I lived in Ann Arbor from 1973 to 1976, but I never made it to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s a remote, quiet area. A paradise for hunters and fishers, I suppose, if you like that sort of thing. We just wanted to enjoy the scenery and explore some backroads. We stopped at three places in the UP before we crossed over into Canada.
Little Girl’s Point
The park at Little Girl’s Point.
We followed miles of country roads to get to this oddly named place on Lake Superior. Just a sweet local park, quiet and well kept. We got a private nook of a site overlooking the lake. And it was just a short walk through the grassy park down to a long beach.
It was unusually hot that day, and the water was glassy still, except for the wakes from one motorboat in the distance. A few other families were further down the shore, sitting in the water, or swimming. The water was actually quite cold. But I was so hot, I jumped in with my clothes on and then, learning from others down the shore, sat myself in the shallows where it was less icy. Bailey was so happy to be swimming, and this was Gypsy’s first time on a beach. She explored just a little before falling into a towel-wrapped coma.
It was so hot I just had to go in.
It’s a smooth pebble beach, and Kate the rock hound was in heaven just sitting with Gypsy and looking through rocks. She even got me into it and we hauled back quite a collection. We stayed until the sun was low and little bitey flies arrived, and even then it was hard to leave our ideal little spot on a hot evening. The next day, when we awoke to clouds and drizzle, we were even more grateful for our dreamy, still day at the lake beach.
Gwinn Municipal RV Park
It can be hard to find camping spots on summer weekends, so we called ahead to this place and reserved a couple of days. We’d found it in our Passport America book and it was the only one that offered the discount not only during the summer but even during the weekends. It was a little out of our way, but we just needed a place to hang out for a day and do some laundry and shopping.
Gwin Municipal Park.
Gwinn is a pretty remote small town, but we happened upon it on one of its exciting weekends: Fundaze in the Park! There was a live band in the bandstand, a couple of food concessions, some games with prizes for kids, and a few crafts booths with things like crocheted tissue box covers. It was small town excitement all right. and we joined in for a while. We hung out with Bailey and Gypsy on a blanket, watched kids playing in the playground, enjoyed the oldie’s music, and indulged in pizza and cotton candy.
The RV park was decent enough. It had a friendly host who was eager to talk about Oregon, gathering information for an upcoming trip. And it was on a river with a beach where Bailey could swim. For the most part, this was just a recharging station for us, but not a bad place for it.
Dock at the campground.
Cedarville RV Park
We didn’t want to cross over into Canada late in the day and try to figure out where to stay, so this was a late day stopover. Again, we found it in Passport America, so we got it for half price, and it was more or less on the way, about 30 miles from the border.
Nothing much to say about this one. Although it had great sites by the river, we were stuck in a parking lot area. But we enjoyed hanging out on the docks with pretty views of Lake Huron, a walk around town, and a good night’s sleep.