Riding the Dunes

With our pending warranty appointment at the mothership the day after Memorial Day, we decided to spend the week prior at the dunes by Silver Lake in Mears, MI. As old fogies, we rather enjoyed the dunes a couple of days prior to the long weekend when there was hardly anyone there. By the weekend, it's an anything goes atmosphere. 

My cousin Steve, his family, and a number of his friends descend on the dunes with their myriad of quads, dirt bikes, razors, and jeeps. From campfire smoked bacon to ice cream evenings, it's a weekend of smiles and maybe a few aches and pains. 

This year was Steve's youngest daughter's first year as a driver on the dunes. We followed her around a little while Mom and Dad ran a few errands. Whew! I was more nervous than she was. Hard to tell whose smile was bigger though, the daughter's or the mom's when the parents arrived. You go girl!

Mmm...bacon

All alone

Gearing up for Test Hill

Getting ready to "send it"

Yep, we're still here

From Sunset Hill

Dune day camp

Big wind day

Where Are We Going Next?

 

Reading on the Road

I love to read, especially fiction. I enjoy getting caught up in a suspenseful mystery or thriller.  For those times I'm in the mood for a lighter read, I almost always turn to P. G. Wodehouse. According to Christopher Buckley, author of Little Green Men, "It is impossible to be unhappy while reading the Adventures of Jeeves and Wooster. And I've tried."

A repeat stay at the campground with the real library (and yes, that was a consideration when I booked it) reminded me that I hadn't published this post yet. 

Storage is at a premium in our rig. I'm not a big fan of electronic books either. So, I have to limit myself to a cabinet. If the cabinet is full, that's it. Well, maybe just a little more space. For the most part though, if a new book is coming in, one has to go out. 

Finding books on the road really isn't that hard. Little Free Libraries can be found in just about every town. Often campgrounds have a book exchange. One campground had an entire storage shed devoted to its library.  My favorite campground library had a real library, complete with ladder to reach the top shelves! Apparently, the private home had been converted to a campground clubhouse when the owner sold the property. 

If all else fails, I will occasionally buy books. My first stop is a public library as most public libraries have a selection of books for sale. If there aren't any libraries nearby, there's always a Walmart.

Little Free Library - Great use of a tree stump

Lots of books in this phone booth

Typical of a campground

Best campground library - complete with ladder

Yes!

Hmm, where am I going to put these? 

Where Are We Going Next?

Dutch Treats

When we left the Petoskey, MI, area, we headed to Sun Retreats Gun Lake, about thirty minutes south of Grand Rapids. Having learned that the Tulip Festival had just ended in Holland, MI, we took a trip over to see if there were any tulips still blooming. 

It makes me wonder how pretty things would have been at their peak. There are several venues for seeing lots of tulips. Some require a paid admission. We opted out of any of those since it was rainy and most tulips were past their prime.

We did head over to Veldheer's, Holland's only tulip farm. We were hoping to see a few acres of the five million tulips from the parking lot. We didn't see as much as we hoped and chose not to sog through the gardens. However, we did enjoy watching the a woman handpainting a vase at the Delftware Pottery facility onsite. They are the only production facility in North America. 

The paint room

Lots of detail here

If Delft pottery is not your thing, perhaps you'd like the wooden shoes.  In the Netherlands, leather didn't last long with the soggy ground. So the Dutch started making wooden shoes back in the 13th century as a long-lasting alternative.  The shoemaker wasn't there when we were, but that didn't stop us from trying on the wooden shoes. What a unique souvenir that would make. 

Someone's been busy

Ok, so these are a little big. 

We finished our time in the area with a good friend from our King George, VA, days. Jeff is a former shipmate of Harold's who roams the USA in his fifth wheel about six months in the year. We're planning to catch up again this summer in our home state of South Dakota.

Still smiling

Where Are We Going Next?

Mushrooms in the Mitten

We left our Spartan Chassis service appointment in Charlotte, MI, and headed further north in the mitten. We stopped just shy of the Mackinac Bridge and slipped west to Petoskey.  We split our stay between Jellystone Park of Petoskey and Sun Petoskey Bay Harbor. The area is very scenic and we enjoyed our short visit to the area, riding bikes along the paved trailway, stopping at local parks and scenic lake overlooks. We even caught a short ferry ride. 

Lake Michigan shoreline

Ironton Ferry at Lake Charlevoix

Pay up

We were pleasantly surprised to find out the National Morel Mushroom Festival was being held in nearby Boyne City. We enjoyed the Taste of Morels event, where local restaurants competed in a morel recipe competition. Thankfully, we didn't have to judge. We simply bought tickets and redeemed them for various samples. Yum!

Carnita pork nachos w/ sauteed morels

Boneless short ribs w/ morel sauce

Morels and ramps w/ potatoes, egg, and manchego cheese

Breakfast pizza topped w/ crispy, fried morels

We even saw a few unique crafts as we perused the craft vendors. We saw morel earrings, carvings, and epoxied mushrooms of various types. They certainly had some fun ideas. 

Where Are We Going Next?

Barrels, Cars, and Tanks

We moved from Bowling Green to Camp Carlson, the Army MWR facility at Ft. Knox. We spent a couple of weeks there. We had originally planned to take in the Kentucky Derby. However, we decided against that as the cost was far more than either of us cared to spend on a sport that we don't really follow. 

So, we ventured over to Lebanon, KY, home to the Kentucky Cooperage. They make the barrels for most of the distilleries in the United States, and even the world. The tour is about 45 minutes in length. We don't recommend the tour in the heat of summer. When they're charring the barrels, that heat is intense. But, what a show! Each distiller specifies the amount of charring they want. We weren't allowed to take photos of the process, but it is one of the more memorable tours to see. You see a barrel being raised from the first staves, to the charring, to the final banding. 

Kentucky Cooperage (International Stave Company)

It seems that just about every town has a car museum of some sort. Swope's Cars of YesterYear in Elizabethtown (great name!) is a free museum run by the Swope Dealerships. Mr. Swope wanted to give back to the community and this is one way he chose to do it. 

Overview of museum

Elizabeth's favorite - you choose your car by color, right?

Harold's favorite - the artistry of the car

At Ft. Knox, we were able to tour the Patton Museum of Leadership. The museum was closed because of covid the last time we were in the area. We liked how they incorporated leadership traits throughout the museum. Though not as many tanks as Harold expected, the museum is worthy of a stop, especially since there is no admission charge. 

Movie props 

Patton's field "RV" office

Tanks!

Where Are We Going Next?

Corvettes

We left the rural setting of Salt Lick Creek Campground for the adjacent-to-the-interstate campground of the Bowling Green KOA. Hey, we were just happy to have cell reception again. The noise wasn't too bad either, especially when one considers that Bowling Green is Kentucky's third largest city. 

Our main objective was the National Corvette Museum. We had skipped this museum early in 2021 when we came through the area and visited Mammoth Cave National Park. We had hoped that the factory tours would have resumed when we came through next time. However, those tours have not yet resumed and we don't know when we'll be through the area next. 

Harold owned a 1986 Corvette years ago. So to tour the museum and see the significant Corvettes was a treat. We waited to go through the museum on a Monday as opposed to the weekend, hoping for less crowds. Given that we saw school group tour after school group tour, I'm not sure that was the best idea.

Perhaps one of the things for which the museum is known, is not the Corvettes themselves, but the sinkhole that opened up in 2014 and swallowed eight Corvettes. The Corvette Cave In Exhibit covers sinkholes, the cave-in and subsequent fill, the "sinkhole Corvettes," and the role the media and social media played in the event. 

As we were getting ready to leave the museum, we heard a Corvette start up. Then the clapping started. The owner of a brand new Corvette was leaving the museum. R8C Museum Delivery is an option on the build sheets of new Corvettes.

 Hey, I owned a 'vette once too - a Chevette. : )

 Where Are We Going Next?