7 days in the U.P. of Michigan, Drummond Island, Au Train, and Cooper Harbor. Lets go Wheeling. Picture and video Heavy.

[wibornz]

Great pics. Looks like your having a blast!! Doing retirement right!! I can only dream for now.

Just know that I dreamed about it for a long time. Financially, I planned for about 25 years, then travel, I started planning about 6 years ago.

The point is don't just dream, make a plan. No plan = sitting on the couch watching re-runs on tv and hating your life. Don't be like that.

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[Bamabww]

In my opinion, I have not even got to the good pics yet.

Man! I see what you mean. You are a very good photographer. The subject selection was great. What a beautiful area of the country. Thanks for sharing your trip. Best of luck to you and your wife as you enjoy retirement together.

And Happy anniversary!

 

[wibornz]

When we go to leave the shore of Lake Superior, adversely strikes. The beach is a loose pea stone and it is deep, The Cherokee is not able to push the camper back onto firm ground and gets stuck, hey no problem, my JLUR is not hooked up, I will just swing around and pull it out. To do that, I have to drop the passenger side down on the slope towards the water. Well that did not work out.

While the picture does not look like I am stuck, I am stuck. The Jeep will not move and it just digs in.
Notice there is no winch on my Jeep as my new Warn winch will not fit into the current bumper and I am waiting for my Ace Engineering bumper to arrive. Ordered the bumper on July 27th. I am just kicking myself. It is about an 11 mile walk out to get help. I know better than this. I know I have one chance. Air the tires down and try and drive out.

I know I have one chance for this to work. I air the tires down to 4psi. kick out the rocks in front of the tires and drive out. That moment when I put it into gear and just for a second, it doesn't mover forward, a slight gasp of desperation and then it starts to climb out of the holes and up the beach.

And YES, we went back onto the beach and kicked rocks back into the hole and smoothed out the trenches left by my Jeep. The stone was easy to move and easy to erase our tracks. We always leave a place better than we found it.


Fuck yea. What a relief. I have been doing this for far to long to make a mistake like this as I curse under my breath. I was lucky THIS time.

The contact patch on a Cooper STT PRO 37/12.5r17 is much bigger at 4psi.

This little fiasco put us two hours behind. Air down the Cherokee tires and camper tires, and the JLUR tires, getting the campers off the beach on to firm ground and then airing up all ten tires ate up time. Not as much time as hiking out and trying to find help, but we are back in business.

A couple quick vid of coming out of the trail with the camper in tow.

This one shows some flex and the camper benifiting from the lock and Roll articulated hitch.

We stop at the top of Brockway Mt. The color change of the trees have just begun. We are about a week early for the peak of color.

Then we head back home. We still have one more night of camping as we at at least 8+ hours from home.

We jump back onto Gaia and look for a spot that is 3 hours out as this will put us in camp about 630pm. I find a nice spot along a river and we settle in on a high bank overlooking the river.

The morning greet us with sun through the trees.

We enjoy our last cup of coffee and then head home. It was about a 6 hour drive to get home.

So this ends the camping for the Wiborn's for a while. Carla is scheduled for some minor foot surgery that will have her off her foot for up to two months. So no wheeling for us for awhile. Thats okay as I need to prep for our 11 1/2 Jeep trip that starts on January 1st.

I have a ton of video and will most likely just make a Youtube video. I hope you all enjoyed the pics and adventure. If you are looking to camp in the same area, hit me up and I will point you to where we camped at. After all I have few months of down time and moms heals.

Note as fo the typing of this, she has had her surgery, and is recovering well. I am about ready to smash her dam bell. She is ring the shit out of that thing for everything. Hand me the remote, get me water, I need more ice in my water........ LOL love that gir.

 

[kej]

Sounds like a great adventure. Cool pictures. Thanks for sharing and glad you are not still on the beach at Lake Superior.

 

[mikem20]

Excellent trip report! ??

 

[tomslusher]

On a side note, about 20 years ago, myself and some friends would snowmobile up there several times a year. Well, it came out that one of my friends thought it was Broccoli Mountain, not Brockway Mountain. The next time we went up there, all of us secretly pulled out a broccoli floret from our pocket and planted it in the snow when she wasn't looking.

"Holy Crap, it really is Broccoli Mountain!!"

 

[wibornz]

On a side note, about 20 years ago, myself and some friends would snowmobile up there several times a year. Well, it came out that one of my friends thought it was Broccoli Mountain, not Brockway Mountain. The next time we went up there, all of us secretly pulled out a broccoli floret from our pocket and planted it in the snow when she wasn't looking.

"Holy Crap, it really is Broccoli Mountain!!"

Just a side note. We always stop at the Camp Pot when in that area. It did not disappoint.

If you like fresh bake goods, That are about as close to heaven as you can get. It is worth a stop. The coffee, chocolate, peanut butter muffin was to die for or to kill for..... what ever way you go...

The Jam Pot

The stuff out of that bakery is incredible. It is in Eagle Harbor.

 

[tomslusher]

Just a side note. We always stop at the Camp Pot when in that area. It did not disappoint.

If you like fresh bake goods, That are about as close to heaven as you can get. It is worth a stop. The coffee, chocolate, peanut butter muffin was to die for or to kill for..... what ever way you go...

The Jam Pot

The stuff out of that bakery is incredible. It is in Eagle Harbor.

We always liked to stop at the Gay Bar.

 

[Elsinore73]

So with Drummond Island done, we head off to go west across the UP. Our crew breaks up and we are now just the Cherokee and my JLUR traveling together. We have no real plan other than to get to the most northern part of Michigan.

So I wake up and make coffee on the last morning on Drummond Island. The sky is over cast,

and then Mother Nature does her magic. The sky was like this for about 10 minutes. Just a note, I have already won a photo contest with this pic.

The sky blew up.

Off to the Ferry, It took us over two hours to get onto the ferry and off the Island.

So Sunday was a travel day as we work our way across the UP. We end up in a national forest just south of Au Train for the night. A spot I find, using Gaia to camp. It is down in a little gully, out in the middle of no where, but has cell service and good internet. Bonus.... We get camp set up and Mother Nature is not playing, She put on a show for us. The sky was on fire.

We settle in after being in the Jeep on the road for most of the day and enjoy a fire into the night.

The next morning did not disappoint.

Great pictures Ted, thanks for sharing. Please tell Bill my old hard top looks great up on the UP!

 

[wibornz]

Great pictures Ted, thanks for sharing. Please tell Bill my old hard top looks great up on the UP!

Will do, he just left. We were wiring up solar to the 200ah Lithium Ion battery this morning in the campers. Installed a soar controller that that also will do DC to DC charging without killing the alternator.

 

[wibornz]

We always liked to stop at the Gay Bar.

I have been to the Gay Bar. We had planned on stopping there, but the fiasco of getting the campers off the beach put us two hours behind so we passed on it this time.


The last time I was there was riding motorcycles. The Gay Bar is a common stop for people riding motorcycles in the U.P.

 

[tobyw]

Cool trip, thanks for sharing. I absolutely LOVE the picture of your group all towing their little trailers

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