Once around Lake Michigan – “Four on the Road”

After “Two and Three on the Road”, we thought we try something new 😂: In Chicago we picked up a old friend of Dominik from Switzerland to travel one week with us in our RV once around Lake Michigan – so it is “Four on the Road” for a very limited time… 😉

Our first stop was near Two Rivers, where we took a first look at the west coast of Lake Michigan. This lake is so big, you feel like being on the coast of an ocean – just without the salty water, which we found even better.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore
We drove along north along the west coast of Lake Michigan to “Upper Peninsula (UP)” to visit the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. While Sarah and Eyra relaxed in the RV (due to the no pets policy), Dominik and our guest did take the challenge to go on a 22 mile backpacking trip along the shore of Lake Superior. Chapel Rock

On the way we could admire the beautiful lakeshore with the dramatic multicolored Pictured Rocks cliffs with unusual sandstone formations, pine and birch forests and endless white beaches. We camped in a primitive campground and enjoyed our gnocchi dinner with water directly from the lake (filtered and disinfected).

The next day we enjoyed the beautiful coastline taking a boat tour – so we could tell Sarah about our awesome and exhausting hike and look at it from another angle.

and it was quite chilly on that boat – especially for Sarah who was used the hot Swiss summer weather… 

This week we are on the run (like the other tourists). We only have one week with our guest and have to be back in Chicago in seven days. Instead of staying about four days in one place we only stayed one or two…

Our trip took us south again an we crossed the scenic Mackinac Bridge while leaving UP:

To have a contrast to nature and wilderness in UP we visited beautiful Traverse City, a scenic and cosy little town with great restaurants and awesome lake views everywhere.

A little west of Traverse City is Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. A strange but beautiful landscape on the East Coast of Lake Michigan:

It was a forbidden sport in the Dunes to run down and up again the steep dune shore. People doing it looked extraordinary exhausted when coming up again. It was as steep that they needed to move on “4 wheel”.

Back on our campground in Traverse City we enjoyed being Four of us…

On our way back to Chicago we had wonderful lake views while driving and at the end we stopped at a winery – where we could camp for a night. This was one of the best views while camping… and it was free (harvesthosts.com). Since we could camp for free we did some wine tasting – a real American experience (check out the “delicious” meat and cheese platter)…

Just next to the winery was the beautiful little town of Saugatuck with lots of small restaurants, bars, unusual stores and a small exquisite harbor:

We did really enjoy this beautiful area around Lake Michigan, the lake views, the nice restaurants and having a Swiss guest in our home on wheels… Thanks J. for being such an amazing and helpful guest. We really enjoyed having you with us!