Lower Peninsula Michigan: Tuesday, June 7, 2022 | |
Our first stop in the LP is Thurston Park in Central Lake, Michgan. This is a town campground. Because of its central location in the greater Traverse City lake territory, we are staying for six days. It is perfect for our "hub-and-spoke" style of camping. For 60 miles in every direction there promises to be wonderful places to explore. | |
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Well, the crack of dawn turned out to be 8:14 am. I couldn’t believe my eyes, when I opened my eyes, and my eyes read the time. Even then it was hard to break away from the wonderful snippets of dreams that I was enjoying.
Since we were still hooked up, it only took minutes to hit the road. This was our long driving day. Google predicted over fours hours and we were going to lose an hour as we crossed into the Eastern Time Zone.
Most of the drive along the southern ridge of the UP was on Highway 2. As gorgeous as the UP can be, there are many pockets of abject poverty. I imagine that good paying jobs are a sparse commodity up here. Run-down trashy trailers and houses can tug at the heartstrings except many of these sad homesteads sport the splashiest shrines to Trump. I guess Trumpism guarantees their right to live in the poverty that they feel comfortable in.
I did see a couple of lawn signs that perplexed me - “We support the tunnel.” The tunnel? What tunnel? Is Elon Musk proposing to build a network of tunnels under Lake Michigan? How cool would that be? Not so fast. A quick Google search brought up the real story. In order to safeguard a gas pipeline running from the UP to the LP through the Mackinac Straits, it is proposed to put the gas pipe in a tunnel 100’ under the lakebed. Sounds reasonable, however this particular gas line, Line 5, apparently has a long history of spills and mishaps. Many people think the entire Line 5 should be ditched (pun intended).
The drab 50º day was almost perfect for driving. We didn’t feel like we were missing out on anything. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge around 12:30. Even with the dark cloudy day it was an impressive sight. At $4 per car and $6 for us with our trailer, it was a reasonable price. The total bridge length is 5 miles, but not all of that is suspended.
There are two ways to measure the length of a suspension bridge: 1) The distance between the two tall supports called the Main Span. By this measurement, the Mackinac Bridge is the 24th longest in the world. 2) The total distance that is actually held up by cables called the Suspended Length. By this measurement, it is the 5th longest suspension bridge.
It took over 3 years to build and it was completed on November 1, 1957. 3,500 men worked on the bridge. Surprisingly, only five construction workers died. It cost $70,000,000 to build. At 200 feet in the air, I felt like I was back flying in our old Piper Cherokee.
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Overlooking Lake Michigan just before reaching St. Ignace and the Mackinac Bridge. | |
Introducing the 5-mile long Mackinac Bridge. Even on a cold drab day, the bridge is impressive. | |
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We arrived at the Thurston City Campground in Central Lake, Michigan around 1:45 pm. The campground is centrally located in the area that we hope to explore in the next week or so. But first, the campground itself. On the negative side, each spot is rather tight. Our little 18’ teardrop fit comfortably in spot #20 so we can’t complain. Everything else was positive. The bathrooms and showers are wonderfully maintained. Our site is electric only, but many have water hookups. The grounds are well kept and grassy. The best part is the park’s boat landing situated on a terrific chain of lakes.
There are something like 13 long and narrow “finger-lakes” connected by a creek. The entire waterway is probably 50 miles long. I don't know if big boats can get through the creeks, but I know that our kayaks can. I hope to spend at least one day cruising through a couple of these finger-lakes.
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Setting up in the densely-packed, but extremely well-kept Thurston Park in Central Lake, Michigan. | |
We have this rivulet gurgling past our campsite. | |
Thurston Park is at the northern end of the long and narrow Intermediate Lake, one of many "finger-lakes" that form a 50-mile long chain of lakes. The entire greater Traverse City lake territory is a lake haven. Most of these lakes eventually reach Lake Michigan. | |
Central Lake is on the northern end of Intermediate Lake. This photo shows the bridge over the channel that leads to the next lake. | |
(Above) Looking north from the Park's boat landing. (Below) Looking south from the boat landing. | |
Almost as soon as we set up at Thurston City Campground, the sun struggled to break through. We needed to drive around and get our bearings. We followed the finger-lakes north up to the tiny town of Ellsworth. The road closely followed the narrow lakes and they look inviting. As tiny as Ellsworth was, it had a nice town park on the waterway and a beautiful RV park overlooking the lake. I have three days that we don’t have booked in a campground. I talked to the host lady about her park. At $30 a day, it was pricey, but the setting was great and it included electric and water hookups. We will give it serious consideration when filling our three-day hole. | |
A scene from the channel that leads from Intermediate Lake to Hanley Lake. From our vantage point along the road, the channel looks to be deep enough for larger boats. Our pontoon boat would easily make it. | |
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Next, we drove up to Fisherman’s Island State Park, just south of Charlevoix. My intension was to pickup a State Passport, the windshield sticker needed to visit Michigan State Parks. We reached the park’s office at 5:05 pm. A lady told us that we just missed the park ranger. Oh well, we snuck into the park anyway.
The long park hugged Lake Michigan. Even with the sun out full-time now, the breeze coming off the lake was cold. Many of the campsites were right on the beach. Yes, they were gloriously gorgeous, but damn, it was cold. In a heated RV I could see it, but not tent camping.
We got out to walk the beach and take some photos. The park does have a few short trails, but it was already getting late. We will save hiking for tomorrow.
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We had to sneak into this State Park because we got there too late to buy a windshield sticker. We'll get one later. | |
Most of the Park's main road was through a dense tree-tunnel, but it occasionally broke out into the open next to the Lake Michigan. | |
At the end of the Park's road was a nice beach with a river emptying into Lake Michigan. | |
The Great Lakes' water level fluctuates quite a bit. Over the decades, we have seen it both low and high. Right now, I'd say that Lake Michigan is on the lower end. | |
Since we were so close, we drove into Charlevoix. This cute town was more of what I had expected. It had that high-end but tastefully arty maritime Door County feel. The small marina was meticulously maintained. The stores were in tip-top shape with the prerequisite fudge shops, antique shops, nicer novelty shops, and inviting cute pubs. The cafe and restaurants were priced out of our league, but I bet $20 that the $18 sandwiches are to die for. | |
Charlevoix is situated on a small strip of land that separates big Lake Charlevoix and humongous Lake Michigan. A waterway through town connects the two lakes which this mural depicts. | |
So far, just driving through a couple of towns, we have seen these town clocks. | |
Downtown Charlevoix is a pleasant walk. | |
Like Door County in Wisconsin, the greater Traverse City area is cherry-growing territory. In both Door County and Traverse City area, the variety of cherries grown are on the tart side. Already we have seen a couple of these Cherry Republic shops in other little towns. I suspect they are a local franchise. | |
The marina is the focal point of Charlevoix. The ferry to Beaver Island starts in Charlevoix's harbor. Beaver Island is Lake Michigan's largest island. It is 32 miles from Charlevoix and has a population of 550 permanent residents. The ferry is pretty expensive, however, it can transport cars. | |
The marina and harbor are lined with condos. | |
Part of the waterway that connects Lake Charlevoix with Lake Michigan through downtown Charlevoix. | |
Cool large outdoor wall photos of old Charlevoix. (Below) I love the window sign advertising "electrocuted hot dogs". | |
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Of course, when we returned to Thurston Park, we had to walk the streets of Central Lake. For such a tiny town, it had an eclectic mix of establishments. Yes, it had an ice cream shop and a couple of inviting pubs, but it also had a full-sized downtown grocery store, an old fashioned "five-and-dime" store, a distillery, and a marajuana dispensary. Recreational marajuana was legalized in 2018. We noticed a couple of shops in Marquette, Michigan, when we toured the UP last year.
For a day that started out so crappy, it ended up rather pleasant - cool but pleasant.
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The requisite town clock. | |
Mammoth Distillery was closed by the time we returned to town. From what I could gather from the window display, they distill everything from bourbon to vodka to gin. It appears to be a regional distillery with outlets in several of these little towns. The actual distillery is in Bellaire, the next little town south. | |
Central Lake's "five-and-dime" store. However, it looks like they fudge that 5¢ and 10¢ thing with "$1.00 and up" warning. | |
Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum. | | | | |
