Road Trip Review - Lake Michigan Loop - 1080 miles

Late August 2020, and its in the middle of the COVID epidemic. My kids and I are getting stir crazy, so Angee, Matt and I decided to take a camping road trip around Lake Michigan. Since we each had to take some vacation time, and we didn’t want to be gone too long, we decided to focus on the areas of Lake Michigan that we had not ever been. Since we are from Southeast Wisconsin, and we had already been to Terry Andre State Park, and Port Washington and Sturgeon Bay, we went straight for the Upper Peninsula to start our adventure.

Day 1 – Escanaba.

We left after work and headed straight to Escanaba, to set up camp at my sister’s house. She bought my grandparents land, and this piece of property has been in the family for 100 years! My cousin Amy and her family was staying there, and I had not seen Amy for about 30 years, so it was a great time to catch up. We got there just before sunset, after a thunderstorm had just passed. Our weather app was showing a HUGE band of storms still coming. I was going to be ok in the campervan, but the kids decided to set up their tents in the garage, to stay out of the rain. That garage has been known to have snakes in it, so we teased them about snakes and assured them that they don’t come above ground unless it recently rained … lol. Amy’s husband Walter caught sight of Matt’s guitar, and convinced Matt to take it out, we sat around and talked, and Walter and Matt played music for a few hours. It was a great night, and the storm ended up passing to the south, so the tents would have been fine on the grass after all.

Day 2 – Yupper waterfalls and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

We did a quick tour of Escanaba before headed north, and visited the park on the lake, then went down the main street (Ludington). Angee stopped to take photos of The Ludington House, an Escanaba mural, and of Just Ask/Gus Asp – but later learned that there was no sim card in her camera, so we don’t have those photos. ☹. There is a nice open-air farmers market downtown now, and we stopped in and bought bread and cookies from a couple of the vendors.

Going north, we stopped a couple of waterfalls on the way to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore – we really enjoyed Wagner Falls, which is just south of Munising. Of course, the “best” part is always past where the fence is, so we hopped the fence and walked along the river to enjoy more of the scenery – VERY Beautiful.

We made a quick stop at the Pictured Rock overlook of Lake Superior, then headed east to Sullivan’s Landing, and a hike to the Au Sable Lighthouse. It said we would see shipwrecks along the way, but we didn’t see any. The beach here had beautiful polished stones along the way, smaller than a fist, but then there was one part where the stones were just as polished, but much larger – more like the size of a basketball.

We once again headed east and stopped in Grand Marais for dinner at the Grand Marais Tavern. The pizza was amazing! Then, we were off to the campsite at Muskallonge State Park. The last 20 miles to the park from the west were on a dirt road. If we had come FROM the east, we would have had paved road, but that would have taken us on a long detour!

Day 3 – Superior, Tahquamenon Falls, Mackinac Bridge and Petoskey

We spent some time on the beach at Muskallonge State Park in the morning. All sorts of stones everywhere – and the water was so clear! Then, a trip to Tahquamenon Falls, where we saw more people than any other part of the trip. The falls are the largest falls in Michigan, and the largest I have seen in the Midwest – they were spectacular! It was a beautiful park, and had a nice nature trail that we took, along with stairs that took you to lower elevations to see the falls from different viewpoints. The highlight of the park was, of course, the ice cream stand, and we felt obligated to partake!

Further south, we stopped at Bridge View park, to get a good look at the Mackinac Bridge before headed out of the UP and down to the land of the trolls. I got a photo at approximately the same spot as my grandpa had his photo in about 1957 – from the look of the photo, it seems that the tall suspension towers were not up yet, so it was likely during construction.

We set up camp at Petoskey State Park. The sky was dark, and we went to the beach to take in the stars – we could even see the Milky Way! Unfortunately, we didn’t learn about the famed Petoskey rocks until a few days later, or we would have searched for a few.

Day 4 – Traverse City, Sleeping Bear, and sand

Traverse City is a happening spot in northern part of the lower peninsula. The main street is blocked off so that no vehicles can drive through, and we wandered through to look at the shops along the route. Since we are in the middle of a global pandemic, and this was day 4 of a camping trip so we weren’t exactly sweet smelling, we didn’t stop at too many places to browse. We did stop at the Petoskey Pretzel company and had some amazing pretzels though! Angee’s had cinnamon and sugar, Matt’s was plain and mine was like a mozzarella marinara, but instead of a wonton, the cheese was wrapped in pretzel!! YUM

We headed to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A quick stop at the visitor center was helpful, but because of Covid, no movies were being shown. The ranger told us that the thing to do would be the dune hike, so that’s what we did. Parking at the dune hike was easy, and in front of us was a moderately sized dune that looked difficult but doable. About 20 feet into the hike, I realized how difficult walking in soft sand is and my assessment of the hike changed. Once on top of the dune, I also realized that was just the first phase. There was about another mile and a half of dune hiking. Angee, Matt and I went to a spot where we could see Lake Michigan but turned around there – we weren’t prepared for miles of dune hiking!

We were spent after the hike and drove straight through to our campsite in the Huron – Manistee National Forest, between Manistee and Ludington. The site was by far the best we stayed in – even though there were no showers. It was wooded, large, and had a great beach! After setting up, we went for a swim at sunset.

Day 5 – Racoons, Shelby and Windmills

Day 5 of a 6-day camping trip, and we were all a bit tired. We didn’t have a lot on our agenda for the day, so we biked to the beach in the morning for a bit. At the parking lot at the beach, we heard an animal in the dumpster, and we were relatively sure that it wasn’t a bear. Angee bravely opened the top of the dumpster and stepped back, but nothing happened, so she peeked in to see a raccoon stuck in the almost empty container. She saved him by putting a large branch in for him to climb. Angee the hero!!

We then headed to Shelby, to meet up with a friend of Angee’s who was spending his Covid time with his parents in their home along the Lake Michigan shoreline. We had a great visit with them, and most importantly, they told us to visit the Country Dairy Farm Store, where we had some GREAT ice cream!!

A little further south, we made a stop at the Windmill Island Gardens. With Covid, the windmill was closed for tours, but they had a movie that talked about how it worked, and we walked around the grounds and saw the beautiful foliage. I bet it would be more spectacular in spring with the tulips in bloom!

Our campsite on this night, the last night of the trip was at Van Buren State Park, near South Haven Michigan. We were getting into a more urbanized part of Michigan, and this site was crowded, and the beach was in disrepair. There was a sign that said the beach was closed due to erosion, but lots of people went around the sign, making the erosion worse.

Day 6 – Indiana Dunes National Park

We got up early on our last day and headed to the Indiana Dunes National Park. The first stop was the National Park visitor center was interesting, but again, they could not show any videos due to Covid. We learned a bit about the park and got some advice on a hike from the ranger. We headed to the West Beach, and the Dune Succession Trail Loop. What a cool hike!! Most of the hike is on a boardwalk / stair structure, going over the oldest dune first, then on the way to the beach, traveling over newer dunes. The structure was great, but the kids reminded me that we weren’t there to marvel on the stairs, that we were supposed to see the nature. Whatever.

The hike ended on the beach, which was rather crowded since it was nearing 90 degrees out, so we quickly made our way out of the park and headed towards home.

It was a nice trip – with great company. If I were to do it again, I would spend some more time in the UP, and hunting for Petoskey stones, but that will happen another day.