July/August 2021 Trip – The Henry Ford, Mammoth Cave and Hot Spring National Parks

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 The Henry Ford

Fordyce bath house
Hot Springs NP

Approaching metropolitan Detroit traffic builds and roads deteriorate.  Freezing weather, ice, snow and lots of traffic are hard on roads.  We are hoteling near Dearborn the next couple nights to see The Henry Ford - Museum of Innovation and Greenfield Village.  Greenfield Village is a conglomeration of buildings Henry Ford had moved, reassembled and restored representing the early days of America.  They include Ford's birthplace, the Wright brother’s home, their bicycle shop, Thomas Edison’s laboratories, just to name a few.  Arriving later in the day we are only able to spend five hours at the museum.  We could have spent several more seeing everything. 

July/August 2021 Trip – Northern Wisconsin, Pictured Rocks and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshores

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Northern Wisconsin

Spray Falls - Pictured
Rocks National Lakeshore

My family lives in northern Wisconsin, part of our trip is to see them.  We haven’t seen my sister and her husband since the start of the pandemic.  We had a trip planned last year but nobody felt comfortable given the virus conditions in 2020.

Once in WI we stop for cheese.  We enjoy Henning’s Cheese.  They specialize in cheddar, having many flavors.  We also pick up a few packages of cheese curds.  They are not a favorite of mine but my mom and Nicida love them.  Several bags of cheeses curds disappeared during our brief visit to northern WI.

July/August 2021 Trip – Gateway Arch, Indiana Dunes National Parks, Chicago, IL

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This is an escaping TX heat/visiting family, trip.  We are including visits to four National Parks and two National Lakeshores.

On the way we stop at Elephant Rock State Park in OK.  The campground itself is on Lake Murray, it’s huge, popular for fishing and playing in the water.  We are on a small arm of it, a no wake zone so canoeing, kayaking, fishing and inner tube floating goes on all around us.  We break out our ‘origami/foldable’ Oru kayaks.  While traveling, with a bit of planning and effort, we fit one in the back seat of the truck, the second inside the camper.  With the exception of a paddling class we took a month earlier this is our first opportunity getting out to paddle.