Mackinaw City and Macinac Island

We drove from Traverse City to Mackinaw City on Monday, August 3 to stay three  nights at Mackinaw Mill Creek Campground.  This is a huge place with over 600 camp sites.  It sits on Lake Michigan with 1 mile of shore line and can accommodate any size rig.  Roads are mostly paved and sites are gravel.  Some have full hook ups.  We lucked up and got one of the larger sites but saw others that were packed in pretty close.  Its a nice place to stay, just be aware when you pick your spot.
They offer discount tickets to the Star Line Jet Boat Ferries to Mackinac Island and there is a free shuttle that picks up and drops off in the camp ground.  They pull a small trailer for those that want to take their bikes over.  Here is a link Star Line Ferry
The morning we went to the island, we caught the 10:30 am shuttle in the campground.  we arrived at the dock just before 11:00 but for some reason the 11:00 am ferry did not show up.  Ferries run every 30 minutes and long story short, we had to wait for the THIRD ferry to pickup before we could board,  finally arriving at the island a little after 1pm.

Part of the line waiting to catch a ferry - about 500 people.

#1 order of business when we got there was food!  No breakfast and it was after lunch so we did a quick search on Trip Advisor and settled on The Chuckwagon.  This place is small and we had to wait a bit but the tables turn pretty quickly.  They have a small menu featuring burgers.  They do just a few things and do them well.  I had a Rattlesnake burger and Diane had the Blue Cheese Burger.  Hand partied and cooked to perfection on a flat top.  For a quick bite, you won't go wrong here.

The Island is your typical mix of gift stores, fudge shops, ice cream, tee shirts, shoes, jewelry, restaurants, bars,  etc. etc.  The thing that makes the island unique is that no motor vehicles are allowed.  Everything is bicycles, foot, and horses in the summer.  The residents do use snow mobiles in the winter and kids ride them to school!

Bicycles are EVERYWHERE!

Supplies for local businesses are delivered by horse and wagon.

We took a tour of the island using Mackinac Island Carriage Tours

This is a large outfit operating several carriages at any given time.  It cost $28 per adult for a "2 hour" tour. While it was interesting, I was somewhat underwhelmed.  There was a ride through one street of town, a pull up the hill to see the Grand Hotel, a stop at a gift shop where you change carriages,  a ride through the woods to the rock arch where you get 5 whole minutes to get off and take pictures, then 5 minutes more ride where you are encouraged to get off and walk 5 minutes back to town or endure another 45 minute carriage ride to get back to the same place.  After listening to the cranky driver Gene tell BS stories for 30 minutes, I was ready to walk most anywhere.  I wouldn't do this again.  In fact the entire Mackinac Island thing is just a big tourist trap. Glad I did it once, but don't plan to go back.

The ride to the island and back was on a jet boat and the 6:30pm ferry we caught makes a slight detour and actually goes under the Mackinac Bridge.   This was the highlight of the day for me! The boat shoots up a huge rooster tail while under way.

One last thing.  Our Campground was in Mackinaw (with a "w") City.  We took a ferry to Mackinac (with a "c") Island and went under the Mackinac Bridge.  They are pronounced the same, (as in Mackinaw) so what's up with the spelling?   It seems that the French across the river in Canada got the name from the native Indians and spelled it with a "c".  The English on the southern shore spelled it with a "w" as its pronounced.  So in the US its "w" and across the water its "c".  That was really driving me crazy until I found out the reason!

Following is some pics I took.  Hope you enjoy!

The harbor area.

The founder!

Church

Newer Church

The Grand Hotel. ($$$$$!)

Natural stone arch.

Original buildings of the fur trade 1814.

Not sure why the flag is at half staff.

The Island Fort

Bar Harbor and Acadia

After leaving Boothbay Harbor, we continued further north to our ultimate destination of Bar Harbor Maine and Acadia National Park. We actually stayed about 12 miles form Bar Harbor in the small town of Trenton, Maine at Timberland Campground. The CG is nice with large, level pull through sites and the campground wifi worked great. We were parked in the open so satellite tv was not a problem. We also had fairly strong Verizon 4G for our hot spot but didn't really need it.  http://www.timberlandacresrvpark.com

Bar Harbor is a great little town that got its name because of a sandbar between the mainland and an island that is exposed during low tide. People walk over there and hopefully make it back before the tide comes back in, but if not, they don't attempt a "rescue" because a few hours later, they can walk back. Our guide of the Acadia tour we took told us about an empty kayak that was in the water near the sandbar that was just sitting in the same spot for a couple hours. After the tide went out a little, they saw that it was strapped to the roof of an SUV! Uh oh! 

You can see the sand bar exposed here at low tide.

In Bar Harbor there is the West Street Cafe. If you like blueberry pie, (or as it turns out, even if you don't), go there. Order pie with vanilla ice cream. Eat it. I am not a fan of blueberries but I had to sample Diane's piece. I have to say, that was some of the best pie I have ever eaten. Turns out Maine blueberries ( and they grow a bunch of them), are a little different form southern blueberries. Smaller and sweeter. Good stuff!

The aforementioned guide worked for Ollie's Trolleys. http://www.olistrolley.com They charged us $30 each for a 2.5 hour tour of Bar Harbor and Acadia. It was a great way to get the lay of the land and decide what we wanted to explore further. (I highly recommend this approach if you've never been to the area.) This turned out to be a double blessing because of the weather. We had scheduled 4 days at Timberland but after a couple days of rain, decided to extend for 4 more. Out of the 8 days, we had 2 days of sunshine, 4 days of rain, and 2 days of cloudy, windy, and cool. But you can't control the weather so no point in getting bent out of shape about it.
Acadia is an awesome National Park. If you are in the area, make time to spend a couple days here. Following are some pictures we took to document the trip. Hope you enjoy.

Bar harbor is filled with quaint summer "cottages" that the
rich and famous of the day built in the area.  

Views from the top of Cadillac Mountain.

Trees are a bit stunted up here!

Only 1500 feet in elevation.

The glaciers left this behind when they retreated.

The wind was unbelievable on top!

Mile after mile of rocky coast line.

Frenchman's Bay

One of several lakes on the island.  Notice the beaver
huts at the far side.

Sand Beach.  A rarity due to cold water and currents which
normally dissolve the shells that make up this "sand".

One of several stone bridges in the park.  the Rockefellers, Morgans,
and other well to do people of the day built much of the park.
They did a great job of creating the roads, carriage roads, and bridges
that give access to the park without impacting the natural beauty.

February 21, 2015

The Seed Sprouts.

The seed of an idea was planted.  What will follow in this and the next few posts is OUR situation and how WE approached it.  Hopefully we will give you some ideas and things to think about, but YOUR situation is different so YOU have to answer the questions as they apply to you.
After we get you caught up on how we get to April 30, 2015, you will be traveling around this great nation with us as we learn to live outside the box!

How do we know if this full time RVing is a good idea or just a pipe dream?  So many questions to answer. Would we be happy living in a smaller space?  What do the financials look like?  If we try it and don't like it, how do we get out of it?  How do we get rid of all our stuff?  Do we even want to get rid of all our stuff?  It goes on and on so lets break it down.

EXPENSES
One of the first questions, we had to answer was "what will it cost us to live a FT lifestyle and be happy doing it?"  The answers to this really depends on who you are talking to.  Some folks get by on less than a thousand dollars a month, and others spend 10 times that.  Again, it is what works for you and your situation.   This variability only proves that living full time in an RV allows you to be flexible.  You have options that don't present themselves in a S&B.

Now, let me say at this point that I am a planner -  always have been and always will be.  I will think a day or two before I buy a loaf of bread just to be sure its what I want.  A bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.  And in this situation, it's a good thing because I have fairly detailed records on our current expenses.  Knowing that, it is somewhat easier to identify the things that will not change and then research and estimate those that will.  For instance, I don't expect our food bill to change that much.  We cook a lot and since we enjoy it, I expect that to continue.  Insurance on the toad should remain about the same.  Cell phone, satellite TV, pet expenses, personal care items, all will be about the same as living in the "sticks and bricks" (S&B).  We traded a landline phone and DSL internet for Verizon wireless with a hot spot.  We are taking Dish Network with us.  Our two Shih Tzus have to eat and toothpaste and deodorant make for happy campers!

And then there are an entire host of expenses that we do expect to change. The options we select will cause some to go up, some to go down, some will be new, and others may disappear.
RV - We were camping in our 2003 Winnie Brave and we knew that for full-time RVing, we would want something a little bigger and better suited for full time.  So we would be trading a mortgage for campground fees and most likely a payment on the RV. Now I will be the first to say, if you can make the move to full time (FT) and be debt free, that is the ideal way to go but that was not a reasonable expectation for us. So the RV payment, just like the campground fees, became a budget item.

Taxes and Insurance - We simply traded taxes and insurance on the house for the same things on the motor home (MH).  Right now it looks like insurance on the MH will go up a bit while taxes will go down a bit so I expect this to remain pretty much the same.  One option we now have that can affect both of these costs by hundreds or thousands of dollars each year is where we select as our domicile state.  When your home has wheels, you can do things differently. You can select a legal address that offers benefits concerning taxes, insurance, and cost of living.  Domicile is an entire topic in itself and we'll talk more about it later and give some links to other blogs that have tons of information on this topic.
Fuel expense - this changes from gas in the cars driving to work every day, to fuel for the MH and toad to get us down the road.  This is somewhat variable since the less you travel, the less fuel you need.  Also, staying in one spot longer generally gets you better campground rates than the shorter stays and it gives you more time to see an area and experience the flavor and culture!  We think that during the first two years, we will be rambling a good bit to see all of the sites on our bucket lists and then hope to settle to a more leisurely wandering kind of pace.  Consequently, we budgeted more fuel expense AND campground fees to support this more mobile phase of our adventure.  At this point it is a planned amount based on the miles we expect to cover each month.  This will be fine tuned each month once we are on the road. (Remember, I AM a planner!)
Preventive Maintenance and Repairs - are another budget item to consider.  Oil changes, filters, and other minor repairs have to be taken care of on the road and depending on your set up, this can run into some big bucks.  This category could also include tire replacement depending on the age of your rig or tow vehicle (TV).

Clothing expense - will go way down since the dress code in most RV parks and boondock sites is not quite as stringent as work.

Health Insurance - A big expense for us is health insurance.  Diane and I both have a few years to reach Medicare age so health insurance is an item we have to budget for.
While researching FT lifestyle costs, I read a lot about people that live on less than a thousand dollars or so a month.  I'm not sure how you do that if you have to purchase your own health insurance.  If you don't have many assets, you can surely role the dice and go with out it but if you do have assets, one stay in the hospital can ruin you financially.  For us, going without health insurance is not an option so again, we have to budget for a major expense.
Entertainment - One reason we are traveling is to see the USA and unfortunately, some of the things we will want to see are not free.  Those rainy, lazy, days may call for a movie or a good book. Hobbies and things we enjoy doing now will go with us on the road so let's budget for it!
Clubs and Memberships - We will need a mail forward service.  We are currently members of Good Sam Club, Coach-Net, and Escapees.  I have an account with RV Trip Wizard  for planning our routes and stays, (there is that planning thing again!). I will join Passport America  before we hit the road to hopefully save a bit on camping fees while relocating from point A to point B.  As we get some miles under our belt we may eliminate some of these, but for now, we budget for them.

I think that about covers it.  What are we missing here?  Leave a comment below and let us know what your experience has been or maybe some things you have thought about that can help others.

Our next post will talk about getting rid of STUFF!  Hope to see you back here!