Dateline August 8, 2011, Across Michigan to Mackinac, and on to Indiana

We drove through very heavy rain across Minnesota and Wisconsin, crossing the bridge into Menominee, Michigan, where we spent the night at the town's RV park right on the water.

We stopped at a local grocery store and made a great barbecue with some wine. The rain had stopped and the park was very relaxing. The plan for Sunday was to play golf about forty miles up the road in Escanaba, at the local country club that is part of the UP Golf Trail. The drive along Lake Michigan was beautiful. The beaches felt like ocean beaches; you'd swear you were on a coast.

The Escanaba course was a wonderful layout. When we finished the front nine, one of the locals was parked next to the RV and we got into a conversation about golf. He turned out to be the sports editor at the local paper, and he asked if we had plans to play a few other courses around the area. He told us to check out the Island Casino a few miles up the road. They had a two-night, two-round special on three of their courses. A break from the RV sounded fine, so we signed on. One of the three courses had just been punched and top-dressed, so we passed on it.

Monday morning we drove up to Iron Mountain to play Timber Wolf Golf Club. What a course. It is built on part of Pine Mountain, a ski area, with fantastic holes and big vistas. We loved every minute of it.

The casino had built a course next to the complex and we played it on Tuesday morning. We were one of the first groups out and played it in about three and a half hours. It is an interesting links-style course that had recently hosted a stop on the LPGA Futures Tour, so it was in beautiful condition.

From there we drove to St. Ignace and another excellent RV park called Lakeside, where our site looked right out over the water.

The plan for the morning was to visit Mackinac Island, which Condé Nast Traveler has called one of the ten best islands in the world. We decided to take the boat across from the other side of "The Bridge," over to Troll land. The UP locals refer to all Michiganders who live "under the bridge," meaning south of it, as Trolls.

We parked the Roadtrek in the lot at the ferry terminal and caught the boat over.

The crossing was quick and gave us a perfect view of the bridge.

And of Mackinac Island, with the Grand Hotel high up on the bluff overlooking Lake Huron. Arriving on the island, you are introduced to the smell of fudge, fudge, and fudge. It seemed every other shop sold the stuff. We walked along the main street and stopped for a cup of coffee to figure out what to do next. Tour wagons drawn by beautiful draft horses run all over the island, and we decided that was the way to see it. There are no cars on Mackinac. They were outlawed in 1898. Horse is it.

The town is a magnificent 1890s tableau, narrow streets and storefronts of the period. We rode up toward the Grand Hotel.

The Grand was where Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer filmed Somewhere in Time in 1980. There is a red telephone booth on the side of the road on the way up. According to our tour guide, it had been Christopher Reeve's changing room during filming. The Grand Hotel itself was built in 1887, in ninety days. Try that today in Michigan, or anywhere else.

We approached the golf pro shop, where actual golf carts are allowed on the course.

However the clubs must be loaded into a horse-drawn carriage to be taken to the back nine.

The rest of the tour took us through the state park, where we stopped to view Arch Rock, 150 feet above the lake. The mystical story of the rock was recorded by the Ottawa Indian Nation in 1850. From there we continued on to Fort Mackinac, which overlooks the lake, and walked back down into the village. We found a fun little sandwich shop on the pier where we had lunch.

From there we watched the loading of the wagons that handle deliveries from the UPS truck. The truck rides over on the ferry but can't make the deliveries itself, because no cars on the island.

Mackinac Island is a great spot. If anyone is ever in the area, stop and experience it.

Pat and Anna Carney emailed us. They had been with us in Alaska and were also on the long road home, coming through Michigan on their way back to Ticonderoga. We met them at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park outside of Traverse City.

We arrived late in the afternoon and parked in their campsite, one of the advantages of small RVs. It was cocktail hour, so we all had a few drinks and Pat and John lit cigars. A lovely evening, and good to spend a few hours together. The next morning we drove north along the shore of Lake Michigan through the dunes.

You'd have thought we were at the ocean on Long Island or down in Florida rather than on a lake. Amazing that all of this is glacier activity. We were told later that people who scramble down to the shoreline often can't get back up because the sand on the rocks gives way under them. The Coast Guard does the rescues. The fee is substantial.

Finding an RV camp in Traverse City was a problem; it was the week of their annual film festival. So Janice emailed our good friend Robin Vaught, who has a great home outside Traverse City, about dry-camping in her driveway. We had assumed she was in Florida. Lo and behold, the reply came back: "I am here, call me!"

We gave her a ring and off we went. Robin, her friend Ed, her daughter Tara, granddaughter, brother, and the rest of the family were all there for a vacation. We parked the RV by the garage, hooked into the electric, and joined the party.

We played the resort course that afternoon. Robin, Ed, her nephew and son-in-law played behind John and me. It was a beautiful day. We headed back to cook dinner and have a few drinks.

The next day we played the resort course again and had a bad experience. It was a weekend and play was painfully slow. The ranger told us the slow group was staying at the resort and had been drinking, as if that made slow play acceptable. So no recommendation from us for weekend play there. We returned to Robin's and hung out with the family. The next morning we moved over to the state park, mindful of the old rule that houseguests and fish both start to smell after three days.

The state park site, with electric, was right across from the state park beach on Lake Michigan. The next day we met Barbara and Jack Gillen at Traverse City Golf Club for a round. This is the club where Janice used to play in a friendly tournament Robin organized for several summers, Fort Lauderdale versus Traverse City. We had a terrific time, then went into town for a lovely dinner.

We spent the next day catching up and getting organized, then met Robin and Ed downtown for drinks and dinner. We'll see them when we're back in Florida.

Off to Noblesville, Indiana, for Janice to try and qualify for the USGA Women's Senior Amateur. John was the trusted caddie. Unfortunately Janice missed getting a spot in a three-hole playoff. That's golf.

Off we head next to visit family. More to come.