RV THERE YET?: GRILLS GONE WILD!

Saturday, July 6, 2013

GRILLS GONE WILD!

Note: It is easier to receive notification when this blog is published if you sign up to receive an email when a blog is published (in the right hand column). So sorry some of you have experienced problems when you have attempted to open the blog.

Seems like there are a lot of Florida people in Michigan! When we arrived in Traverse City several of our RV friends from Florida were also making their way toward northwest Michigan. Some had already arrived and were staying at Traverse Bay RV Resort, a beautiful and popular resort on the eastern side of Traverse City.

Traverse Bay RV Resort

Since we've never been to the Traverse City and surrounding area before, we had no point of reference as far as where we would be staying, but Indigo Bluffs RV Resort is in a rural area closer to Lake Michigan and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Our resort is on the northwest coast of the Lower Peninsular of Michigan in Leelanau County, about 30 very scenic miles from Traverse Bay. Our resort is very natural and known for all the beautiful wild flowers.

Indigo Bluffs RV Resort - Empire, MI

Our coach resting at Indigo Bluffs

Indigo Bluffs Wild Flowers

We spent July 4th with our friends at Traverse Bay in lieu of our own cookout at Indigo Bluff. Travelling to Traverse Bay we drove along the edge of Grand Traverse Bay, the National Cherry Festival activities, and
thousands of "grills and buoys". Later that evening, on our way back to our coach, we think that number had doubled because they were anxiously waiting to see a spectacular fireworks display in Grand Traverse Bay.

Traverse City - National Cherry Festival Week

A side note about what a small world in which we live: We attended a weekly "Meet and Greet" at Indigo Bluffs and were introduced to several new RV friends (this will be our favorite story for a long time). We were introduced to a couple from Florida. We said "Where are you from?" They said, "Jacksonville." We said, "So are we!" They said, "Well, we're not exactly from Jax, we live in Green Cove Springs!" We said, "So did we!" They said, "Where did you live? We live in Magnolia Point." We said, "So did we!" They said, "We live on Colonial Drive." We said, "SO DID WE!" They said, "We live at 1830. Where did you live?" We said, "1843." (on the other side of our street - 3 doors down)

I think you'll agree it's sometimes hard to get to know your neighbors when you are working and in your own daily routines. They were working full time jobs that frequently took them out of town during the week. While we knew a lot of the same people and went to a lot of the same places, we had never met them. Before beginning our full time RV lifestyle, we lived in Magnolia Point in Green Cove Springs, FL, for 7 years, and then finally meet our former neighbors 6 years later in northwest Michigan. The world keeps getting smaller and smaller!

We'll be exploring the northwest part of Michigan for the next month and hope you enjoy reading about our travel adventures.