The Plan

Just like any trip planned our 2015 trip around places we wanted to visit in Michigan, Mackinac Island and the World’s Largest Christmas store in Frankenmuth. We love the idea of Amish and Mennonite communities so we planned to stop in Shipshewana.

With those planned stops in mind we used Roadtrippers.com as our main way to organize and save the location, we then began making a route for our first Michigan trip.

One of the fun reasons we started we chose to travel to Michigan, was because in 2014 we traveled to Lake Ontario  and we made a goal to put our feet in all five of the Great Lakes.

2015 on Roadtrippers

Middleburg, IN

Our Jayco X17A at Eby’s Pines RV Park & Campground

We headed out early in the day and after about a 4.5 hour drive we stopped at Eby’s Pines RV Park & Campground for the weekend, it was a nice simple campground with full hookups and it was clean.

Eby’s Pines was not far from Middlebury or Shipshewana where the Amish and Mennonite communities had grocery, shops and restaurants.  We purchased some goodies to help us along our way.  Since we arrived late in the day, after setting up the camper we made our way to Essenhaus Restruant in Middleburg for dinner.  After dinner we shopped in their bakery and were we picked up some goodies for breakfast.

Sunday was a bit poorly planned because we failed to realize or remember that the Amish community we wanted to visit would be CLOSED on Sunday! However, we were able to enjoy the swimming pool on Sunday and Leeann and David played in the park that afternoon.

Factory tour of Jayco. Here we watched them make the Pinnacle fifth wheel.

We had no idea that we had landed in the middle of RV manufacturing country as well!! We were very excited when we learned that Jayco was in the area, we then made our reservations for the Jayco Factory tour.  The tour was free but reservations are required but were very easy to make, we stopped in before breakfast and reserved our spot.  When the tour started we had a video presentation of the history of Jayco and the family that still runs the factory today.  They went over some simple safety guidelines and we were on our way to tour a building where we saw the many stations in the making of the Pinnacle Fifth Wheel.  The children loved it David referred to it as a real life How it’s Made TV show! Overall, it was a fun and educational experience.

 Lake Leelanau

Our view of Lake Leelanau from our site.

After having breakfast at the Blue Gate Restaurant in Shipshewana we headed farther north into Michigan to Lake Leelanau.  We arrived at Lake Leelanau RV Park; this was BY FAR the best campground we have ever stayed at!  This gorgeous campground is family owned and upon arrival, the owner came and escorted us to our camping spot, he then helped Kevin back in and park the camper for our stay.  He showed us around and gave us an itinerary of activities; they had movie night, ice cream social and a hay ride for the kids to enjoy.  They also had a small beach area for swimming and you could rent boats as well.  We settled in and the kids enjoyed some of the activities.  While there we explored Leelanau State Park which is home to the Grand Traverse Lighthouse and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  This is right outside of Glenn Arbor.

David running in the desert of “Tatooine”

While at Leelanau State Park we hiked to Lake Michigan where we got to put our feet in. When we reached the sand dunes on our hike, David mentioned how the dunes reminded him of Tatooine and acted like he was a Jedi all the way to the water. From there we stopped a the town of Northport where we had lunch at The North End Eatery and walked down to Haserot Park it had a little beach area where the kids spent the rest of the afternoon swimming.

Lake Michigan at Leelanau State Park

We wanted to explore Sleeping Bear Dunes we first stopped at the rangers station in Empire where we learned more about the area and picked up some activity books for the kids. We drove the scenic drive in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, through the drive we stopped at the Pierce Stocking overlook where we experienced 40 mile hour winds which really was not pleasant!  The blowing sand gave our skin a nice exfoliation!  We had towels to cover our bodies from the sand, it was in our eyes and hair, the positive thing was that the kids got to experience erosion first hand as the wind blew the sand from the dunes over the walk way. From there we drove M-22 from Glen Lakes to Glen Arbor. While Glen Arbor was cleaning up from a recent storm it was a beautiful town and quiet we stopped and had lunch and shopped for a few supplies for the evening.

Mackinaw City

View from the Tee Pee Campground beach. They had a fire on the beach just about every night they could.

After a few days hanging in and around Lake Leelanau we made our way down Grand Traverse Bay though Traverse City and up to our main stop in Mackinaw City.

We stayed at the Tee Pee Campground and it was a bit on the crowded side but a nice campground nonetheless.  Our site did not have a direct view of the Mighty Mackinac Bridge or the water it was a short walk to the shore.  The campground staff had a nightly fire and many people came down to the shore each evening to enjoy the sunset and the company of others. As you can see from the photo, we had a wonderful view of the Mighty Mac!  At the Tee Pee Beach we put our feet into Lake Huron! From here we did things like tourthe Might Mac, ate the Dixie Saloon and even made a trip up to the Soo Locks for a dinner cruise.

Front porch of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island

We took a ferry to Mackinac Island and it was like stepping back in time, it was wonderful.  On the island, there is no motorized traffic the only way to get around is by food, bicycle (be careful you may get ran over) or horse.  We happened to be there the weekend of the Mackinac Island Fudge Festival, several of the fudge shops were giving away a “golden ticket” if you got the golden ticket you won a prize!  We waited in line for two of the special bars of fudge, and about that time the power went out on the island.

We walked around and decided to have lunch on the lawn overlooking the lake.  We took decided to take carriage ride and learned some history about the island and how they get the horses on and off the island.  After the carriage ride we decided to try for some dinner, the power was still out and the restaurant owner had a very limited menu, basically grilled food we were okay with that, we grabbed our food and ate again overlooking the water. Lucky for us it got to be around 7pm and the power had been out all day and the ice cream shops on the island were selling their melting ice at crazy low prices, the four of us had gigantic ice creams for $4!  It was a great day to end our day on the beautiful island.

Frankenmuth

Leeann doing a dance move in front of the Cheese Haus statue in Frankenmuth

We then headed down to Frankenmuth and stopped at Wesleyan Woods Campground. From there we spent a day explored Frankenmuth eating at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant and walking Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland.

David walking the high ropes course at Wesleyan Woods

The one thing that surprised us about Wesleyan Woods it is FULL of activities for the kids like large water slide, canoeing/kayaking, rock climbing, zip lining and more. With this discovery we extended our stay by a few days so the kids could enjoy the amenities offered.  At Wesleyan Woods we met a wonderful family who had kids Leeann and David’s ages, they had a blast playing with each other and they still talk about their Michigan Friends!

While this is just a summary of what we did as a family, we explored lots of beautiful places in Michigan. The kids learned things without realizing they were learning and had fun along the way. Overall, we had lots of fun and cannot wait for future our next ReOfSun Adventure…