2015 Fall Western Trip: Gouverneur to Michigan

Time for another road trip.  This past May, Judy and I took our camper to Oregon and back over a 30 day period.  That was the trip where we got married.  I guess you could call it a "destination wedding."  This Fall, we are again going to Oregon and California, but this time it will be a more slow and relaxed trip.  Over the next eight weeks or so, we plan to take more and longer stops to catch up with friends and family.

Of course the two Zoeys are coming along.  Also, we have a new and different camper from the one we used in May.  The previous camper was giving us a lot of mechanical issues, and quite frankly, we are just too old to deal with breakdowns.  So we bit the bullet and traded.  We now have a 2016 Reflection by Grand Design.  It is a relatively new company, and so far we are impressed with the quality and features.  Time will tell.

New camper: Reflection by Grand Design

Tuesday, September 8:  First stop, Evangola State Park along Lake Erie in Western NY.  Boy, the time to camp is the day after Labor Day.  The park was nearly empty.  There ended up being only six campers on our loop.  We had a great spot on site 40 with electricity only.  This would be a very nice campground to use as a base camp to explore the western NY wine country.

Site 40, Evangola State Park

View of Lake Erie from the campground.

Wednesday, September 9:  Maumee Bay State Park near Toledo, Ohio.  This park is AMAZING!!  There are 256 sites, all with electricity, and there is not a bad one anywhere.  All the sites have paved and level pads.  The grass is lush and mowed.  The sites are large and quite private.  We had a site with a wonderful pond view.  Maumee Bay is probably the nicest state park we have ever stayed at.  The park includes a huge beach on Lake Erie, an 18 hole Scottish Highlands golf course, and a nature center that has a two mile boardwalk through wetlands.  We did the boardwalk.  It was great exercise, and the scenery was beautiful.  It presented a great picture of what this once huge swamp (often called The Great Black Swamp) on the south side of Lake Erie looked like before it was drained and settled 200 years ago.

Site 99, Maumee Bay State Park

Pond view from the camper dinette

Sunset over the pond

Swamp boardwalk

Thursday, September 10:  East Lansing, Michigan.  Parked in the driveway of my sister, Mary Ann and her husband, Eric.  We had a short drive today, only about three hours.  We didn't check out of Maumee until about noon, and arrived at Mary Ann's by three.  The camper was a tight fit for the driveway, but it worked.  We spent the evening catching up and planning the next few day's activities.

Please let us in.

We will hang around here until Sunday.  Then we pack up and head to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.