Thursday night was to be our last night in a campground. We spent it in Hungry Mother State Park in Virginia.  The next morning, we didn’t have much to do or far to go, so we slept in and went on a drive through Marion, VA trying to find a local coffee shop.  After getting my morning dose of caffeine, we decided to go get some laundry done.

For whatever reason, we couldn’t find a laundromat in Marion, so we drove to a tiny nearby town where we found a nice laundromat.  There was plenty of space to park the RV, and no one else was there.  We finished our laundry and made lunch, and then it was on to Abingdon, VA.

In Abingdon, we made a Wal-Mart run to get some food for our last couple of days, and then we left for our final destination – our friends’ Mike and Eva’s home in Mendota, Virginia.

Mendota is a tiny town in southwest Virginia that Charlie and I initially stumbled on when we attended a talk at their community center regarding organic gardening.  After the very informative talk, we began our drive to nearby Abingdon, Virginia.  The GPS routed us initially down a dirt road that turned to pavement following beside a beautiful river.  Water and the mountains – two things that call to me often, probably from my earliest memories in Guntersville, Alabama.

A few years later, Charlie and I were searching for an AirBNB to get out of town together for a quiet weekend.  I stumbled across a place in Mendota, Virginia that sounded perfect. We only later discovered that this was the little community where we had attended the talk and to which I was so drawn by the mountains and river.  Charlie and I have treasured our visits to Mendota not only for the time we have spent together there, but also for the friendships that we made with the owners of the AirBNB, Mike and Eva. 

This last stop on our 2 month vacation brought us back to Mendota.  We were finally able to introduce a few of our children to Mike and Eva.  While Mike and Charlie were getting the RV all situated at their place, the kids and I walked up to the house to find Eva doing one of my favorite activities: canning!

Later, Mike asks the kids what project he and Charlie could make for me while we were there.  I initially thought he was joking around but quickly discovered he wasn’t.  The last time we had been in Mendota, Mike and Charlie had made picture frames for me out of some rough-cut wood that Mike had lying around.  These frames were exactly what I had been wanting for a display of barn pictures I had taken over the years.

So when I realized that Mike and Charlie really wanted to build something for me, I remembered something I had seen once: a vegetable storage rack.  On Saturday morning, we found some building plans for this contraption, and Mike and Charlie headed out to go purchase the materials (as well as several other errands). 

Eva, the kids, and I spent the day visiting and took the kids to a movie.  It was such a relaxing, fun day.  We had hoped to go tubing down the river, but the area had received so much rain recently that the river was running too quickly for tubing or kayaking.  Of course, this just gives us a reason to come back another time.  We wrapped up the day with some delicious grilled meats and vegetables.  The local corn that Charlie grilled was definitely my favorite!

We managed to find a large state park in Ohio called Salt Fork State Park to camp in for the night.  There were several state parks that I would have liked to stay in, but their campgrounds were full, so I was grateful to find this one!

After leaving the state park this morning, we were initially planning to drive to Breaks Interstate Park on the border of Kentucky and Virginia.  We have stayed at The Breaks a couple of times in the past and loved it.  It is in a remote area in coal mining country that we have found to be absolutely beautiful, so we knew we would enjoy spending the night there again.

As we discussed our route, Charlie decided he would really prefer to head to Bramwell, West Virginia instead of going to The Breaks.  Bramwell is a neat, old town in West Virginia that at one time had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the United States.  There are many large, beautiful homes that were built by coal mining millionaires in the late 1800s. 

But the reason that we really like to visit Bramwell, is that they have a great, old-fashioned soda shop, The Corner Shop.  Charlie and I stumbled across this place a few years ago when we were taking a long weekend out of town together.  We enjoyed it so much that a few years later, we brought the family back on a Saturday (at their urging (or should I say begging?)) to celebrate Mother’s Day that weekend.  Well, a couple of kids had dealt with a stomach bug earlier that week, and we found out after we made it to The Corner Shop (a 4 hour drive), that the stomach bug had not finished going through our family.  That was a rough drive home with probably 4 kids or so coming down with the stomach bug.  Needless to say, we wanted to make new memories at The Corner Shop!

We all had delicious burgers, hand-crafted sodas, and ice creams for dessert!  I can’t begin to tell you how stuffed I was, and I didn’t even finish my dessert or have my own soda!  We definitely made some new memories there and finished our visit to Bramwell with a walk around the town. 

What a great day!

Rebecca

The Michigan State Park that we spent the night at was nice and roomy and right by the shower house, which my girls who left would have loved.  I prefer my own private bathroom in the camper, but several of the kids like to have a good bathhouse for their showers.  We had no water hookups in this campground, so I took advantage of the bathhouse for my shower in the morning, which helped me get my morning off to a great start.

Charlie’s one gripe about this place had to do with his walk that he took the night before.  He tried walking around the campground to get some exercise (and Charlie does not go slow on his walks), but he couldn’t take a breath of fresh air for all the smell of weed in the area.  He ended up leaving the campground to walk on the main park road to avoid the toxic air. 

While I understand that this is now legal in many states, it is very frustrating for those of us who don’t want to poison our bodies in this way to not have any choice over the second-hand smoke.  This definitely gives me a greater appreciation of what people had to put up with in the days when cigarette smoking was more proficient.

Anyway, we pulled out of our campground with Kidron, OH as our next destination.  But before we could get on the way to Ohio, AnaClaire wanted us to drive through St. Clair, Michigan so that we could get a picture.  I wanted to take a picture of her beside a St. Clair sign, but since the only sign we saw was in the middle of a roundabout, I just took a picture as we were driving by instead of risking our necks to get a picture of her with the sign.

The drive to Ohio was a nice one, especially after we were able to get off the interstate.  I would love to drive around and take pictures of old barns in Ohio.  Many of them have a lot of character and “speak to me.”  (My kids love to find old barns and ask me if that barn “speaks to me” as I’m picky about which barns I want to photograph.)  With me not being the driver for the majority of the trip, I haven’t had much opportunity to photograph barns.  I shouldn’t pick on Charlie too much, he has been very good at pulling over for me to get many photographs.  Barns just haven’t happened on this trip.

We drove to Kidron because of a specific store that is located there, Lehman’s.  Lehman’s is located in Ohio’s Amish country.  They sell a wide variety of products for a simpler life, especially items that are less focused on electricity.  I’ve purchased canning products in bulk there for years and would love to purchase one of their wood cook stoves some day.  We picked up a couple books, a new butchering saw, a bread proofing basket, some cane sugar specialty soda treats, etc.  It was a great deal of fun to walk around that place for an hour or so.  Maybe one day I’ll be able to go back with a truck and trailer to pick up some of their bigger items 😊

Lehman’s had been in my bucket-list for years, so this was a great deal of fun for me!

Rebecca

Since we weren’t in a hurry, we decided to continue driving more of the scenic route along Lake Huron through the lower peninsula of Michigan.  We stopped along a couple scenic or beach sites along the lake to get out, take pictures, put feet in the water, etc.

It was a fairly warm day in Michigan, and the humidity was higher than I was expecting it to be.  I know this isn’t correct, but I tend to think of the Deep South and the Southeast as being the humid areas of the country.  However, the further east we drive, the more humidity we have encountered.  In Michigan, I’m just grateful for low 80s with high humidity.  I told AnaClaire that at least we are becoming slowly more adjusted to the heat and humidity and aren’t just showing up off a plane in South Carolina to high 90s with high humidity from 70s and low humidity. 

We needed to do something other than just ride in the RV and see edges of the lake while driving through small towns, so we pulled into East Tawas, MI, to see their lighthouse.  It was a great stop for an hour or so.  We were able to tour the lightkeeper’s home and then climb the lighthouse, which had only been decommissioned in 2016.  I found a Raggedy Ann doll sitting on a bed that was just like one I had as a child.  That brought back good memories.  Dominic said that the doll gave him the creeps.

The kids really wanted to go swimming at the beach by the lighthouse since evidently this was a much sandier beach along Lake Huron than most, but we had several hours still to drive before we reached the state park where we were spending the night.  After this point, we abandoned continuing to drive by the lake in the interest of time and took the interstate.  It was still around 8:00pm when we pulled into the campground, but 8:00pm is a lot better than 10:00pm.  Tomorrow, we’ll be leaving Michigan.

Rebecca

We stayed overnight in Marquette, Michigan, a great city on the shores of Lake Superior.  The Marquette Tourist Park was a great campground.  When we pulled out this morning, we noticed several large families who were camping in close proximity to each other.  This made us smile with memories of many Catholic homeschooling campout days.  One of my disappointments of this trip is that we are on such a full schedule that we aren’t taking much time to really enjoy the fun of being in a campground (enjoying nature, campfires, outdoor cooking, meeting other families, relaxing outside with a book in a camp chair). 

Charlie finished his third book last night (I’m so proud of him for doing so much reading and enjoying it!), so we went to find a bookstore in Marquette this morning.  I picked out two books for him (one of which has a sequel and the other is the beginning of a series), and we got on the road.  We saw a bakery on the way out, so we stopped and purchased some muffins, a scone, some bread, and a gluten free dessert for Charlie.

We then drove from Marquette east along the Lake Superior edge of the Upper Peninsula for a ways before turning south to drive along Lake Michigan again.  We ventured out of the RV here and there along whichever lake we were traveling beside and aimed for St. Ignace and Mackinaw City for the night.  We crossed the Mackinac Bridge going around 30mph due to the crosswinds over the bridge and the height of the RV. 

On the south side of the Mackinac Bridge we stayed at a campground with frontage on Lake Huron called Tee Pee Campground.  After we leveled the RV and got everything hooked up, Charlie thought he would take us out to dinner.  We walked a little over a mile into Mackinaw City and found a pizza joint for dinner.  The walk back was good for all of us who overate!

When we got back to the campground, we walked down to the beach to enjoy some relaxing time by the water.  They had some nice wooden multi-person swings right along the beach that we sat in and chatted for a while.  Then it was back to the RV to help Dominic with his math and settle in to finish my book.  It was nice to have an evening that was more relaxing.

Rebecca

The girls got up and left around 6:00am to start driving home.  The rest of us went back to sleep for a little while.  After spending some time debating where we wanted to go on our way home, since we still have a week left, we decided that we would go ahead and drive to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan anyway.  There wasn’t as much time to do what we really wanted to do in Michigan, but we decided that driving through and making a few stops would be worth it. 

We drove northeast through Wisconsin towards Green Bay seeing lots of large scale corn farming.  We even saw an ethanol manufacturing facility.  Once we made it to Green Bay, we followed the western coast of the bay towards Michigan. 

I kept looking at the map trying to determine where to go next.  When I realized that we really weren’t that far from the northern coast of the upper peninsula of Michigan and Lake Superior, we decided that would be our goal for today.  We finished our drive up to Marquette, Michigan, and found a campground to crash in. 

These drives through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan have all been so beautiful and full of trees.  Each of them has called out to my heart as a serene place to homestead and raise a family.  I’ve loved all of the small towns, each with their own unique character.  I see so many signs about certain places only being open May through October and wonder what the winters must be like there for so many businesses to shut down for so many months.

I’ve realized for a long time that my personality often leans to the explorer side.  I love to go explore places that I haven’t seen before.  Taking a quick drive through the peninsulas of Michigan or the Northwoods of Minnesota only whets my curiosity.  I’m constantly drawn to want to drive down this or that little road.  I want to find the places that only locals know about or where this road goes.  In my own little dream world, I want to come live in some of these places, if only for a few months.  I want to learn about the herbs, flowers, and trees that grow in the area.  Even more, I want to collect some of those herbs that don’t grow near me and learn how to preserve and use them.

Maybe one day I’ll get an opportunity to take a deeper dive into some of these places that are so different from South Carolina, if it is God’s will for me.  God has put me in South Carolina for the past 40 years and has filled my soul with exploring and adventures of many different kinds.  I’ve been very blessed throughout my life.  Even the trials have been blessings in many different ways.  I am so grateful for these past two months exploring with and spending time with my family.

Rebecca

When we pulled into our campground at Scenic State Park, I noticed that most all campers had a screened tent over top of their picnic table.  We didn’t bring one of those.  I immediately thought… mosquitoes, and knew that we’d be spending our evening inside the camper. 

Charlie made hamburgers in the cast iron frying pan for dinner along with gluten free mac and cheese and peas.  It was delicious.  While he was cooking, I read some more of our literature book with the kids.  We’re nowhere near finishing, but we’re making progress.

While hanging out in the camper for the evening, we discussed our plans for the next week.  Annette really wanted to be back in SC for an awards banquet for her boyfriend.  Amelia has a cheer camp that starts the day we are supposed to be returning.  We decided that we would let Alex, Annette, and Amelia leave early with the Honda to drive back to South Carolina. 

They will be leaving Sunday morning.  We have a friend’s house that they can stop and spend the night at, and Alex and Annette can share the driving.  They wanted to stay one more night (tonight) with us, so we decided to drive in the direction of home instead of following our original plan to go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 

We decided to prioritize going to Pepin, WI, the birthplace of Laura Ingalls Wilder and the location of her book Little House in the Big Woods.  Pepin is on the western border of Wisconsin on the Mississippi River, so we drove through Minnesota toward Duluth and then down toward St Paul.  There were so many things that I had intended to do.  I wanted to stop in Duluth to go to the Duluth Trading Company store (they have some good quality clothing that I really enjoy) and to see Lake Superior, but we drove right through instead, not feeling that we really had the time to stop. 

After driving through the cities, we crossed the Mississippi into Wisconsin and got on the Great River Road which follows the Mississippi River through several states, all the way to the Gulf.  This road was so scenic.  I love driving through small town America.  I would highly recommend that drive if you get along the Mississippi River area anywhere.  Again, we didn’t have much time to stop, so we drove straight to Pepin.

In Pepin, we went to the museum first.  They had some Laura Ingalls Wilder history there as well as some of the history of local people that would have been a part of her life (the local doctor and Laura’s first teacher).  They also had just general memorabilia from the time period (1870s) such as spinning wheels, looms, original clothing, cooking items, tools, etc., as well as history specific to Pepin and Wisconsin. What I found the most interesting was a family tree that actually showed multiple marriages between the Quiner (Laura’s mother’s family) and the Ingalls families, so that Laura and her sisters actually had double cousins. 

After we finished at the museum, we drove to a replica house where Laura was born that was built on her parents’ original property.  Since we showed up on a Saturday, we were fortunate to have some living history historians present.  They were able to tell us more about living in that time period.  The weather was beautiful, and the setting was so peaceful.  Their house was seven miles from the town of Pepin, and we were told that the road to Pepin was the same road (only paved) that was present in the 1870s.  This allowed me to imagine Laura’s few trips of riding into town since it would have taken considerable time.

We didn’t spend much time there as we needed to make it to a 4:30 Mass that afternoon, so we headed out to the town of Wabasha.  I love it when you are driving into a town or city and you see the spire(s) of a beautiful church in the distance.  As you get closer to this beautiful church, you’re really hoping that it is the Catholic Church of the town that you are seeing.  This is what was happening as we drove into Wabasha (which is back in the state of Minnesota.)  I was so excited to see that we were making turns to reach this beautiful church that I had seen in the distance.  This beautiful church turned out to be St. Felix.  We easily found a parking spot for the RV on the road and went inside for Mass.

After Mass we continued driving (it was a long day of driving on Saturday).  We found a Thousand Trails campground outside of Wisconsin Dells and settled in for the night.

Rebecca

Our next destination from the area of Theodore Roosevelt NP was to drive to Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota.  It was a long drive, so we planned to break it up into two days. 

Along our drive, we saw a sign for the “Geographical Center of North America,” in Rugby, ND.  We stopped and took pictures at the marker point.  I thought that was a really neat place to be and amazing to think that this point is all the way in North Dakota!

At the same turnoff for the geographical center point was a Pioneer Museum.  It was lunch time too, and we needed a break from driving, so we pulled in there.  Charlie made lunch while the kids and I went in to start looking around. 

It wasn’t at all what I thought it would be.  I thought the museum would be focused on settling these prairie lands of ND and the difficulties that these pioneers faced.  Instead, it was collections of some of the historic family stories and their donated historic items, some from settlement days and others that were more recent.  It was a large museum with many different buildings representing various businesses, schools, homes, churches, etc.

We saw an old train station, a blacksmith’s shop, a dress shop, a creamery, a telephone office, a couple of homes, a couple of schools, a church, etc.  One of my favorite displays was actually of an old telephone switchboard.  I explained to the kids what that was as they definitely weren’t familiar with the concept.

While it may not have been what I thought it would be, the museum was full of old, intriguing items, and we had a great time. Charlie did finish making lunch and made it into the museum. I thought I would switch with him and do the cleanup, but I went in to finish my tour, and he went in at the same time. Before I knew it, he was done with the tour, and I wasn’t anywhere near finishing!

We continued on our journey and stayed just over the Minnesota line in the Red River State Recreation area along the Red River of the North in E Grand Forks, MN, and managed to get laundry done that night too.

On Friday, we finished our journey to Voyageurs; only we encountered a few problems.  When we arrived at the first visitor center (Rainy Lake), we could find absolutely no parking for the RV.  There was a great deal of parking places for longer vehicles, but showing up at a national park that is based on the lakes of the area on a Friday afternoon, just wasn’t a good idea.  The parking was full of trucks with boat trailers and none of them were leaving.  We tried to find a campsite in the area, but everything was booked.  We looked online near the other visitor centers for the park, but still there were no campgrounds with any availability.  I finally found one state park with one available site that was an hour and a half away.  We decided to just forego doing much of anything at Voyageurs and head to the state park. 

On our way to Scenic State Park, I really did enjoy the scenery.  This area is considered the Northwoods of Minnesota.  It’s very rural and full of trees and lakes as well as some large scale farming.  I was just enjoying the scenery instead of taking pictures, so I don’t have much to share, unfortunately. 

Rebecca

We managed to find a campground in North Dakota that only left us with an hourish drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The park is divided up into three different units: North, South, and Elkhorn Ranch.  Elkhorn Ranch is the ranch that Roosevelt once owned and enjoyed spending time at.  It is a more remote section of the park on the western side.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get over there even though the remoteness is usually more of our thing.

We started out in the South Unit.  At the visitor center, we learned more about Roosevelt in the area.  In total, he didn’t really spend that much time there.  It was more of a vacation home for him.  He originally traveled to North Dakota to hunt bison.  Before returning home from his hunting trip, he purchased a majority interest in some ranch land, cattle, and a brand.   He divided his time between New York and North Dakota.  He returned to North Dakota to grieve after his first wife died in childbirth.  To make matters even worse for him, his mother died of typhoid on the same day as his wife and in the same house. 

At the visitor center, we were able to se the Maltese Cross cabin that Roosevelt had built as a place to live while he was at the first ranch that he purchased in North Dakota.  Later he sold that ranch and purchased a different ranch: Elkhorn Ranch.  During his time in North Dakota, he witnessed the misuse of many natural resources and realized that these resources would be gone permanently if something wasn’t done.  He began to make conservation a major focus of his political career. 

We took the scenic drive through the South Unit and then drove on to the North Unit, which was a little more remote and less-visited.  These badlands of North Dakota felt very much like Badlands National Park, except there seemed to be more grass up in the North Dakota area.  It was extremely hot, reaching over 100 degrees with hardly any opportunities for shade.  Most of the wildlife were probably hiding out in various cooler spots.  We did see some wild horses as well as a bison or two and plenty of prairie dogs.

We capped off the day in a campground in Watford City, ND where we were treated to what we call a “Damien Sunset” (full of purple and orange) and the rising of an almost full orange moon. 

Rebecca

Our destination for today was the Badlands of South Dakota (I never realized before, but there are Badlands in North Dakota too.)  We filled our propane tank for the first time on this entire trip before we left our campground at Custer Crazy Horse in SD.  The kids really enjoyed a unique soda shop that we had found in Hill City and were able to get discounted refills in their previously purchased cups, so we stopped by the soda shop on the way out. 

The kids were evidently chatting with the employees and told them that there were 10 children in our family, to which the employees responded by giving them two large bags of free popcorn.  Needless to say, we had some happy kids at the start of our journey that day!

Our drive to the Badlands was only around 2 hours.  We stopped at the visitor center first and took in the film before beginning our drive.  We considered doing a short, easy hike or two, but it was on the hot side outside, and we decided not to push Alex.  Alex, though, was suggesting a really cool-sounding hike that was absolutely not a good idea for her to do (typical Alex).  Instead, we just stayed in the comfort of our air-conditioned vehicles and ventured out periodically to take pictures, read signs, and just admire the views.

The Badlands are gorgeous but seem very inhospitable to much human life.  I was never able to ask the question, but I was constantly wondering how well bison survive there too.  In areas there was definitely grass for them to eat, but I just wonder how close they get to the edge of some of the canyons or if their weight could even just make some portions of the sandy-looking cliffs disintegrate beneath them.

Following the Badlands, we began our drive to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.  Talk about some grasslands…

Rebecca