Category: Michigan

We departed from Tourist Park at 10:00AM EDT and headed Southeast to Camp Petosega in Alanson, MI near Petoskey and the North end of lower Michigan (200 miles). We left Marquette heading South on US-41 and then took MI-28 East along the Lake Superior coastline. We had a lot of beautiful scenery. We then took MI-77 South to US-2 and stopped for fuel at a very busy BP station at that intersection. Traffic was heavy from that point on, but once again we had a lot of beautiful scenery along Lake Michigan.

As I was plotting our route yesterday I noticed a restaurant called Clyde’s Drive-in and just felt like we ought to stop there, especially after reading the reviews. Entire family ancestries in the reviews have been stopping there after crossing on to the Upper Peninsula since it opened in 1949. Who knows, maybe my Grandpa (Dad’s side) stopped there after crossing on the ferry on his fishing trips back in the day? The reviews warned us to plan on waiting at least 30 minutes for our burgers. We couldn’t pull up to the 9′ high drive-in spots with our 11′ 6″ RV, but we did find a sweet spot right up front and Beth went in and fought the 40 minute battle for our food (she’s the best!) It was well worth the wait. Definitely the best burger of this trip. I had a delicious Bacon Cheeseburger with onion rings and Beth had a delicious Bison Cheeseburger with cheese curds. We both ate our burgers and about three each of the onion rings and cheese curds (no mas!)

When we arrived at Clyde’s Drive-in, the line for the toll booth on I-75 for the Mackinac Bridge was well back before Clyde’s. Fortunately for us, by the time we left Clyde’s the line had shrunk and we were able to pull out onto US-2 (left turn) and immediately jump on I-75 (right turn). The line at the toll booth wasn’t too long and NO, they don’t take SunPass, EZ-Pass, or any pass. Give us cash ($10 for our rig).

We arrived at Camp Petosega around 3:30PM EDT. This is a county park campground and our “Premier” site has full hookups for $41/night. The sewer hookup will give us the opportunity to give our black tank a good back flush before arriving at Camp Land of Troy in LaGrange.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	Weak Connection	Weak Connection
Starlink	100	17
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	57	2
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	64	0.1

TV	Quality
Antenna	7 Channels (CBS)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

We departed from Kreher RV Park at 11:00AM CDT and headed East to Tourist Park Campground in Marquette, MI (183 miles). We continued East on US-2 and then picked up MI-28 and took it to US-41. We took US-41 all the way to the Walmart in Marquette. The roads were all good. We stopped for lunch at a nice shady Rest Area along MI-28 because there’s zero fast food between Ashland, WI and Ishpeming, MI (168 miles). There are, however, lots of trees. We also saw lots of campers throughout the drive. It’s definitely a Friday in the Upper Peninsula and the Yoopers were all heading out camping for the weekend. This campground is completely full (all 110 sites).

We arrived at Tourst Park Campground around 3:30PM CDT. This is another city campground and the sites are Electric only. However, they do provide Wi-Fi and so far it appears to be fairly strong (we’ll see what happens when everyone is streaming this evening). It’s a little hot (pronounced “hawt”) for the Yoopers as the temperature got up to 82 today.

Device	Download Mbps	Upload Mbps
Campground Wi-Fi	26	22
Starlink	286	16
AT&T Hotspot	n/a	n/a
US Mobile – Brian (AT&T)	341	74
US Mobile – Beth (Verizon)	115	8

TV	Quality
Antenna	6 Channels (NBC, FOX)
Campground Cable	n/a
DISH Satellite	n/a

Grand Design Factory Tour – 8/16/2024

On Friday (8/16) Beth and I picked Dad up at home and took him with us for a factory tour of Grand Design RV’s new motorhome manufacturing facility just 21 miles away in Middlebury, IN. The tour was excellent and their first “motorized” RV is a Class C design in which we have much interest due to its king size bed. After the tour, Mom met us in Shipshewana at Ben’s Soft Pretzels for a snack. Beth and I actually upgraded from snack to lunch by splitting a delicious pizza pocket.

Cade Lake County Park – 8/13/2024

On Monday (8/13/2024) we headed 21 miles Northeast to Cade Lake County Park and Campground in Sturgis, MI. We checked in around 1PM EDT. This campground has full hookups and we are parked in a back-in site beside a small canal giving us a clear view of the southwestern sky for easy access to all three Dish Network satellites. We were unable to pickup any channels via antenna. Our Verizon signal is LTE and not very strong at times. We are getting 133/15 Mbps download/upload speeds with our AT&T 5G+ hot spot.

The campground is fairly nice and our site is on a corner and very large. The camp host told us it’s the best site in the campground. For the first four days we had a couple of groups in tents that were of questionable character. The family next to us returned to their tents in the evening long after we had setup and the “Karen” leading the pack (with died blue hair) immediately registered a complaint with the campground about odors allegedly emanating from our sewer connection. When the camp host investigated I told him we had only attached the hose and hadn’t opened any valves eliminating any chance of an odor. We both agreed that there was no odor, but he asked me to dump a gray tank just so it looked like we did something to address the issue. Then he sprayed around our hoses with something from a tank (looked like water) to add to the illusion. Throughout the event he complained under his breath to us about the inordinate number of complaints the blue haired “Karen” had registered and how they all couldn’t wait for her and her tribe to leave Friday. The folks in tents across from us seemed to be living out of them while working full time jobs. We kept everything locked up at all times. Once both of those groups departed, the campground felt “normal”.