Traverse City, Michigan.

Yesterday Anne-Marie and I pulled the trailer away from Southern Michigan, to escape the severe thunderstorms that were pounding the Mid-Western states.  After traveling just 30 miles north, we broke away from under the thunder storm clouds, and have had good weather since.  We made a short stop in Grand Rapids Michigan, to visit the ever necessary Penzey’s Spice store, to allow Anne-Marie to provision up on vital supplies. 

During Anne-Marie’s shift at driving the van, somewhere North of Cadillac Michigan, we decided to look for a RV Park just anywhere interesting and towards the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  As the navigator at the moment, I calculated that Traverse City or something close might be fun to look at, and it was within 40 miles of our present position.  I chose the closest RV Park to town, Traverse Bay RV Resort, and gave them a call.  The RV Park had room, but they asked for a description of our RV first.  I was told that we had to have a motorhome or 5th wheel trailer longer than 28ft, and no older than 10 years, but we have an Airstream Trailer, and it’s 34ft long and only 6 years old.  We fall into the same category as the vacationing tenting folks, and therefore we are undesirable, and not allowed to enter their RV Park.  This is the first time we have been snubbed, and denied entry to a RV Resort, because we were a trailer.

The second RV Resort that I called, was Timber Ridge RV Resort, and all’s OK.  Great, and it’s in the van’s GPS database, so plot a course to it.  We were on a State Hwy, and the GPS showed the shortest route. 

All was well till we were within 1/4 mile of the RV Park, and the GPS showed turning down a narrow gravel road, and Anne-Marie did, and the road got narrower, and quickly down to this sandy dirt road.  We were about three trailer lengths and two bends down the road, and we stopped.  I called the RV Park and told them where we were, and she said “Oh Oh, you did that too”, she said that a few other motorhomes got stuck there also, and they made it through, but they got scratched up from the tree limbs.  She said If you can’t turn around, go slow and this road does come out on the back side of the Park.  Anne-Marie behind the wheel, and I navigating, we looked over a driveway to a house, that branched off, pondering will the trailer be able to back through the trees, to the main road, or turn around here?, Anne-Marie said “if they said that we will fit through the trees, we can just go slow”, and we did.  the narrow slot that the van is parked in, had plenty of room for the trailer, about two inches on each side, I had my forehead pressed against the window looking in the mirror, and Anne-Marie had a death grip on the steering wheel, watching her mirror.  We got close, but escaped giving the trailer some more battle-scars.  This is the first time that our GPS did that to us, but the database shows it as a county road.

In 2009, TripAdvisor named Traverse City the number two small town travel destination in the United States, and we can see why.  This is a wide picture of the State Park on the bay, and the people are small in the picture, but this was a busy place and a lot of people were on the beach.

This is the City Park area, and there is a lot of activity, swimming, boating, and we saw someone with a parachute, being pulled by a boat.

The State of Michigan has a school here, The Great Lakes Maritime Academy.  There is a lot to see and do here, and I think that there is a couple of weeks of exploring available here, but we have reservations at a RV Park on the Upper Peninsula, at Munising, for tonight and tomorrow.  Tomorrow we have reservations for the Glass Bottomed Tour Boat, to view some shipwrecks, on Lake Superior.  So we must travel.