The Wendlands travel 4,000 miles along the Great Lakes and explore areas rich in history and natural beauty.
By Mike Wendland, F 426141
September 2014
There’s a reason the five Great Lakes are called great. Actually, many reasons. Although I grew up around them and have spent a lot of time on their shores, I didn’t really appreciate how great they truly are until this past summer when my wife, Jennifer, and I set off in our Roadtrek motorhome to drive the lakes’ U.S. shorelines. The trip took us to eight states and two time zones, and saw us travel 4,062 miles over about a month’s time.
We did our best to follow shoreline roads and stay as close to the coastlines as possible; however, there were a few spots — probably a couple hundred more miles — where that was impossible. But we saw most of them.
We even loaded up the motorhome and took two ferry rides, one to the remote Bois Blanc Island in the Straits of Mackinac at the top of Lake Huron, and once all the way across Lake Michigan aboard a 410-foot car ferry that runs between Ludington, Michigan, and Manitowoc, Wisconsin.
Until we set out on this adventure, I had no idea how big those lakes are. Our travels took us farther than we would have gone had we driven across the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Yet we never really left the Midwest.
If we were to drive the shoreline of the entire Great Lakes where they touch Canada as well as the United States, it would have been an amazingly long trip — nearly 10,000 miles. We couldn’t do that, of course, because some spots have no roads. So, we opted for the 4,000-mile version — still no small undertaking.
All along those Great Lakes were amazing places to camp, usually in state or county parks, but sometimes in federal and state forests where we were able to boondock literally a few dozen feet from the waves.
Our route started at the eastern end of Lake Ontario near Oswego, New York. We headed west, making our way to Lake Erie and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. In Michigan we continued along the shorelines of lakes Huron, Superior, and Michigan, and also visited Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, and Illinois, where Lake Michigan shapes a vibrant coastline lifestyle.
What surprised us was the amazing diversity of those lakes, the world’s largest system of fresh surface water. But from a hydrological standpoint, they are all intermingled and pretty much part of one system. The water that passes the rocky northern Superior shore in Minnesota eventually makes its way to the sandy bluffs of Lake Ontario in upstate New York.
You can follow my blog on FMCA.com or roadtreking.com to get the individual reports and routes. But when readers ask about my favorite spots, I find myself conflicted. These are the Great Lakes, after all, and every part of them held our interest as we learned about the history and soaked in the scenery.
The shorelines are amazingly accessible for all types of motorhomes, from big Type As with towed vehicles to the nimble Type B van-camper motorhomes.
The one caution I would offer involves choosing the time of year to go.
Late spring and early summer is bug season on the Great Lakes. Mosquitoes and biting black and stable flies can be overwhelming. But by mid-July, they seem to have moved on. I’d suggest August through late October as ideal times, with fall perhaps being the best, thanks to spectacular, jaw-dropping color displays as the hardwood trees that line many of the shorelines start to change.
We made no reservations while we traveled. Even places that were filled when we checked them online almost always had a spot available if we just showed up. Our travel style is to just go, stopping whenever we find something of interest.
That included an impromptu hike when we saw the signs for a trail that runs across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; a visit to a memorial honoring the great naval battle on Lake Erie during the War of 1812; a visit to an ice cream parlor in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, which claims to be the birthplace of the ice cream sundae; and a tour of a maritime museum in Manitowoc that has a World War II-vintage submarine docked out front. The latter, at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, commemorates the 28 submarines made there that went on to sink an astounding 132 Japanese ships during the war.
We were seduced by Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and spent three days at a campground on the St. Mary’s River. It offered great views of the huge freighters heading into the Soo Locks, which connect Lake Superior to Lake Huron.
On the north shore of Lake Superior in the town of Grand Marais, Minnesota, we strolled out of our campground and discovered the North House Folk School, which draws people from around the world to take weeklong classes in blacksmithing, wood carving, canoe-making, and the like.
We stood in the spray of powerful waterfalls, crossed footbridges over raging streams, toured a fifth-generation cheese-making business in Gibbsville, Wisconsin, and sampled dark chocolates at the Chocolate Garden in the little town of Coloma, Michigan, recently featured on the Food Network and voted the best chocolatier in America.
The Great Lakes region belongs on your bucket list.
Look for us out there.
Veteran journalist Mike Wendland, F426141, FMCA’s official on-the-road reporter, travels the country with his wife, Jennifer, and their Norwegian elkhound, Tai, aboard the couple’s Roadtrek Type B motorhome. Mike can be reached at openmike@fmca.com.