Starting to plan my August circling of Lake Michigan. With sweet Henry Boy, of course. He’s (kinda) patiently waiting. Well he’s waiting.
I need to get Ecovision dewinterized and checked over soon. I plan to head west to the lake around August 1st and to be circling about 2 weeks. Happiness :)
It has been a blur since I got back from North Carolina and Virginia. I think my first trip with Ecovision is going to be mid-June and not more than 20 miles from here. A new friend (thanks to Kathe for introducing us) who is considering solo RVing has invited Henry and me to camp on her property for the weekend. She has power I can hook up to and I understand she has glorious gardens. She can check out my RV and learn what it takes to manage one on your own, and I can enjoy a few days in Ecovision with my sweet Henry Boy in tow. We’re both very excited. I hope she likes Scrabble or gin rummy, which I find good on the road with new and old friends.
Meantime I’m teaching “Understanding the Great Lakes” followed by “Islands of the Great Lakes”. They each meet once a week for four weeks and the students who take these classes love the lakes and islands as much as I do so it’s deeply meaningful all the way around.
I’m also going to take an advanced class in digital landscape photography starting this Wednesday night. It’s six Wednesday evenings plus 2 all-day Saturday field trips. This is my final class in the series I put together with Bryce Denison of Midwest Photography Workshops. I created my own certificate program and it’s been a wonderful and challenging experience.
I’m always taking a class or learning something new, and now I’m teaching in LifeLong Education with people with a love of learning just like me. It is marvelous.
Henry’s just glad to have me back home with a knee to rest his head on each evening. Life is good.
Funny but on this trip every day seems so long. Not in a bad way, but it feels noticeably different. It’s nearly 10 p.m. and I feel like I left Copper Harbor a couple of days ago rather than just 12 hours ago.
It was a gorgeous morning and I woke at 8. My cold seemed much better. I determined to leave earlier than 10 so I left Henry half awake to take my shower first rather than care for him right away. That meant I got in the shower before it got busy.
Campgound showers often are in short supply. One campground I stayed at this trip–Wandering Wheels in Munising–had only two showers for all the women! There was a line up of frustrated women each day. I won’t go there again. State parks in Michigan tend to have more showers and they are clean. Overall, I have found private campgrounds to vary from pretty awful to pretty marvelous. They often have more amenities that I’m not interested in like pools, cable tv, and shuffleboard, but usually lack the more natural setting of public campgrounds.
I did take the time to walk Henry down to the lake. He remains fascinated yet those precious feet of his still have not touched the water. Lake Fanny Hooe was calm and lovely. Campers were ready to go fishing.
Last look at Lake Fanny Hooe
Here’s my co-pilot right after I put on his safety harness and hooked him into the seat belt. He knows the drill. Cute, eh? We were on the road by 9:30.
My co-pilot Henry Boy on duty
One of the campers–who has been coming to Fort Wilkins for 18 years–told me about a monastery and its jam store on the M-26 shoreline road to Eagle Harbor and Eagle River (click here for a write up on Hunt’s guide about this drive). She raved about the monks’ baked goods and preserves. I am so glad she told me because not only did I eventually get to the monastery and store, but came upon the marvelous town of Eagle Harbor.
Eagle Harbor, Michigan
What a gem, and I will go back. It felt happy and friendly, and the women volunteers I met at the lighthouse were just that.
I’m not that interested in lighthouses, but I did go to the one here. It’s a very narrow and steep entry for a motorhome and I was glad mine is small and nimble. The reward was seeing a saltie (an ocean-going ship) and a laker (a ship that stays in the Great Lakes) going by at the same time. While I realize it is difficult to see the boats on the horizon in the image below, if you click this (or any image in this blog) you’ll get a larger one. [By the way, this image (and all the images in this posting) is from my iPhone. I have much better images taken with my Nikon, but haven’t process them yet.]
In the distance, a saltie on the left and laker on the right.
As you can see, it was another glorious day. Here’s the lighthouse.
Eagle Harbor lighthouse
Back on the road I stopped once at Great Sand Bay then at the monks’ shop, the Jam Pot, and the monastery.
WordPress is not behaving itself right now so I cannot add the Jam Pot’s hyperlink, but here it is http://www.societystjohn.com/store/. And here is the one for the Society of St. John monks: http://www.societystjohn.com/index.php.
A monk with a very long beard helped me (sorry for the very poor image quality). I liked that he was fully present and our eyes truly met and exchanged kindnesses. I asked if taking photographs of the monastery was alright and enthusiastically he said yes. I left a small donation and when he thanked me I shared that I am a Quaker and respect those seeking to live a holy life. I bought seedless blackberry jam and plum jelly plus an apricot muffin.
I had seen the shiny golden monastery from Big Sand Bay. The monastery is right on Lake Superior and surrounded by flower, fruit, and vegetable gardens. It’s lovely although I couldn’t help but think of how rough winters must be. I had seen a very tall red sign in the shape of a measuring stick saying the record annual snowfall was something like 305 inches! Of course, the snow would provide quiet and isolation essential to monastic life.
I finally pulled myself away from the monastery around noon. I only stopped once more to get gasoline and walk Henry in Wakefield, Michigan. We walked along Sunday Lake next to the gas station. Nice name, nice little lake.
I drove under one rain cloud and a second cloud that wanted to be a rain cloud one day. So a tiny bit of rain for a couple of minutes. The rest of the way was smooth traveling with only one area of construction that didn’t even slow us down.
Arrived at Bayfield around 4 p.m. I had called the National Park then the Bayfield Visitor Center to confirm the nearby campgrounds. I tried the public one just north of town first. It was on a steep, narrow, roughly paved road and the campsites were awkward and small. Right on Lake Superior though, but with me needing to get in and out every day it just wasn’t practical. So I drove north and registered at Apostle Islands Campground (http://www.apostleislandsareacampground.com) for two nights and possibility of a third. Wifi works great and my site is just fine and is an easy in and out.
After checking out my site, I drove to Bayfield and bought a ticket for the “Grand Tour” of the Apostle Islands tomorrow. It begins at 10 a.m. and takes three-and-a-half hours. Weather is supposed to be great and this tour gets out to the most number of islands. I’ll leave Henry in town in Ecovision on a shady street and try not to worry. My focus will be on taking photographs and notes and just experiencing the archipelago. Oh, I so love being on the water like I did so many summer weekends on Lake St. Clair with my Dad (and later me) at the helm of our small wooden powerboat.
I had an unremarkable and expensive broiled whitefish dinner. The fish was good though everything else ws forgetable. I have decided to have one dinner out a week. I really prefer to eat lunches out and be settled into the campground to eat dinner in Ecovision. But on travel days (which is almost every day!) I don’t like to stop for lunch and I have plenty of food on hand.
After dinner Henry and I walked around the marina then headed to the campground. I had to use blocks on one side to get level then I hooked up the water and electric. Each campground and campsite is different so each time it takes some juggling. RVing is amazingly physical. But we’re all cozied up and now it’s time for bed. I’ll leave you with a photo of Ecovision, who likes to have her picture taken in pretty places like Eagle Harbor :-)
Between the mountains of boxes needing to be unpacked from my recent move to Ann Arbor and my need for more experience with my motorhome, I decided to postpone my planned August 2011 circling of Lake Superior until 2012. Disappointing, but the right decision.
However, Henry Boy and I did spend a week in Grand Marais, Michigan, on the shores of this magnificent Great Lake. Grand Marais is a small town right where M-77 ends at Lake Superior. It’s a beautiful drive into town with the lovely natural harbor to the right and shops to the left.
We stayed in Burt Township’s Woodland Park Campground, which is a short four-block walk to Grand Marais and sits up high on a lakeshore bluff. Every campsite was reserved every day and it was quite crowded, but Henry and I got in long walks every day. Sometimes we walked to the lake, sometimes to town, and sometimes just around the campground.
Henry is such a terrific traveler and loves every human he meets. He especially is drawn to children, wagging his tail as soon as he spots them. But he’s not crazy about other dogs if he senses any aggression or imbalance. I’ve been working on this, but he was viciously attacked when he was 14 months old by a pitbull-type dog who broke through a gate and went straight for the jugular. This led to emergency surgery to repair his torn neck plus a second surgery a week later. Henry makes friends with some dogs immediately, but others he wants to go after. As I said, even though he just turned four we are still working on this because were both traumatized by the attack.
For the first couple of days Lake Superior was the calmest I have ever seen it. Most days it was like glass.
The sunset views from Woodland Park Campground were outstanding with many people and dogs gathering to witness the sun sinking into the lake each evening.
Two of my RV friends were also there. Rachel has a 29-foot motorhome and travels with her gorgeous green-eyed black cat, Buddy. Buddy walks on a leash as well as Henry, and has a netted enclosure for outside the motorhome. Mickey has a 30-foot fifth-wheel and travels with several fun dogs of various sizes. The three of us usually enjoyed one meal a day at the iconic West Bay Diner. The owners are Eric and Ellen Airgood. Eric is the chef and Ellen waits tables. It’s a popular place and the wait is long, but the food is well worth it. They also sell delicious baked goods including homemade pies, huge brownies, bread, and sticky buns. As you walk in there are new and used books for sale, and shelves inside hold various jams and syrups.
A special aspect of the diner is that Ellen Airgood has just published her first novel, South of Superior. I’m a fussy reader of fiction so wasn’t sure I would like it although it has met with critical acclaim. The good news is that I loved the novel and hope for a sequel. I bought a copy at the diner and read it in a couple days, and Ellen graciously signed it before I headed home.
With the dry hot weather, Henry kept getting dusty. This meant I had to brush him out each time I let him back int0 the motorhome. Rachel suggested I look for a rug at the local hardware store and I’ll be darned if I didn’t find the perfect rug for Henry! It folds up small to fit in my RV’s storage compartment and was only $19.99 (most RV rugs are $70 and up and too big to store in my small rig). A bonus is that the rug is a pretty with a bright blue and yellow striped design. Henry loved it immediately and settled onto it like he had had it since puppyhood. He looks quite handsome on blue, don’t you think? If you check the photo carefully you can see Ellen’s novel on the picnic table.
After the first few calm, hot days, the weather cooled and the lake kicked up small white caps. It just could not have been better. Rachel was able to move to a lakefront site and invited us to enjoy the views and share a bottle of wine. The life of Riley. I ached to stay and even drive along the lakeshore to places like Whitefish Point Bird Observatory north of Paradise, Michigan, but I had commitments at home.
The day I was to head home a huge windstorm came through so I waited a day for it to pass. There was no way a motorhome was going to get across the Mackinac Bridge with that wind, nor would driving be anything but stressful. But the wind settled down the next morning and Henry and I headed home on a perfectly glorious day. On the way north we had stopped for one night at the lovely, quiet Hartwick Pines State Park, but I decided to get home in one day so drove the 400 miles straight through.
I’ve decided to spend this fall and winter reading more about Lake Superior and contacting people I want to meet and interview next year. For now I guess it’s good to get settled more into my new home so that when I leave next year the pile of boxes is bearable or even gone. I do plan to update this blog as I discover interesting things about the lake, so please do stay tuned.
Inspired by my recent writing retreat with novelist Jane Hoppe in South Haven, today I added the 2012 Lake Michigan page. Jane will be doing a book signing at the South Haven Memorial Library this year so stay tuned for that. My own Great Lakes books are developing nicely.
Henry Boy
Jane and I both have extra-large, tri-color male Cavalier King Charles Spaniels that we adore. Our Cavaliers may be one reason she and I stayed in touch after meeting during the metaphor workshop taught by the terrific Marc Nieson at the 2009 Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
My Henry Boy is jealous because Jane’s Charlie has his own blog! Hmmm. I keep telling Henry no he cannot have his own blog, but he does get to circle the lakes with me in our motorhome, Ecovision! Yet even the special peanut-butter dog cookies I brought back from Decadent Dogs haven’t seemed to appease Henry’s desire for a blog of his own. Darn. Henry did get a mention on Charlie’s blog and Henry commented. I am hoping that will do.
Circling the Lakes 