Back to Cincy

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Our drive in to Cincinnati was not without incident. On a sweeping curve of a cloverleaf while traveling about 40-45 MPH, we went over a bad expansion joint and the Jeep started to fishtail wildly. This time I managed to notice it quickly and slow down enough to stop it. This will need to be figured out soon before we end up having serious problems.

We arrived at the campgrounds at FMCA in Newtown and found there were several spots open. This place should work out nicely for us. It is closer to family than staying at East Fork, has full hookups with 50 amp electric and reasonable wi-if.

The FMCA Campground

For other travelers that happen to stay here, check out Main Street Cafe. It's only a couple blocks away so we walked there for lunch one day. We had good burgers and even got some pie for dessert. The Newtown Farmers Market is about 2 miles or so up Round Bottom Road. It has more than a good selection of fruits and vegetables, but also has pies, ice cream and more.

The stay here started with a niece's wedding. It was an outdoor ceremony with rain predicted later in the evening. Unfortunately as luck would have it, a storm was rolling in as everybody was showing up at Alms Park. With occasional lightning strikes in the distance, the bride was walked to the beautiful overlook and the service started. In the first minute, the wind kicked up and blew her veil off. All the guests were sure it was going to start pouring but we were all spared and only had a sprinkle or two during the ceremony. And we all managed to walk up to the building and tent the reception was being held in before it did briefly pour for a few minutes.

The Overlook at Alms Park as Storm Approached

As we tried to sort out what the problem is with the Jeep, we realized that we are experiencing a known problem with this model. In fact, FMCA was responsible for pressuring Jeep into recognizing the problem and coming up with a fix. We had already scheduled the Jeep for a oil change and tire rotation, so we had the dealer check it out. They had never heard of the problem so I was glad we could come in prepared with all the info needed including the part number they needed to order.  The timing would require us to stay a bit longer in the area, but since we had made no reservations for what's next and FMCA was okay with us staying longer than a week, it was fine for us to stay.

We did find this place was very close to the Little Miami Scenic Trail - apparently the 3rd longest paved trail in the US! What is extra nice about it is there are a bunch of geocaches along much of the trail at least in the portion here in the Cincinnati area. During our stay, we have had multiple occasions to either just bike it from the FMCA camp, or to drive to other trailheads to experience different sections. One morning I had Chris drive me up about 10 miles north to Miamiville with the idea of riding back to camp and caching along the way. The first mile was fine but just past Camp Dennison, the trail was closed because of unstable soil conditions. I was worried I would need to go well out of my way in unfamiliar territory but I lucked out and realized route 126 more or less followed the trail into Milford so I only needed to use the road for a mile or so.

One morning we headed up to Goshen to Kathryn Stagge-Marr Community Park. This appeared to be the closest disc golf course. There was only one geocache in the park but we managed to work it in as we played the course. It didn't start out all that well. On the first hole, Chris threw her disc farther than I can remember her ever throwing one. The problem was it wasn't towards the pin, but 90 degrees off the fairway into tall trees and a pond on the other side of the trees. We looked for 10 minutes but suspect it was hung up in a tree and being a perfectly calm day, there was little chance of it falling while we were there.

Gazebo, Big Sycamore and Pond at Disc Golf Park

Since we had extra time here, we headed to the University of Cincinnati campus one day. I had graduated from here about 31 years ago. This isn't my first time back, but each time I'm here it looks so different. We even went into the engineering building to see if I could find my class photo. Even though we saw photos hanging in other departments, apparently the electrical engineering department only has the two most recent class photos hanging up. The Bearcats were practicing so we went to check out the stadium. Within a couple minutes, some guy came over to tell us we could not film the practice session.

Baldwin Engineering Building

McMicken Hall

UC Bearcats Practice

We also headed to Eden Park and did a little exploring. Usually when I would visit this place, the Krohn Conservatory was the real destination, but this time we just walked around the park and checked out the beautiful water tower that is there. It was built in the late 1800's but has not been used in 100 years.

Guarding Over Entrance

Water Tower

Fancier than most Water Towers

Krohn Conservatory

Colorful Grasses

Overlooking Ohio River and Kentucky

Heading South

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We had wanted to stop at Ludington State Park as head south along Lake Michigan. Apparently it is one of the best parks in Michigan and even though it is after Labor Day, we could not get a site for more than 2 days so we decided to head a bit further south along US-31 and stop near Ferrysburg at Hoffmaster State Park. It is also right on Lake Michigan and as we have discovered with most of these parks along the coast, it is composed of lots of sand dunes.

We had made reservations online so when we pulled in at 3 PM and nobody was manning the booth, we called the number listed and got registered. Since rain was expected, we decided to head into town and find a library. As we came back, just after sunset, there was a lot of lightning over the lake heading our way.  As luck would have it, now somebody WAS at the booth so we had to deal with the paperwork for registration. That few minute delay prevented us from making it back to our site before the deluge struck. It was coming down so fast that it was tough to follow the roads back to our rig. As we were prepping dinner, there was a knock at the door telling us to go to the rest rooms if it started to sound like a freight train, or got eerily quite. Fortunately we had nothing more than heavy rains. Our site was not bad, but the next morning showed many of the camp sites under quite a bit of water.

The Morning After Heavy Rains

Dramatic Sunset

There were no "must see" sights from this location but in the 6 days here, we found several interesting spots to visit. Just a couple miles north near Norton Shores was Lake Harbor Park. There were many trails in the park with boardwalks over the dunes overlooking Lake Michigan. But once you got back into the woods, you felt like you were in a completely different place. We had to chuckle at the sign they had posted as you start on the trails. They couldn't keep it simple like "Please pick up after your pet." It felt like some lawyer was trying to show off with their vocabulary.

Clean Up After Your Pet

Some Trails Along Lake Michigan

Colorful Fungis

From Top of Dune Overlooking Parking Lot

We found two mountain biking areas that were fun, but not nearly as challenging as the one in Traverse City.  Pigeon Creek Park had some nice wider trails and was reasonably flat. Plus there were quite a few geocaches there. Another park a bit further south was Riley Trails Park. This one was mostly single track trail but there were so many of them and lots of geocaches to find, that we sometimes felt like were were headed the wrong way. There was one well done cache at Pigeon Creek that was composed of a loop of PVC with the matchstick container at the bottom. To retrieve the log, you needed to use your lung power to shoot it out.

Pigeon Creek Lodge

Chris Prepares

Orange Container Flying Out

We also spent the better part of an afternoon walking the streets of Holland In search of various statues scattered about the downtown area. We also walked the tiny campus of Hope College while we were there.

One of the Statues

Chris Sits Down with Ben

Beautiful Building on Hope College Campus

Just west of downtown Holland is Holland State Park. It borders both Lake Michigan and Lake Makatawa. The day we were there, it was breezy and the Lake was very choppy but many people were heading thru the channel either going to or coming from Lake Michigan. The lighthouse on the southern shore of the channel is called Big Red for good reason. A couple guys were out with some impressive "kites" that made the ones the kids were flying look exceptionally small.

The View From Boardwalk on Dune Above Channel

Small Tug(?) Boat

Looking at Macatawa Bay Marina

Lighthouse "Big Red"

Big House Overlooking Channel

Kite Over Beach

View of Holland Beach from Pier

Hoffmaster State Park has two areas - the campground and the day use area. Early in our visit we had walked the mile from the campground beach to the day use beach. Being a weekday, not too many people were out plus the water was still quite rough from the front that passed through.

Little Black Creek Reaches the Lake

View from Atop a Dune

Walking Across a Sandbar

Driftwood and Waves

The Visitor Center at Hoffmaster is only about a mile down the road between the two of them but we hadn't checked out the hiking trails in the other area until our last day. Of course we timed it so that we were there the one day the visitor's center was closed! But we enjoyed exploring the trails and various boardwalks.

View From Overlook

I got out several nights to check out the sunset over Lake Michigan.  There is a nice campers beach and most evenings, people showed up for the sunsets. One night I went out to do some night sky photography. In theory the beach is closed at 10 PM but there wasn't anybody there so I stayed out past that.  Around 10:45, I saw flashlights coming my way and realized it was three guys. At first I was concerned they were going to take my gear, but it was a park ranger telling me I wasn't supposed to be there. Once he saw what I was doing and wasn't out causing trouble, he told me to finish up and try to be out in twenty minutes.

Click on Photo to See Better Quality

Our next stop is Cincinnati with a stop near the halfway point in Kokomo Indiana. As we approached the highway in heading out of Kokomo, we could see right where a tornado had rolled through just a few weeks ago. One building destroyed and several others with roof damage plus numerous trees that had been snapped.

As we headed out and started to Cincinnati, it seemed like our "vacation" was over. It's still hard to believe this is our life now. It will be good to see family at the wedding before we head out to who knows where.

Other Trips around Traverse City

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Having found a few other things we wanted to do around the area, we ended up staying at Traverse City State Park an extra night for a total of six nights. One of my cousins lives a little over an hours drive from here. We hadn't seen each other in quite some time, maybe on the order of 30 years! She and her boyfriend drove down one day and after having lunch and catching up a bit, we decided to drive up one of the arms in the Traverse Bay Area and visit a few wineries.

Me and My Cousin

The Mission Arm effectively splits the Grand Traverse Bay in half. It was a very pretty day and the scenery was quite nice. We stopped at Chateau Chantal Winery. This winery was very busy. We had to wait 10 minutes before we were guided to the tasting area. One interesting option was to pick out 3 wines you want to taste, they pour them into 3 glasses, label them with a marker and then you head out to the big patio/deck to enjoy the views.

Nice View at Winery

Our next stop was 2 Lads Winery. This was a smaller one but it had a great view. It too was busy, so you get a number so you can check out the gift shop while you wait. The wine was apparently good enough there for each of us to pick up some to go.

View at 2 Lads

Since we had explained geocaching to our visitors (or are we the visitors?), we decided to kill two birds with one stop and head to the tip of the peninsula to see the Old Mission Lighthouse and do a nearby geocache. Again lots of people were there, but since it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon on Labor Day weekend, maybe not surprising. My cousin used one of our GPSr units and not only led the way but made the find too. It was great to catch up even if it was only for a handful of hours.

Old Mission Lighthouse

Jack and Chris Enjoying the Trip

Another find we made while in Traverse City was a great mountain biking area called the VASA Trail Single Track Loop. There is a big loop with two cutoff trails making for 3 options - a 3 mile easy loop, an 11 mile intermediate loop, or a 13 mile advanced loop. Since the geocaches were all placed along the intermediate loop, we picked that one. The trails are in excellent condition. Since we were stopping for all the geocaches, I never got too far ahead of Chris before she caught up to me. The terrain was not too steep and although there are plenty of sandy sections, none of them were very long or deep, so it was fairly easy to get thru as long as you kept your speed up.

One other day of biking was along some of the other trails in and around the city. The TART trail is actually right behind the campgrounds with a gated entrance between the two.  We followed the trail west into town before it turns north and heads to the various beach areas along the Grand Traverse Bay. On our way back, we headed south down the eastern side of Boardman Lake on the trail similarly named. This was a fun ride and other than the very southern section of the trail was all paved although the gravel portion was in great shape and not an issue. We ended up doing over 17 miles and got to see a lot of the town.

Along Grand Traverse Bay

Marina in Traverse City

Interesting Artwork

Beach at Clinch Park

Some of the interesting sights along the trails were plaques describing the various planets of our solar system. Including a hanging piece of art depicting each one. The visitor's center had something right outside the front door that I had never seen before. It was a bike rack with about 8 tools one might need to fix a broken down bike including a pump with both Presta and Shrader fittings. I was almost sad I didn't need to use it at that time. At Boardman Lake, a guy on a jet ski had a customer in a pair of those water shooting boots - apparently called fly boarding. It looked to be quite difficult to master. In the 10 minutes we stopped to watch, I don't think he ever was upright for more than 15 seconds at a time and only a couple feet above the water before usually having some spectacular crash back into the water.

Bike Rack, Hanging Tools and Pump

Flyboarding

View at Geocache on Boardman Lake Trail

The Southern End of Boardman Lake

After dinner one evening, I decided to head back to the VASA trail by myself to really enjoy the great trail without needing to worry about Chris having problems. Maybe I should have been more concerned for my safety. Since I had limited daylight to work with, I stuck with the 11 mile loop hoping to be done in an hour. I was doing great for the first two thirds of the loop. There is one section where the trees are very close to the trail with less than a foot clearance for your handlebars. I smacked my right shoulder into a tree. The impact actually swung the bike around so I could keep going with only a sore arm. Shortly after this I got to this one switchback turn where I was unable to unclip a shoe from my pedal when I lost my forward momentum, I simply fell over on my left side. I laid there on the trail looking up at the fading daylight through the tree canopy and realized neither I nor the bike were seriously hurt and made my way back to the car. It ended up taking 70 minutes so I wasn't too far from my one hour goal.

We did one more trip up the Mission Arm to do a couple more wineries and a geocache with a large number of favorite points. The cache is named Old Mission Inn and Out. It is at an inn that wasn't busy the day we were there. As we pull in the driveway, the arrow on the GPSr is pointing straight ahead at a small out building and we thought, "that has to be it". Sure enough the old looking outhouse was the hiding spot. Since my hands were full with the camera and the GPSr, I had Chris go in for the grab!

What Greeted Us

Approaching the Cache

Also Found His Changing Room

Next we headed to Chateau Grand Traverse Winery. They were one of the few wineries that actually give tours of the facility. We got there in time for the 2 PM tour.  It was a small group with only 3 couples but it was interesting to see their operation. We managed to finish the tour before the torrential downpour struck while we were at the tasting bar. By the time we left, it had briefly let up. Only to start pouring again just as we got to Brys Estate Winery. This is a much smaller place with only 8 wines to pick from. One last stop was over to the Leelanau Peninsula and to the Mawby Vineyards. They only produce sparkling wines. A couple samples there and it was time to head back for dinner.

View of the Vineyard

Lots of Wine!

Bottling Line Down for Preventative Maintenance