July 25, 2012 - Gaylord, Michigan, United States
Continuing on our Eastern 2012 trip, we arrived in Gaylord, MI on July 25 and checked into Beaver Creek RV Resort for two weeks. This park was the nicest membership park that we have stayed in on this trip. The new owner has put a lot of money into upgrading the park and buildings. There is a very large indoor pool, nice clubhouse with a deck, and a mini golf course on a hill. The flowers at the entrance and around the office and clubhouse were beautiful. They ar open all year and have some beautiful cabins for snowmobilers to stay in. They are lucky in this area to have a lot of snowmobile trails. There were several roads across from the entrance of the park that led down to Ostego Lake with some really nice houses to walk by. I walked 7 miles to Gaylord one day, and Richie drove to town and met me at Diana’s Restaurant for breakfast. They serve an excellent breakfast, so of course, we went back again. This was my second walk to town, but I was dumb enough to wear some really comfortable NEW walking shoes, so I had 2 blisters on my feet when I got there. I had to take a few days off from walking. We met a couple, Bob & Stephanie when we were in Clinton, IN, and they pulled in right next to us at Beaver Creek. We all went to breakfast at Diana’s and to an Elk farm in Gaylord. The elk were mostly lying around and resting. Richie and I drove to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan one day, and then went north along the coast to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse, then down to Traverse City. The Sleeping Bear dune is a really steep dune that you go to the bottom first, and then crawl back to the top. Everyone, even young people, had to crawl and stop and rest on the way back up. There was a viewing platform for people to watch. It was quite a sight! I wanted to do it, but it was too late in the day and I didn’t want to be crawling up after dark. Some people actually have this on their bucket list! I couldn’t wait to get to MI so I could u-pick some sweet cherries since I grew up on an apple and cherry farm, but this year there were not enough cherries to have u-pick because of the warm weather they had last Feb., and then a freeze later. But Traverse City is the cherry capital, so at least I was able to get some delicious cherry pie. The next day we went to Mackinac Island. We took our bicycles over on the ferry, as they don’t allow motor vehicles on the island. We rode the bike path around the island with a few hundred other people. Richie felt like he was the road police, after telling a bunch of people and kids to “STAY ON YOUR OWN SIDE OF THE ROAD!” Then we rode up to the Grand Hotel and the Arch. They wanted $10 just to go in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, so we thought it looked just grand from the outside and continued our ride to the Arch. There was a beautiful view of Lake Huron from the Arch. The island has some beautiful houses, a small airport, Fort Mackinac, great views, and of course some great restaurants. Our next stop on our trip was Saint Clair, MI on August 9 for two weeks. (The pictures underneath the journal are for the prior journal. Click on Latest Picture on the right and click slideshow. When you click on slideshow to see the pictures, if the first picture comes up very small, click on that picture again, and it will come up full size.)