R and J in the USA

Once Julie’s birthday celebrations were over, we both turned our attention to the huge task ahead of us. Get caught up on writing about the eleven states we’d visited in the prior two months, and build a new itinerary we could be confident we could stick to without needing to spend more time changing it again. This meant needing to learn the lessons from June about what was a sustainable pace, balancing seeing all we wanted to see with having enough time to rest, relax, and stay energized. It also meant getting the blog written and posted and getting at least six states ahead in our day-to-day itinerary planning.

Beginning first thing the next morning, July 31st, we spent every single day for a week working from the moment we woke up until it was time for dinner, excepting stops for eating, bathroom, relocation to different spots, and the occasional jump into the nearest gorgeous body of water for a short dip. Every couple of days, we’d end the evening with a short jog to keep some semblance of running shape for when we returned to our regular 5K routine. Since we both were waking up at 5:00-6:00 AM, that often meant working 10-12 hours per day writing, organizing and uploading pictures, and mapping out state-by-state itineraries. Julie was doing all the itineraries, Ryan was handling pictures, and we divvied out the writing responsibilities. Every night, we would figure out where we would be staying the next night. We were focused, determined to catch up to our present moment on these trip projects, and loving every second of being in upper Michigan for the duration. 

We had fallen slightly in love with the campground we had stayed at for Julie’s birthday, Barnes Park Campground, a reasonably priced campground with full hookups run by the county. It had easy access to the gorgeous beach on Grand Traverse Bay and was just one mile away from the stunning and beloved swimmer’s itch source, Torch Lake. Every day we’d go in and ask in the office if they had a site available for the night. They were usually booked all summer, but if one was willing to change sites every night, which we were, there was usually one site open, as campers had different arrival and departure times for their summer vacation plans.

Each day for about three days we would decide between setting up our van on the north shores of Torch Lake or heading over to our beloved Elk Rapids for our workday. The first day we had visited Elk Rapids, we had spotted a sign that signaled their big summer festival would begin midweek, and we would be there for it. After a long day of Bootcamp, we got to indulge in the joys of a small-town festival. We love them, and it’s even better when we simply stumble upon them. We partook in kettle corn, took in the local car show that shut down half of the Main Street, and enjoyed the atmosphere, the street food, and the music. 

When we hit Saturday, Barnes Park Campground had no spare sites available. We’d need to find a new place to rest our heads that night. One of the stops we had originally planned to make before we turned our attention away from exploring the state to focusing on getting our projects done was a medium sized town called Charlevoix, from which the ferry to Beaver Island leaves. We had been disappointed to not have time for a Beaver Island visit as we’d originally planned, but were content with all the other fantastic places we were seeing. We decided to head towards Charlevoix to check out some of the iOverlander spots we’d seen listed.

On our way to Charlevoix we stumbled upon a must-see sight that we didn’t realize we needed to see – the world’s largest cherry pie. In 1976, as part of America’s bicentennial fervor, a cherry pie weighing in at a respectable 17,420 pounds, (yes, you read that right) was baked as part of Charlevoix’s annual cherry festival, and its pie pan was there on display. The record was surpassed by Traverse City bakers in 1987, but for those eleven years how Charlevoix did shine.

At this moment, we realized we had made a serious oversight by not including superlatives as part of our itinerary planning. We vowed that, for the rest of the states, we would make sure to research the claims to fame of esoteric grandiosity the country had to display as we traveled through it. 

After gawking at the massive cherry pie tin with its replica pie slice, we drove into Charlevoix, a hopping little waterside town. It was ablaze in full summer activity. The Caribbean blue waters continued up this way. We considered setting up there for the night, but decided the parking spots we found where we could overnight camp weren’t exactly what we were looking for. We decided to head further north to another iOverlander spot that had great reviews in a little town called Petoskey, another tourist town on Lake Michigan. 

The spot we found was a slice of pure heaven, and we weren’t the only ones that thought that! There were three or four vans also making this waterside parking spot their home for the night. There were views, swimming, and a long bike path right there, and the charming town of Petoskey just a few blocks away. We knew we’d found where we would ride out the rest of our Blog and Itinerary Bootcamp. We spent two out of the next four nights at a nearby State Park to enjoy their beach and all the amenities of a campground – dump stations, dumpsters, showers, and electric hookups – and the other two nights in our free parking spot with a view. 

Julie biked the bike path and was so impressed by the bike trails of northern Michigan. As she biked, she rode past the Top of Michigan Trails Council, an organization with a mission to create and promote a network of recreational trails throughout northern Michigan. She was grateful for their efforts and their successes as she biked by!

We took our evening runs through Bay Harbor Park and the town of Petoskey. At one point, Ryan pointed out something or other about the town that was interesting, charming or quirky in some way. Julie’s response was, “That’s Petoskey for ya.” The phrase immediately stuck and has become our go to phrase to sum up our feelings of affection, not just for Petoskey, but for every place we go, and for each other too. Everything we saw for the next few days elicited a, “That’s Petoskey for ya.” It just has a certain ring to it. We found it works for things that have nothing to do with Petoskey. Anytime someone would do something in the van worth commenting on, the other would pipe up, “That’s Petoskey for ya.” Writing this eight states and one and a half months later, wherever we are, when something charms us, is quirky, or is just worth pointing out with endearment and affection, it just rolls off the tongue. “That’s Petoskey for ya.” It doesn’t have to actually be Petoskey to be Petoskey for ya…at least not in our book.

Throughout the trip, we have been composting our food waste in a 5-gallon bucket. In addition to making Julie happy philosophically, it significantly cuts down on our garbage and keeps the van from smelling like rotting food, which is nice. When we hit the road, we just crossed our fingers that we’d find places to dump the food waste. So far, it has worked out quite auspiciously. We had a friendly farmer in New Jersey welcome us to add it to his yard waste pile and, since then, had found help from municipal sources. It’s no surprise that Vermont had food waste compost buckets right alongside their recycling and dumpsters in their state parks. We were surprised, however to see the same big green municipal “food waste only” compost bin behind the grocery store in Petoskey. It was a natural foods store, so that makes more sense, but it did seem to be some larger scale composting operation. It was perfect timing. Having been eight states since our last dumping, our 5-gallon bucket was filled to the top. 

When we started our Blog and Itinerary Bootcamp on July 31st, we knew we’d have to put a cap on it, even though our goal had been to stay in place in Michigan until it was done so we could enjoy being on the road without having something that we constantly needed to catch up on. That said, in order to actually be able to build the itinerary, we had to have a solid leave date to build the rest of the itinerary around. We decided we’d leave Michigan by the evening of August 9th (with a contingency plan to leave the morning of the 10th). We realized, ready or not, we’d need to leave our “stay in place” approach on August 7th to finish our tour of Michigan. By August 7th, after a full week of giving these projects our almost complete attention, much was finished, but much was not. We would need to carry on regardless.