Day 67 (August 28): Road to Recovery

Welcome back, folks. Parts of today (hours and hours of phone negotiations) were awful. Parts of today were okay (visiting Niagara Falls but failing to avoid multiple gift shops. Parts of today were wonderful (arriving at a friend's house for dinner and kid play time). But the best part of today was when the service manager at an RV repair business said, "we've fixed the slide and we're almost done with the bed." Let's break that down a bit.

On Tuesday, we left a beautiful lake-front campground and drove from Munising, on the upper peninsula of Michigan, to Port Huron, north of Detroit and near the border with Canada. Before we hit the highway, we made a brief visit to Munising Falls Visitor Center in Picture Rocks National Lakeshore. There's a short (800') hike to the visitor center there.

Site A79, in case you happen to be in Munising.

Elise getting in a beachfront workout while the kids feed the birds.

Munising Falls

The drive across the UP (Upper Peninsula) was rural and beautiful as we dropped from the southern shore of Lake Superior to the northern shore of Lake Michigan before reaching the Makinac Bridge.

The north shore of Lake Michigan

Approaching the bridge, the sign read, "High Winds, narrow lanes, large vehicles 20mph." The crossing, with Michigan on the right and Huron on the left was beautiful but only enjoyable for the five who were not driving.

Caption not needed.

See above

Ditto

A room with a view

When we reached the Port Huron KOA, which is immense and highly equipped with kid-friendly amenities, it was nearly 8:00, the pool was closing and the sun was setting. We'd have to get on the road early the next day, too. So in addition to problems with the vehicle, we were now depriving our kids from enjoying potentially-awesome camping experiences on consecutive days. So we were all in terrific moods as the driving began.

The Sarnia border crossing was seamless; the kids enjoyed presenting their faces through the driver window for the customs agent. We reached Niagara after about 3 hours of driving. Elise drove on roads with terrible surfaces while I made a series of phone calls to find someone to service the RV. But we found easy parking (not easy in a 35 foot beast) and rode the Skylon Tower to terrific views (and numerous gift shops).

The second first day of school.

We went to the Skylon Tower and saw Niagara Falls!

Even Cate had fun.

Now we were aiming for Rochester with a detour to the rural community south of it called Caledonia, home to a the service facility of Meyers RV. Here's what it looks like when you unload four grumpy kids and two exhausted adults into an RV service facility.

But then it was done and I wish I had a picture of what happened next. Five minutes after we left Meyers RV and Caledonia we approached a railroad underpass that did not have a clearance height posted but looked very, very low. I was not interested in returning to Meyers to reinstall two AC units and an antenna. So there we were, with me riding on the ladder at the back of the rig while Elise drove about 1 mph toward the bridge.

In fact, we had about 2 feet of clearance but it felt like a lot less. We're 12'6" and they told us to assume 13' even for a margin of error. But about 25 minutes later, as we entered Rochester, we approached another RR bridge, this one clearly posted with 12'11". Not 13'. We were in the city, surrounded by traffic and no obvious alternative. I slowed WAY down and crept under the bridge, waiting for the worst sound to ruin a day that had just gotten better. It didn't happen. We slipped underneath, possibly by the 3-5 inches and resumed our route. Ten minutes later we were parked on our friend's street and breathing again.

I hope that my future self, even the me of two months from now, will be able to look back on this week and sigh or even laugh sympathetically. I have faith that this will be an extraordinary road trip and the misery and stress of these first few days will be diluted by distance. Right now I have a lingering fear that something else (significant) is going to break. Here's hoping I'm wrong. And here are a few more pictures from our exit from the Great Lakes.