Marathon Road Trip 2024, State #4

 

Arriving in Green Bay, we parked The Wanderer in the parking lot of Ahnapee Brewery, our Harvest Host for the night.

Conveniently located next to the brewery is 888 Cheese & Co restaurant who delivered the best grilled cheese of our lives. Captain chose the PB Juan, Jalapeño, raspberry jam, maple pepper bacon, cream cheese spread, and cheddar cheese on grilled rustic Italian bread. ABN went with the GOAT,  goat cheese, fried crispy kale, garlic roasted portobello   mushrooms, caramelized onions on grilled multigrain bread. The sandwiches were large enough to eat half and save half. We woke up the next morning anticipating our evening meal!

After a good night of sleep, we had a slow morning waiting for the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame to open. 

While Captain toured the Hall of Fame, ABN did yoga in The Wanderer.

 

We heard about a restaurant in the Door Peninsula that had goats grazing on its roof, so we checked it out.

Sure enough!

Eating Swedish Pancakes at the Swedish Restaurant, Al Johnson’s, we had a good view of other tourists taking photos of the goats.

Door County with its harbor towns is enchanting (and touristy.)

Egg Harbor

Our home for a couple of nights was Wagon Trail campground in Ellison Bay. With lovely flowers, conveniently located to a nice little hiking trail that led to Lake Michigan and very quiet, it provided the respite we needed.

Photo permission granted.

This is where we encountered an inspiring young family that raise Monarch butterflies as a hobby. They brought their cage with them and released the ones that had hatched in the campground. The butterflies were tagged and named before their release. The young children were delighted to find some of the butterflies released the day before were still feeding on the Joe Pye plant. 

Did we say inspired? ABN is dreaming of adding a butterfly house to her habitat.

 It refreshes our souls to see young parents engaged in forming the minds of their children

 

With evening temperatures in the high 60s, we enjoyed ending the day around the fire pit.

Moving on, we had one more Harvest Host stay before crossing the state line. Expecting to pull into a brewery parking lot, have our obligatory beers and spend a quiet, relaxing evening in The Wanderer, this is what we found in Baraboo, WI.

Note, there are four other rigs in the lot, another one joined after the photo was taken.

Across the street was our host, Tumbled Rock Brewery and Kitchen.

Kitchen is on the left, brewery on the right and green space in the middle.

Perfect weather, live music, children playing, friendly locals and good beer provided a pleasant late summer evening.

 

 

One more to go!

Marathon Road Trip 2024

State #3  

In addition to the friends we make, the surprises are what we enjoy most in our travels. Michigan provided both as we rendezvoused with our Maryland RV friends, Greg and Juanita, in Grand Rapids. 

Grand Rapids happens to be the home of the President Gerald Ford Museum. Not high on our list of ‘must visit’ presidential libraries, we thought we would take in a brief visit. Two hours later we concluded our visit with great appreciation of the 38th president of the USA, the only person to serve as president that had neither been elected to the presidency or vice presidency. 

“I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers. And I hope that such prayers will also be the first of many ... If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises.”

History reminds us our country is not experiencing anything that has not been experienced before. It gives us hope. 

Our love of craft beer drew us to Grand Rapids as it has been designated “Beer City USA” by national polls (USA Today, Life and Leisure, CNN and other polls.) As we brewery hopped with Greg and Juanita, we would agree.

Lest our friends and family become concerned with our alcohol consumption, let us explain Brewery Hopping. It is a bit like wine tasting. At each brewery each couple shared a flight of short pours or a 5 oz pour of the one we thought sounded most interesting. 

After tasting at seven out of the 80+ breweries, our top three choices are 

Peanuts and Crackerjack, a robust porter made with real roasted peanuts and peanut butter

A former funeral home, Vivant was the most interesting of the breweries.

Another delight we discovered was the awesome Fulton Street Farmer’s Market.

We came away with salad makings for dinner and pastries for breakfast.

As our friends headed south, we turned toward the Upper Peninsula to explore Mackinac Island.

Our first impression of the island was masses of people, bikes, souvenir shops and horse poop. 

Leaving the main street we felt like we were in a beautiful botanical garden.

 

We discovered a nice 2-mile, round trip hike 

to Arch Rock,

just enough effort to justify a beer at Great Turtle Brewery and chocolate salted caramel ice cream at Kilwins.

 

     

We both agree, the Michiganders are some of nicest people we have encountered. Hopefully this will not be our last trip to Michigan.

The Wanderer has now turned to the west.

Marathon Road Trip 2024

 

How many states can we visit in 2 months? Let’s find out.

State # 1, Illinois, nothing new here.

State #2, Indiana with a stop in Indianapolis and the first brewery on the brewery hop.

St. Joseph Brewery and Public House

The former Catholic church, built in 1880, was closed in 1954. It now houses a restaurant and brewery.

Not a fan of commercial RV parks, we were quite pleased with our stay at the Indy KOA Holiday park.

Mini recumbent bicycles, corral with a horse, mule and goats

Playground and Splash Pool

With nice campsites for RVs and tents, as well as Glamping and cabin accommodations,

it would be a great long weekend get-away with kids to visit The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

We had a short visit with Camille and Zach. And watched Camille perform in a dance presentation as part of the Indy Fringe Festival. (No photos allowed to be taken during a performance.)

Grandma helped repot a plant in the soon to be balcony garden.

Indianapolis made a great stopover in Indiana. We look forward to a return visit.

The Wanderer in now headed north to see what Michigan has to offer.