leave the Park.  We decided to stay there just to spite them.

While Louise and I were contemplating what we should do next, Gabby was out riding her bicycle.  She slid coming down a steep hill, lost control, and slid on the gravel.  She had a pretty serious case of "road rash" on her knees, legs and arms.  Louise got her "doctored up" but she was pretty sore.

After the bicycle wreck, the three of us sat down and decided to come on back home, even though we had planned to stay a couple of weeks longer!  The trip home was uneventful and we sure are glad to be home.

As an epilogue, I should tell you that I decided to post a negative review about the Buena Vista KOA on tripadvisor.com.  When I logged on there, I discovered that there was already a long list of negative reviews about the owners of this place!  The moral of the story, of course, is to check the reviews before you go, not after!

At any rate, we survived and the next one will be better.