Last week in Virginia

A Week in Virginia

Here are this weeks journal pages.

We are staying here another week to get new rear tires on the RV.

We get to see more too!

Two weeks in PA

 We stayed just outside Lancaster, PA where there is a large Amish community.

Our RV park was nestled between a couple of farms and the road passing by was busy with Amish buggies and children walking to school.

 A favorite view taken at Gettysburg Nat'l Historic Site.

  A favorite view taken at Hopewell Furnace Nat'l Historic Site.

We also picked a few apples here, the park was having apple picking $1 for 1 lb.

 A common site around Lancaster, this was taken at the Costco parking lot, Walmart had them too.

 One of the venders at Green Dragon Farm Market,  the red velvet ones are good.

This photo was taken from the back of our rv park, we watched them harvest almost every day, and listened to the cows, roasters and goats every morning.

PA has no tax on clothing or groceries which makes it a popular state for retirees.

We spent one day in Philadelphia going though Independence Hall, and walking around the historic area.

We spent one day having the brakes on our car fixed, coming back and finding a rear tire on RV flat so had to have that fixed and a week later found a screw in our car tire so had it fixed.

I didn't have internet connection at our site and my computer doesn't like the ATT  dongle anymore so it is nice to be online again here in Virginia.

Sleeping Bear Dunes Nat'l Lakeshore

 Hope everyone had a great Labor Day Weekend.

We had beautiful weather to explore some of the area around Traverse City, MI.

We learned that the cherry capital had a hard hit this spring and lost around 70% or more of their cherry crop.  It didn't effect their apple crop as much and the grapes are fine.

There must be 40 wineries around the area we haven't visited any yet but we did buy a bottle of Cherry Sangria to try, I like it and Ken not so much, which  means more for me!

The Sleeping Bear Dunes was voted the most beautiful place in America but so far we don't see it.

It just isn't a Yosemite or the coast of CA, but we haven't seen the whole area yet so maybe we haven't found it yet.

There are several cute touristy villages in the area so far we've only visited Leland to walk though it's Historic Fishtown and we enjoyed a beverage on the boardwalk.

Ken found a nice quiet campground for $20 a night, it's the fairgrounds campground.  We have to use our own water but we have 50 amps and don't have to pay an extra few dollars if we want to use our air conditioner, which we have as the temp has been above normal for this time of year.  Today it was 89.

More in a couple of days, we are here for a week.

Last days at Mackinac

It's our last day here at Lake Shore RV, we've enjoyed our stay.

I don't think we found any Petoskey Stones on the beach we tried.

We have gone out two nights to get photos of the lights on the bridge, I attempted to include the moon.

The bridge is 5 miles long, one of the longest suspension bridges in the world, built in 1957.

Every Labor Day there is a walk across the bridge, this is the 54th year for it, that's why we are leaving tomorrow, the park had all spaces rented for the weekend before we called.

We took it easy today watched the waves on the lake (Lake Michigan), went in to St. Ignace for lunch, got my smashed penny and sat at the park by Lake Huron for a while and watched the ferries go to Mackinac Island and back.

There was a memorial at the park to all the wrecked ships on the great lakes, there were 6,000 plus and 2,000 of those on Lake Michigan.  We all know about the Edmond Fitsgerald in 1974, I think that was the last, I'll have to check that out.

Tomorrow we'll be in Traverse City, MI the cherry capital of  the US.

More around Mackinac

Here's a couple more pages of my photo journal.

Gas prices are high here we are paying $4.20 a gallon on average.

Mackinac and more

 There is a lot of history to take in here.
Mackinac State Park was originally the second national park after Yellowstone but after the troops left the area it was taken over by the state.

Sault Ste.Marie is the oldest town in Michigan est. in 1668.

The locks have an interesting history as they had to increase size as the boats got larger and during WWII there were over 8,000 troops guarding the locks.

Michigan has 3,100 miles of shoreline bordering on four of the five Great Lakes and has over 100 lighthouses more than any other state.

Well we have several more days here to explore more of the area and it's history.