For my summer vacation this year, my husband and I loaded up our 26-foot travel trailer, hooked up our truck, packed up the kids, and drove 2,500+ miles over 2 weeks.
I very rarely write about personal things, but this adventure was a different kind of “vacation” and takes some processing. It was also an opportunity to see parts of America many people never get to see, and I thought I would share some of our experiences and my perceptions here, for my memory as much as anything.
The Plan
First, a bit of background. Our usual summer vacation is a trip to “Cottage Country” in Muskoka, Canada. Apparently that’s hot property due to the popularity of “Heated Rivalry” so it’s probably for the best we detoured this year.
Our unofficial routine is to change it up on alternating years. Two years ago we took the travel trailer to Acadia and Boston for National Park and family visits. This year, we wanted to head further west and try to take in new territory. This year’s route included…
- A quick stay in Wytheville, VA;
- Two nights just northeast of Cincinnati, Ohio to visit family;
- A stopover in Bay City, Michigan;
- Four full days in St. Ignace on the upper peninsula of Michigan;
- Two full days in Illinois, south of Chicago;
- Two full days in Cave City Kentucky;
- One day in Johnston City, Tennessee to visit my sister-in-law and her husband.
Specifically our goals included seeing the other three Great Lakes (we see Erie and Ontario whenever we visit Muskoka so that’s old news), visit Mackinac Island, check out the UP sights, stop to visit in Chicago, check out Indiana Dunes National Park, go to Mammoth Caves, and see family. Also on the list: bring home rocks, see animals, eat fudge, eat ice cream, eat pasties (we like to eat), and “let dad do nothing for 8 hours.” Yes, there was an official list.
From start to finish, we were on the road for 17 days.
The Execution
If you ever feel like your vacations are too short, pack up a travel trailer with two kids and drive around for a few weeks. Go ahead – try it. I’ll even loan you the kids.
The thing about this kind of travel is that every location feels like another trip. It makes each day hard, since you’re figuring out what’s around you and what you’re doing today. But it also gives you brand new things to do all the time, and kind of forces you to get out and do them. I have lots of specific feelings about traveling this way and I won’t get into them all here, but it is a very unique and hard and rewarding way to travel.
When we travelled to Acadia 2 years ago we had struggles with the RV fridge, and we spent a good chunk of time before this trip planning for how to keep the fridge cold. But of course, that was not the problem this time. Instead we had ants invade the truck and follow us for several stops (not in the trailer though, fortunately).
Then we had weather. You’ve probably heard about some crazy weather in Indiana last week? Yes, can confirm. At 1am the whole family ran through driving rain and lightning to take shelter in a campground bathroom. A few days later an innocuous thunderstorm turned into bands of serious storms and hail. And then the heat hit. We go north in the summer for a reason, but this year it turned nearly unbearable, and even northern Indiana and Illinois were intensely hot.
Some Thoughts
We are spoiled by Muskoka. It’s generally much cooler, with beautiful, refreshing lakes, and quaint small towns. I mean, it’s terrible, don’t go there.
I admit, I expected something similar of the Michigan upper peninsula. It’s at a similar latitude, lake country, and touristy. But in case you’re not aware, Canada and the US are very different. While the UP was delightful, it was also struggling. The northern towns we see in Canada are small, but they’re flourishing. The towns we saw in Michigan, and then south in Indiana and Illinois were not. Houses were in terrible shape or abandoned. Businesses were closed. There was garbage everywhere, including on the beaches of lakes Huron and Michigan. Sure, there were cute towns in some places, but I’m very sad to say they were the exception, not the rule. We took a one-hour train ride from well outside Chicago into the city center and the wealth disparity between rural and urban Illinois was stark, y’all.*
It was an especially harsh view in light of the 250th birthday of the US. Many of these small towns had flags and banners up to celebrate that anniversary. And while that’s a worthwhile thing to reminisce on, there’s no question some of those towns would have been better served putting that money into community and infrastructure. (Like roads. Looking at you, Illinois, damn).
At the end of the day, these trips are always marked by how glad you are to get home. Sleeping in your bed, and taking a shower in your own, glorious, not-tiny shower that drains properly and has a house-sized water heater is delightful. But in this case, I can also say that I was glad to see that – by comparison – rural parts of NC are in better shape than the midwest states we visited. That doesn’t mean those of us in NC should ease up, but I think it’s useful for us to remember, there are folks facing tougher times out there.
The Takeaways
My very random thoughts from the trip in a very random format.
- Mammoth Caves was my personal favorite. It’s cool. Figuratively AND literally since it’s 54 degrees down there. It’s just stunning and a fun adventure.
- Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior was a close second. The one thing we didn’t have time for was the Shipwreck Museum, but we did listen to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” several times, which I’m sure is the same thing.
- Turns out our truck’s GPS has a lot of upper peninsula snowmobile “roads” in it. That was an adventure.
- The Mackinac Bridge has an open-grid roadway, meaning the middle lanes are metal grates your drive over. You cannot see down through them, so don’t be scared, and driving over them sounds like whale songs.
- Mackinac Island has no cars. I underestimated how cool it would be to ride the island “highway” on a bike. I also underestimated how significant the smell of horse manure would be.
Final Notes
Will we do it again? You bet. Not sure how we can get farther west while still going north (the north is non-negotiable) in a two-week window, but I know we’ll keep trying to get out there and see this country.
Also, did you know that fourth-graders get to go to National Parks for free? I thought this was a weird field trip thing for Indiana kids but it turns out that for the year your kid(s) are in fourth grade (Sept. 1 – Aug. 30) your family gets free access to all Federal “Lands and Waters.” I’m pretty happy to pay for my access to these amazing sights, but this is a huge opportunity. And my kids are super excited about this perk.
I could not do this without a great team that is able to keep things running for me while I’m gone — THANK YOU. And to my clients who may have waited patiently for some projects to move forward, thank you, too.
That said, time off to recharge is critical. Time to have new experiences and see new places is priceless. This trip didn’t give me as much rest and relaxation as I’d like (these trips are hard work), but I know it gave us inside jokes that will keep giving (cheese touch!), lessons we’ll remember better for having lived them, and memories we’ll treasure.
* These are my perspectives based on my experiences.
