One thing that I want to take advantage of on this trip is time…the time to stay at places for a week in a row and check out places that I never had the patience to check out before. And I wanted to start in Ohio. It’s a state that I have driven through many times but have only ever bothered to stay a passing night in transit because I was too excited to get to the place after Ohio, wherever that may have been. We started out visiting Athens, a hip college town (Ohio U.) of about 24,000 people. The brick layered streets of downtown are line with small bookstores, boutiques, bars and restaurants and fresh food markets with local being the common goal of the community. Definitely worth checking out. Unfortunately circumstances weren’t quite right to spend more than a couple hours there so that it may be a spot we need to check out more in depth at some point in the future.
That night we camped in Wayne National Forest, north of Athens. We stayed for a couple of nights but ended up having to get a site along a road because all the other open spots were too uneven to get the rig level (you win some, you lose some). So we thought we’d move on through OH and, although there weren’t many other national forests or state parks to the NW of Wayne, we thought it was inevitable to find somewhere to camp within a couple of hours. Unfortunately we forgot to consider that it was Friday night…and although it was hot, it was a premium weekend for camping. Nine hours later (seven hours of actual driving) we spotted the first campground we had seen in hours and the first that had any open sites since Wayne. And…it was our first experience with an RV campground since we started. Oh, the styles and the landscaping and the decks. And screen porches and the lawn ornaments. All I can say is it was just awesome!!
We were probably the only people there that did not have a golf cart and our meager two house plants and tomato plant seemed pretty lame compared to the local flare. We both decided that if we are going to be serious about this full-timer thing we have to get some more style so that next time we won’t be such an embarrassment to the RVing community. I figured that we could start with some Astroturf and an assortment of flags and see what we accumulate from there. Maybe a couple of statues or flamingos would tie it together.
We didn’t end up making it to bingo on Saturday night. It was pretty hot and sticky out and the hall didn’t have air conditioning so we just played a few rounds of Yahtzee while enjoying the pleasures of a plugged-in lifestyle.
So we’ve spent that last week slowly stitching our way up through the eastern lakeshore of Michigan staying at state parks, national forests and national parks along the way. We even managed to throw in a trip to Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo to indulge in a refreshing, cold, straight from the vat to my lips Two Hearted Ale. We tried a few others too but that IPA is so damn hard to beat. Only downside: no growler fills. So we had to take in all the freshness we could while we were there…but being an hour or so from camp that meant we just had settle for a couple of six packs for around the fire that night.
We thought that we would have an easier time getting a site than we did on Friday night but, as usual, we underestimated the three-day weekend campers. The first two state parks we pulled into resembled parking lots, each crammed site just wide enough for an RV with the awning pulled out before your neighbors site began. Only few were lucky enough to land a site with a tree nearby for protection from the sun. We finally settled for the third state park, and although it was pretty full, decided that after a long day of travel it was best to pull it in for the day. We were back on the road the next morning and only traveled for a couple of hours north before we made it to Driftwood CG in Manistee National Forest. After three nights of staying in congested camping cities we were ready to have a campground to ourselves (well, there was one other person there). The weather that day turned from sunny, humid and hazy (in Lancaster County we call that ‘close’) to sunny, clear and crisp. Perfect for hiking and firewood collecting and just about anything else that involves the outdoors.
We felt like we earned that weather after the previous hot and muggy long traveling days we just experienced.
We woke up early Wednesday seeing our breathe in the cold morning air (45°) while making coffee, which we each had two cups rather than our usual one cup. What else would you expect from the last day of June?
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