Lively tour of Great Lakes - Summer 2023

---

Our yearly pilgrimage to Camp Arvin in Indiana.  

We traveled south across the Mackinac Bridge and headed to the Leelanau Peninsula.

Back in the US and on our 4th Great Lake.  Brimley State Park gave us a campsite just feet from Lake Superior.  

One last Canadian Sunset before we embark on our drive back into the States.  We’re traveling north today and West along the Trans-Canadian Highway into Sault San Marie and the Michigan Upper Peninsula 

An unexpected turn when we showed up at our rental in Sauble Beach opened the following week up to much more adventure and activities.  We had this whole trip planned out months ago, but sometimes things happen and you couldn’t be more grateful.  Our week in Sauble Beach got replaced by a week in Owen Sound.

Left Chicago and headed to Detroit. Fuelled up and dumped all of our perishables.  Crossed the border and headed to the town of Leamington, ON on Lake Erie.  It’s weird being in Canada but also being south of Boston.  The house we got to work out of during the week, was right next to a National Park.  Unfortunately I was sick all this week so most outings were hampered but it was a great place to check out.   After our week here and some meds overnighted in, we packed up from here to head to Sauble Beach on Bruce Peninsula.

Our 3rd weekend brings us into the Windy City for a family graduation.   The whole family is staying in the city at the same hotel, so we need to leave Lively at the Marshalling Yard for the weekend. Plenty of Propane for the Generator and decent mix of sun and shade for the solar panels.  I think we’ll be ok.  Let’s embrace the threadcount. 

On to our first of 4 Great Lakes.  Wisconsin’s Eastern Shore in Cleveland , WI.  After lunch in Batesville, IN, we headed towards The west side of Chicago. A county park and a campground called the Blackwell Family Campground. A really nice place to stay over.  Picked up some Italian on the way in and had an easy night of feeding the family,  The next day we took the truck and rig separately to go get breakfast and then hooked them up again in the parking lot before heading first to MKE so Mom can fly to NYC for a couple of days. 

It’s kind of a new thing to just randomly pick a spot on the map.  Knowing you are in one place and you need to get to another and you pick a place in between to spend a week not knowing really anything about it.  When it was all said and done, this was an amazing place.  It was perfect to relax and work and in the evenings go adventure about and see whatever it has to offer.  

Cracker Barrel’s make the best Bed and Breakfasts.  Woke up - had a great breakfast and headed into one of my favorite cities, Chattanooga.  On this gorgeous Sunday morning, Chattanooga was hosting an Iron Man competition, which made navigating downtown with the Toad attached a little more difficult than it would’ve been otherwise.  We ended up having to split up the rig to find parking.  Across the river we went

Day 2 has us heading to a Cracker Barrel in Adairsville, GA.  But not without a detour to see Chef Matt in Atlanta.  

Day 1, get to Paynes Prairie.  One of my favorite spots when I was in college.  We’re set for one night here and we got in a couple nice hikes In the evening and Saturday morning.