We were having a bit of trouble reserving spots in some of the campgrounds we had hoped to stay in while in the Upper Peninsula. So we had to come up with an alternative plan. We found there were several casinos that had "camping facilities" and some of them were even free. Generally they only consisted of a special spot in the parking lot with an electrical outlet. Supposedly those even provide you with tokens to gamble with in the casino.
Instead we found one, Island Resort and Casino RV Park, that had an actual campgrounds , just west of Escanaba Michigan. They were full the first night we wanted to stay, but available for a week after that. We likely could have extended our stay where we were in Door County, but it turned out our motor home was effectively the left field wall for the baseball field. And being a weekend, the kids were out playing often. We didn't want to push our luck and end up with a home run broken window, so we headed out and stopped at a Walmart near the halfway point.
We got to the casino and found the campground hidden in the back corner of the parking lot, a good 1/3 mile from the hotel/casino in a nicely wooded area. The sites were a little tight, but worked fine since it only needed to be our home base as we toured the surrounding area. We also discovered this place had the best showers we have run across in all our travels. We did walk through the casino and found they were almost exclusively slot machines or a few video poker machines. Oh, and a bingo hall too. We decided to skip it all.
Turns out there weren't as many destinations in the vicinity as we had thought, so staying a week was a bit of overkill, but it did allow us time to do more mundane things. For one, I did some routine jobs around the motor home and started to wax the coach. The fact I did not finish was a combination of not enjoying the job and finding other things to do.
One of the other things was to start playing disc golf. We have often found ourselves on a disc golf course while geocaching and thought it might make sense to try our hand at it. If for no other reason, the equipment takes up little room and in our younger days we played ultimate frisbee. We had ordered a couple starter sets before leaving Rochester, but hadn't used them yet. There are a fair number of courses in the surrounding towns, but the first one we attempted was a very challenging course right next to Lake Michigan. We opted to skip most the holes in order to not lose all our discs on the first round.
We ended up finding a nice 18 hole course in Iron Mountain Michigan. It was very wooded so most of our throws were thwarted by trees. But we had fun and enjoyed our walk in the woods. We even went back a few days later to try again after having practiced our throwing at a couple baseball fields in the town park. Since we don't write down our scores, we aren't sure how much better we were, but we at least "think" we did better. Eventually we may actually keep score. During that second round, we met Eric, who had designed this course and was in the process of adding beginner's tees. If we ever make it back here, we might do better from those.
One day trip was to the north and east of Escanaba around two bays off Lake Michigan - Little Bay de Noc and Big Bay de Noc. One destination was Fayette Historic State Park. It is a state park on the grounds of what used to be a little town surrounding a pig iron smelting plant from the mid to late 1800's. Many of the buildings are still standing and have been restored - or are in the process of being restored. It was very interesting to walk around the town reading all the history of the buildings and the operations. The water in Big Bay de Noc was incredibly clear and several boats had come into the little harbor there.
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| A View of Some of the Town's Buildings |
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| Overlooking the Harbor |
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| Gulls Taking a Break |
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| The Harbor Through Windows of Old Wall |
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| Entrance to Smelter |
We slowly worked our way back hugging the roads along the coast as much as possible. While searching for one geocache along the rocky shore, Chris found what appeared to be some giant's pencil. The rocks along this portion were difficult to walk on and almost sounded like we were walking on pieces of glass.
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| Let Me Sign Right Here |
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| Gulls on a Spit |
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| Looking up the Stairs |
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| View from the Top |
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| Lighthouse |
On our way back the one day, we just had to stop to check out the big skeeter and bird that somebody had constructed on their property near the highway. Not sure the story of these guys and could not get very close without trespassing.
A few other side trips included a very nice walk along Portage Point just south of Escanaba. A drive in most of the way leads to a trail that heads over to the beach and up to the point. I was only able to get as far as I did by allowing my hiking shoes to become water shoes. But eventually the vegetation was just too thick and the waves were crashing on the beach on this windy day so alas I didn't get to the tip.
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| Near the Tip of Portage Point |
We also took our mountain bikes to Days River Pathway north of Escanaba. There were many miles of trails thru the woods with the main trail making a big loop and several intersecting trails allowing you to cut your ride short. The trails were in excellent shape and many of the steeper sections had some interesting rubber matting pinned to the ground to help prevent erosion.
The biggest problem we had with the trails were sections of fairly deep sand. Many of the sandy sections were at the bottom of the downhills. Sometimes they were only 6 or 8 feet in length, but other times closer to 20 or 30 feet. It took a fair amount of skill and/or nerve to navigate thru them without ditching the bike. I came close to falling a few times whereas Chris took the safer approach and would often walk the bike thru.
One other short trip was to a winery just a few miles from the campgrounds. Northern Sun Winery is a small operation run by a husband and wife team. We were the only two visitors at the time, so we managed to have a lengthy discussion with the wife on all sorts of topics. She gave us some pointers about places to visit when we go up to Marquette later.
They grow all the grapes they use locally. The wine was good and she allowed us to have more samples than the tasting fee covered. We picked a bottle of the one we liked best. Right across the street is a huge dirt track (Bark River International Raceway) She told us they have one big race a year and it had just happened. That explains the noises I had heard when we first got to the camp - the race was going on. Probably also makes sense as to why the campgrounds were booked full the first night.
Another nearby side trip was to Piers Gorge State Park. Apparently a newly designated park since our map did not show it with the typical green designation. It is right along the Menominee River which separates the U.P. from Wisconsin. We had tried coming here early in our stay but needed a state park sticker and the booth was not manned. Today, with sticker attached, the booth was manned - go figure. We knew there was rafting along the river but turns out it was fully booked for the day we were there.
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| The Relaxing Part After the Rapids |
A trail follows along the river and has several viewing areas to look over the various sections of rapids. Not sure how many times they would repeat the process, but several rafts would do the extreme drop off, come to shore, walk up the trail and board another raft to do it again. We saw several rafts that got caught up on one of the big rocks just below the drop off. It may take them a few minutes to dislodge themselves and drift downstream. One raft hit the rock in such a way to send a few occupants flying out of the raft. When the one guy was pulled to shore, you could tell he was a bit shaken up. Maybe it was just as well the trips were booked.
For the past few weeks we have been in the Central time zone, and had more or less gotten used to it. Turns out the 4 counties in the UP that border Wisconsin are also on Central, but the rest of the UP are on Eastern. Well this campground is about 1/2 mile from the dividing line. We were constantly confused. I was half tempted to set the clocks in the motor home to the half way point.
One last thing about the casino campground. There isn't somebody there overseeing the people coming and going. You are to pick an open site, set up and go to the casino to register and pay. One morning before we left for a day trip, a small Class C motor home pulled in right next to us and plugged in. Didn't think much of it. When we came back around 6 PM, a different motor home was there. Again did not seem to matter to us who our neighbor was. Well the next morning just before 6 AM, there is a lot of commotion outside. The original Class C was back for their site and someone else was there. A bit of a shouting match and a little swearing and then it was quiet but only for a short time. Apparently the security from the casino was called, and our current neighbor was unceremoniously asked to leave. I was impress with how quickly he was able to pack up and pull out. Maybe he has done this before?
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