Michigan, Part 1 - Hanging Out with the Martins [240606-09]

As we left Indiana and headed into Michigan we got brief respite from "life on the road" for a couple of days, getting to spend some time in an actual house without wheels! 

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We were up around 7 a.m. Thursday morning for final preparations before leaving our Indiana Dunes campsite for the last time.  We stopped for groceries on the way out of town, and then headed north - crossing over into Michigan shortly before noon.

We stopped at a Home Depot 40 minutes up the road in Benton Harbor to buy some vinyl rain gutter material, to eventually make bug proof window vents for the cab windows out of.  We had made similar ones for the sliding door windows in our Sienna years ago, but didn't think we'd need to make them for the T42.  The cab area trapping so much heat in the recent hot weather had changed our minds, though.

Another 30 minutes up the road brought us to the town of South Harbor, where we stopped into The Blueberry Store to pick up a hostess gift.  From there, another 2 hours up the road brought us to our destination for the next few nights:  Christine's Aunt Michele and Uncle Larry's house in Mecosta.  We were slightly alarmed when we saw this sign at the top of their driveway, though, wondering if it was their ever-so-subtle way of letting us know that they had changed their minds about letting us moochdock in their driveway 😉 (we found out later that it had nothing to do with us, though, and it was for the local residents protesting the creation of an RV park in the neighborhood).

We had a great time hanging out at Aunt Michele and Uncle Larry's:  chatting, catching up on the family news, reminiscing, (doing laundry 😉), and playing Rummikub late into the night.  Stiltz (the parrot) loved contributing to the conversation every once in a while.

When there was a patch of nice weather Friday afternoon, Uncle Larry took us out for a tour of Blue Lake and Lake Mecosta on their pontoon boat.  It was fun to cruise around the shoreline, while we heard stories about a lot of the lakefront homes and life on the lake in general.

The owners of the house on this little island used to have an amphibious car that they could drive right out to the island with.

Loons! (The waterfowl in the foreground, not the homeowners in the back 😉.  Tom didn't think to bring a decent camera with him on this little cruise, so all the photos are from his iPhone.)

Late Saturday afternoon, we all drove out to Ionia for a dinner at a restaurant (Oliveras) with more of Christine's aunts and cousins, most of which she hadn't seen in decades.  It was a fun way to spend a few hours.  Pictured below are Aunt Donna, Cousin Don and his wife Cathe, Christine, Aunt Michele and Uncle Larry, Tom, Aunt Johanna, Cousin Brian, and his son Andrew.

We left Mecosta the next morning full of tips on things to see and places to eat for our continuing adventures in Michigan.