“Crack, Crash and Shatter – in the end, none of that mattered.”
End of Summer 2018…

Started in a rain storm and finished in good company ☺️

From the Irish ☘️ Hills to Michigan’s Largest Waterpark…

It was nearing the end of summer and my sons & I decided to rent an RV to go to, according to stats, the “Biggest Waterpark in Michigan” in Boyne City, Michigan. At the time we lived in the gateway of the Irish ☘️ Hills which was Onsted, Michigan.

Preparation Monday…

We took a heck of a lot of time preparing for our trip and Mom (I) made sure we had everything we could need on our first ever RV trip. I packed towels, games, snacks, food, an emergency 🆘 kit, books, etc. Even before we started our actual journey, things started happening that were out of our control…

I took my son to pick up the RV in Petersburg, Michigan and it was around an hour away. On the way we passed our exit and ended up being late (go figure, right? 🤪). The family that maintained the vehicle along with other recreational vehicles needed to take off soon so he wouldn’t get his son too late ⏰ to his soccer game 😔😲🤦‍♀️.

 

So, of course by the time we got there (and had been on an hour ride without stopping), I had to go to the bathroom 🚽🤣. Without waiting any longer, the owner of the vehicle started going through the inside- and outside of the gorgeous RV with us to make sure everything was looking good. I had to interrupt ✋the inspection real quick to take my restroom break and decided to let my son finish the final inspection. 

As I returned, I was provided with the key and a few more tips and important information/instructions.

Finally with RV…

Off we went, well… I had driven a 24 passenger vehicle before but it had been a while so it was going to take some “getting used to.”

It didn’t take me long to miss a road (again) where we were supposed to turn. I immediately decided to turn at the next closest driveway and was relieved to find it close enough. The bad news was that the driveway was NOT a circle ⭕️ drive which meant that I had to back out this large RV out of these folks looong driveway. Oopsi 🙊😅.

I’ll never forget the sight of watching the neighbors watching us that had a house and property right next to the driveway we were backing up out of. They were all outside for some reason watching this spectacle!!! (Us) The entire family was all lined up outside enjoying some “live entertainment.” And I backed out verrrry carefully and verrrry slowwwwly too. 😅😆

…still in “preparation” phase

My plan was to treat my son to a Cabela’s meal at their restaurant upstairs at Cabela’s. The restaurant however was closed when we got there. No problem at all, maybe another time. So we went ahead and had a meal at a restaurant in the nearby plaza.

After we ate and walked 🚶‍♀️ out to our RV, I couldn’t help but notice that the windshield was noticeably cracked, 😲something I definitely did NOT notice before, but then – what if it was there and I was too busy and overlooked it?! 😳

So, I immediately called the owner after I took a few pics of the issue and he said we could just “deal with it when we return.” Whew.

So, then we returned home to gather my other two sons. As we were finally ready to begin our actual journey to leave from home, we were all hungry so we stopped at Artesian Well’s, a nearby restaurant that serves really good brisket and pulled pork. The restaurant is located right next to a Harley Davidson dealership and the restaurant has classic Harley Davidson motorcycles displayed on window area shelves that you can see when driving by. By then we all had noticed that that crack in the windshield had turned into a backwards candy cane! No worries, that windshield “wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be”, LOL

Day 2: Tuesday

…Let’s GO already…😅

Alrighty then, off we went heading north. I was lucky 🍀 enough to have three sons so each one ☝️ of them could take turns to be “co-pilot.”

…Here comes the storm ⛈️ da-da-dada…🎶

After several hours of driving north, it started to rain. 🌧️ The rain turned into a full blown thunderstorm and soon we couldn’t even see to drive since the wind 💨 swept the rain sideways. As 🔜 as I found the next rest exit, I took it and we literally parked in the very last parking spot that was available before leaving the rest area.

The storm ended up lasting for several hours so after waiting turned into more waiting, we decided to just stay at the rest area and call it a night.

Day 3: Wednesday

Early in the morning, we woke up around 6:30 am to a dramatic domestic dispute directly next to us in the parking lot. There was a man in a large semi truck and a woman in a maroon sedan. They were arguing loudly and generously throwing bad words at each other. Next thing you know, the heated argument got to its worst point and the woman slammed her extra large drink cup onto the semi truck. It splattered and shattered into plastic cup pieces. Seconds later, she screeched her tires and off she went down the highway.

Still at the rest stop…

As I went outside to rinse our bowls, we were greeted by a car driving by us very slowly that must have thought we were holding out our bowls for change/money or food Lol

…back on the road again…

Day 3 until 4

We ended up at our next day’s destination as planned at a Michigan State Recreation & RV park in Charlevoix, Michigan. It was late ⏰ at night when we arrived and were able to chose and find a site overlooking the water. We all got out to check the place out and I remember how dark it was that night and how velvety the water looked as we walked over to the dock to take a gander: words couldn’t even describe how beautiful it was.

Feelings of peace, serenity and bliss all seem to have came to flood my mind erasing any stress or turbulence from our family adventure so far,

Day 4: Thursday

As we awoke in the morning to our beautiful surroundings of Charlevoix we were greeted by the most breathtaking 🤩 view imaginable. Just gorgeous: the lake, the weather and the location were just such a wonderful experience all together. It was almost hard to take in all its beauty! I took a mental note to come back to this special location again one day.

Finally – it was the day to go to the “largest Waterpark in Michigan” which is Avalanche Bay in Boyne Falls, Michigan. Here we come! …Off we went towards our main destination of our trip. We decided to take a quick stop ✋ at a Dollar store in a nearby shopping plaza to grab a few essentials and soon after got back to our RV.

Turning left as we were pulling out of the plaza’s parking lot and entering the road again, I noticed a grey car in front of us coming from our right. that decided in the last minute that it was okay to cut in front of us after seeing us, a big RV coming from their left. At the exact same time or by a few seconds, there was also a white pickup truck to our left (that didn’t take too long to look to their right) beginning to enter the roadway in front of us and – would you believe it – they both literally came together and crashed 💥 into each other side by side right in front of us!!! It left everyone shocked! The guy from the grey car got out and immediately scolded the truck driver who did not get out of his vehicle and stayed calm.

We ended up there (by the accident) until we gave our eye witness report of the incident to the local authorities. Finally, we were able to leave after a crew came to clean up.

Back on the road to the water park…just a few more miles. 15-10-5 and we’re there! Yay!!!

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Waterpark –

Finally. The waterpark was part of a large resort that also offered winter- and family activities around a lodge type resort. The waterpark was really amazing. They had several slides, a lazy river, lounging areas, food courts, two hot tubs for adults and a family restaurant above overlooking the waterpark.

Without too much hesitation, the boys and I eagerly tried out the various slides and lazy river. After some time, I let the boys know where I was going and went around the waterpark to explore everything it had to offer. There was a balcony upstairs for sunbathing, an area for children’s activities and a resort village with small shops for souvenirs and sports related apparel. When it was time to eat, I already scoped out a cute Irish Pub that had great food. On our way, we found a Mackinaw Island Fudge shop and picked out some specialty chocolates.

To our surprise, the pub was in full swing playing authentic Irish music by a musician that also played for the Holly Renaissance Fest. We all had scrumptious meals and left with full bellies. After we left the restaurant, we roamed around the village type shops and we pleasantly surprised that the resort also offered ziplining so we eagerly made arrangements to go on a ziplining tour in the morning.

Upon returning to our RV in the evening, we notice how smoldering hot it had become outside. It was a super H-O-T day of 92 degrees and we could feel the hot asphalt under us even with shoes. Back in the RV, we couldn’t manage to get our A/C back working and I had developed a screaming headache. Unfortunately, I knew that screaming back at it would help. Somewhat frantically, I reached for my so called “Smart-phone” to find our next RV park and its GPS was not on our side, it just wasn’t giving us accurate information of the area. There must have been bad reception in the area. Even though it claimed that it was only 16 miles away, we were directed to circle the resort several times before we finally got away from the area.

On our drive to the next park we went on very bumpy wash board type backroads. All of our dishes clanged and clanked along the way. After taking a few stops on the way to stretch out and take a break, we continued on the very rough roads. It seemed to take forever and all the boys were sleeping. We finally arrived at our last RV park at 1 am in the morning. The park had hiking- and four wheeling trails and was nestled between mountains. There was no one at the office and we were gone by 7 am so that we could be back on time for our ziplining adventure.

 

Day 5: Friday

Up and at ’em, we had to get to our scheduled ziplining adventure at 9 am! On the way there, one of my son’s said that he heard a squeaking noise so we pulled over to see what might be the problem. We discovered that the noise came from the inside of the RV and after a while of trying to figure out where the noise came from…TA_DAH!!!

EEeeeeek, it was a mouse!!!

We chased him and chased him but he found some small space to hide and decided to continue on the ride with us and we had to just accept that. We decided to name him Fred so that we can feel like he’s a welcome guest aboard our adventure trip. Onward we went and got back to Boyne Mountain to begin our ziplining adventure. 

Ziplining…

We began our ziplining tour with three guides and a medium sized group of zipliners with us. The guides gave us an instructional lecture about what to expect, safety and what they do. At each station that we arrived at, the instructors gave us a new and fun way to zipline the next section. That made it super fun! We had a blast ziplining, it’s a safe and fun family activity to do outdoors in nature and was our second ziplining adventure. The first time we went was in Harrison, Michigan and it covered a much smaller area and it wasn’t as high up. We ate ourselves a good meal when we were done then explored some more to check out the gift shops and winter activities.

After discussing what to do about our A/C issue, I decided to call some friends that live nearby and they invited us to park our RV by their house. They lived only 23 miles away from the Boyne Mountain resort and also right next to a camp ground called “Camp Dowhatchawannado”. (The first time I went to visit them I ended up getting lost and DIDN’T know WHAT to do until they found me! 😂🤣Once we arrived we were tired but still had plenty of supplies so my sons went about cooking up some hamburgers and hot dogs for us and our friends on the grill. While we were eating dinner we enjoyed telling them all about our adventures. Thankfully, I had everything written down in my journal. After dinner, our friends took us all for a ride in their four wheelers to Torch Lake that’s nearby. That night we all slept very well.

Day 6: Saturday

7:30 am: I was so excited to be the first one up and took my shower first. As I left the house barefoot with many things on my mind, I tripped on the edge of the deck and fell down on the deck. Ouch! I hurt my big toe and that was so NOT toe-tally cool!😲😵

My friend heard me yell out and rushed to me to see if I was okay. She brought me coffee and we talked a while on the porch until it got too hot there and moved to their open garage. To our delight, the boys all surprised us all again by making us a BIG breakfast of eggs, sausage, ham and pancakes all on the griddle and grill. It was a relaxing ending to a very eventful vacation and as far as I remember, nothing else crazy happened on the way back, whew!!!

The End.

P.S.: By the way, the owners must still have that mouse!!!