Day 24 - Thursday, July 2 -Moving Day, Marquette to Hancock

 We left Marquette Tourist Park around noon and headed west to the Hancock Recreation Area, in the Upper Peninsula's Keweenaw Peninsula.

On the way out of the Tourist Park I noted that this must have been these folks laundry day.

The 105 mile route passes through Negaunee and Ishpeming. They are at the bottom right of the photo below.

Between them is 460 acre Teal Lake. US41 runs right along the southern shore. At the bottom left of the photo below you might be able to pick out the Country Village RV Park. We have stayed there several times and will be there again, after our week in the Houghton/Hancock area.

It is a spectacular lake. We wonder why someone hasn't built cottages along the north side.

Along the way we stopped at the Tioga Park Falls and Park and had lunch. I didn't take any photos this time. If you are interested in seeing the "falls" you can check out my walk to the falls in 2024.

https://bertdsblog.blogspot.com/2024/08/days-58-59-wednesday-thursday-august-21.html  

If you  strain your eyes you can find L'Anse in one of the above photos. For some reason diesel is 80-90 cents a gallon cheaper than virtually all the other stations we have passed. Last Sunday, 75 miles from L'Anse we paid $5.25/gal at the cheapest station I could find. Today I paid $4.23/gal. I only put 40 gallons in. I'm hoping that the price will be even less when we go by the station next week and we will fill up totally.

Then it was on to Houghton and Hancock. Houghton is on the south side of Portage Lake/River and Hancock is on the north side. We stayed in Houghton in 2024, and drove through Hancock while exploring. We forgot how NARROW the lanes are in the towns. Kathy drove today, the first time she has driven the coach since we were in Michigan last year. I was sure glad she was the one navigating the narrow lanes. On top of that, in Hancock US41 makes a couple of strange turns that are a challenge when you don't know which lane you need to be in for the next turn. But we made it. PTL! 

We have not previously stayed at this campground. Big rigs can negotiate the roads, if the drivers are good, and Kathy is good. One thing we learned was that you need to unhook your toad before you get to the check in kiosk. After that the roads are tight and you can't stop without blocking traffic. 

We are parked under the white circle, kind of top center of the photo. There was no good place to unhook. We stopped with the front of the rig about even with the site. The street runs uphill and then flattens out after you make the curve to get in front of our site. The tow bar was in a bind from the elevation change and the curve. It was the first time ever that I had to get a hammer and screwdriver and drive  the pins out of the tow bar. It was hot and we were trying to hurry because we had the road totally blocked.

Backing into the site was tight, but doable. The back of the coach is almost tight against the bushes, I can't walk behind it.

One plus is that the campground seems to have good enough wifi that we can stream movies. There are no TV channels.

By the time we got set up it was hot in the coach. We can only run one AC unit with the 30 amp connection. With the sun and our black coach one wasn't enough. It was hot outside and hot inside. We spent the afternoon sitting under one of the AC grills, basking in the cool air. It was hours before it finally cooled down.

Now that the sun is down it is finally cooling down. It is 75 outside and still 75 inside. Kathy just turned the AC thermostat up a little to shut it off. The good news is that this is the hottest we will experience during the week we are here. Even after all the time we have spent in RV's we are still learning. The next time we are heading to a site with only a 30 amp connection, when it is hot, we will start the generator 30-60 minutes before we arrive and leave it run until the coach is cool inside. We can run both AC units on our 8,000 watt generator.

Tomorrow we can do some exploring.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours. He has blessed me.