I write to you from the strangest places, and that’s the way you like it.   When we are parked in Tucson for months at a time, blog readership plummets and I get emails from people asking “When are you going to back on the road?”   When I am blogging daily, with a different location every night, everyone seems happy.

Tonight the blog comes to you from the top of Rib Mountain, in Wausau WI.   There is a nice little state park campground on the top of the mountain, with sites alongside the edge of the mountain that have clear views to the north.   We’re in one of those sites tonight, just a short walk from the two ski lifts that serve this mountain in winter.

Should you decide to check out Wisconsin’s Rib Mountain State Park with your trailer, keep in mind that the park is designed primarily for tent camping.   Many sites can accommodate trailers, but there are no hookups, no trash collection, and no dump station.   Still, it’s worth the visit just for the view.   (We’re going to check out the Rib Mountain Travel Center nearby tomorrow for a dump station.   When we are courtesy parking a lot, as we have been lately, I use RVdumps.com to find dump stations along the way.)

A little further up the road from our campsite is a large TV transmitting tower and a large wooden tower with three viewing platforms. The top platform puts you above the trees and basically on par with the TV antennas.   Cell phones are obliterated by the interference and don’t work at the top of the platform, as Emma found out when talking to her grandmother, but when you are at the very top of Rib Mountain and looking down at a glorious 360 degree panorama, it doesn’t matter much.   The view is spectacular and I imagine it is particularly good during fall foliage.

The mountain is basically a big hunk of quartzsite, a very hard stone that didn’t erode as fast as the land around it, which is why this is the third-highest point in all of Wisconsin.   The Upper Peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin are not known for their mountains, and that made our day’s drive somewhat less interesting.   The most interesting part of it was that for several hours we rounded the top of Lake Michigan and yet the water kept appearing off to the left as if it had no end.   You really get a sense of how “great” a Great Lake is when you try to circumscribe even a small part of one.

The other item of interest was of course pasties.   We discovered on a prior visit that the UP is pasty country, those sturdy concoctions of pastry dough and meat, potatoes, and spices.   Pasties actually come in many flavors, but the classic formula seems to be beef with potato.   They are by no means diet food, but everyone can splurge once in a while, right?   We stopped at a local restaurant in one of the small towns along the route and bought one for lunch.   The thing turned out to be so huge that all three of us could have made lunch out of it, but since we actually ordered two other lunches, the pasty became part of tonight’s dinner.

Dinner was necessarily light tonight. Eleanor and Lynn spent Sunday afternoon building an enormous multi-course feast which took the entire evening to consume.   The proposal is that we do this every week when we are all in Arizona this winter, but that’s completely out of the question.   We’d simply explode like Mr. Creosote.   As it is, we’ve been eating a lot of heavy meals and not getting much exercise.   But this morning we left De Tour Village with regret, since our visit was too short.

In addition to eating too much, we are driving too much lately. Today’s drive was a solid 360 miles, a tedious ordeal made somewhat more pleasant by podcasts (including some stories of Canada’s greatest superhero, The Red Panda). We have one more oversized drive ahead of us tomorrow, to Minneapolis, and then we can relax a little.   I will be glad for a few days well away from the car and on a trail, or at least walking around a city.

On the other hand, I have noticed that we will be near the famous SPAM museum in Austin MN later this week.   I may not be able to resist one more splurge. Maybe I can get a SPAM pasty?

De Tour Village, as its   name implies, is not a town you are likely to pass through on your way to somewhere else.   Situated on the furthest eastern point of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, it is the seasonal home of perhaps 420 people, and certainly many fewer in the winter.   The only place further east in Michigan is across the passage by ferry to Drummond Island.

We are here to visit with our friends Charlie and Lynn, fellow Airstream owners, at their home on the north shore of Lake Huron.   Our Airstream is tucked neatly next to their house within about 100 feet of the lake, so that we can hear the waves at night.   De Tour is a place for that sort of recreation.   The “things to do,” by traditional tourist brochure definition, are scarce.   You have to be happy with playing by the lake, relaxing on the deck, socializing … that sort of thing.

Our big activity of the day was to drive 20 minutes through scattered Timothy hay fields to the Presbyterian church in Stalwart, where an all-day “Thanksgiving” supper was being held.   I was amused to see how much it was like the church suppers I remember from growing up in Vermont: lots of white-haired people sitting at round tables with paper plates loaded with country staples, a buffet line staffed by cheery volunteers, racks of different homemade pies for dessert, no music, and plenty of “Good to see you!” type conversation.   We each loaded up a plate with turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and vegetables, and proceeded to stuff ourselves.   Then we went back for dessert.   Our choices were chocolate cake, mixed berry pie, chocolate pie, and raisin cream pie, but there were many other flavors.

Just a few steps from the church was the Stalwart County Fair, a 100+ year tradition, and probably the smallest county fair you’ll ever find anywhere.   No rides, no midway, no vendor area, just the classic agricultural elements of county fairs many years ago.   We walked through the cow barn, the horse barn, the crafts & food exhibit, saw the rabbits and chickens, and then (all of 10 minutes later), emerged at the oval track just in time to catch some of the horsepulls.

Now that’s an impressive sight.   These massive horses pull heavier and heavier loads across a dusty track.   We saw teams of two pulling over 6,000 pounds of concrete, and they hadn’t hit the limit yet.   Judging from the crowd in the grandstand, this was the popular event of the County Fair.

Now, for tax purposes, I should probably mention that we are not wandering through Michigan just for fun.   If we were, we would have stopped at many places along Lake Michigan’s shoreline on the way up, and we’d be making more stops in the Upper Peninsula on the way west this week.   But we are actually following a fairly rigid schedule of meetings with various people for magazine purposes.   This schedule will draw us to Minneapolis in a few days, 500+ miles away.   Normally we’d take several days to cover that kind of mileage, but circumstances deem that we rush to meet the schedule.   This doesn’t make any of us happy — too much time in the car, not enough sight-seeing — so my compensation is to remind any future tax auditors that this is all a business trip.   We’ll still try to have some fun this weekend, because having fun is not a violation of IRS rules yet.

By the way, we spotted yet another egg-shaped fiberglass trailer on the way through Grandville on Friday, appropriately called “Egg Camper.” It joins the Casita, Scamp, Burro, and Oliver trailer crowd, as well as the now-defunct Boler, Trillium, and Bigfoot, and many other brands of fiberglass RVs.   These things are a cute and aerodynamic option for folks who want something a bit different from the white boxes.   I’ve always liked the rounded fiberglass trailers and almost bought one before we got our first Airstream.   Even today I like to see them.   Their neat and tidy shipboard look is appealing, plus the durability of the streamlined fiberglass exterior.   Perhaps I’m just pining for our Caravel to be back on the road.

Whenever we go to Jackson Center it seems there is not enough time to do the fun things.   After half a dozen visits, I have yet to see Neil Armstrong’s museum, the Bicycle Museum, or go to The Spot To Eat.   We came to the Airstream factory for some service, but I ended up meeting up with a bunch of people from management, and the next thing we knew it was 3 pm and too late to start the drive to Grand Rapids.   So we spent another night in the Terra Port.   It has been rather hot the past few days, and a cool shower and relaxing evening in the trailer with the air conditioning on seemed like a better move than five hours in the car, especially since the driver (me) was tired.

The Terra Port was somewhat lonely this time.   We never saw more than four trailers parked there during our visit.   One of them was the folks who sold us our first Airstream, the Caravel.   We seem to run into them every year, since we all travel in similar patterns of rallies and seasons. Despite the quietude of the camping area, the service bays were mostly full with long-term projects, so it’s not quiet inside the shop.

The axle alignment and brake check came to about $350. The axles were indeed off in their camber.   Both left and right sides measured at the extreme ends of the permissible range.   Now they are adjusted right to the middle of the range.   The brakes got a clean bill of health.

This morning we pressed onward, to the area around Grand Rapids MI.   We had two stops, one for business, and the other to see the Caravel undergoing restoration.   The Caravel looks very good although far from complete.   The exterior has been polished and needs just one more buffing to look really great.   The interior is still mostly empty while the guys figure out some wiring problems, but already the replacement bathroom closets that I made last summer have been installed.   We consulted for about half an hour on some decisions, snapped some photos of the work in progress, and that was about it.

Tonight we are courtesy parking in Hudsonville, just outside Grand Rapids.   This town is known as “The Salad Bowl of Michigan,” for the rich black soil that encourages vegetable farming.   From where we are parked, it’s hard to envision fields of anything growing, because we are in an older mixed residential/urban area for the night, on asphalt.   We are parked behind a former car dealership with permission of the owner, who has become a new friend.

We invited him to join us at Steak’n’Shake tonight (I know, big spenders) to share our celebratory dinner. This is our 16th wedding anniversary.   You might think that sleeping in an Airstream behind a former car dealership in Michigan owned by a guy we never met in person before today, and eating dinner at Steak’n’Shake constitutes perhaps the weirdest anniversary celebration ever, but trust me, in our marriage they’re all weird.

 A few years ago Airstream ran “Homecoming” events here in Jackson Center OH on the grounds of the Airstream factory.   Those Homecomings have ceased — victims of economics — but every time we come here I feel like we’ve come back to home in a way.   This is where our Airstream was born in 2005.   Since we first took ownership of it, the trailer has touched the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, climbed the Continental Divide in both the US and Canada, and roamed from the Florida Keys to Vancouver … and every year we bring it back here to the place where it all began.

The guys in the service center here at Airstream see trailers come in from every corner of the continent, each one displaying little hints of the thousands of miles of travel it has seen.   Ours is no exception.   They’ve fixed damage from the wheel that came off in Idaho, the trim that I scraped off near Quartzsite, and the TV antenna I mangled in Tucson.   I think the guys in the Service Center like seeing trailers with some bumps and bruises to show that the product really does get used in all sorts of circumstances, just the way that they are designed to be.

We came here for an axle alignment, but my list has grown a little longer since.   Last night we had a long steady rain and we noticed a little bit of a leak near the bathroom vent.   I’m also wondering if I should have the wheels pulled for a disk brake check.   Probably will.   That will mean I have to stop three times along the highway as we depart, to re-torque the lug nuts, but that’s far better than running the brake pads too thin.   We’ve had problems in the past with the calipers seizing, so at the very least I’d like to know that they are all operating as designed.

It also feels a little like home because of the greeting we get now.   Just after we arrived, I snuck into Dave Schumann’s office to catch up on things with him, and people kept dropping by.   Each one said the same thing, “I didn’t know you were here!” and I got a big genuine smile from all of them.   I don’t see most of these folks more than once a year, so it felt nice that they remembered me.   Several people also asked about Eleanor and Emma, who were at that moment off in downtown Jackson Center getting some laundry done.   Airstream is a small company with a family feel to it, and so it is easy to get to know and like all of the people who work here.

Dave commented on the axle problem cautiously. Until the trailer is examined, we don’t know for sure that the alignment is at fault, but it seems like the only possibility.   We talked about the typical causes of mis-alignment and some more radical theories, but came to no definite conclusions.

On the way over here, I inadvertently tested the limits of the GL320’s fuel capacity.   I was not paying careful attention to our fuel status until we hit 1/4 tank, and at that point we were in a part of Ohio where cornfields are plentiful and towns with fuel pumps are not.   The first place we found did not sell diesel, and we ended up in Kenton OH with the fuel gauge at the “E” mark.   The computer had ceased estimating our remaining driving range about ten miles earlier.   I know that running a diesel out of fuel can be extremely problematic, and it was a sweaty drive the last few miles.   We pumped 27.1 gallons into a tank that is specified to take 26.4 gallons plus a 3.4 gallon reserve.   That was way too close for towing purposes, but at least now I know what we can get away with.

Tomorrow morning at 7 a.m the John Deere tractor will arrive to tow our trailer into the service bays, so we’ve prepped most of the trailer tonight. It will be a typical service center start to the day, tumble out of bed, quickly pack the last few things and disconnect the utilities, and then stand by while the crew gets to work.   We’re planning to stay at Airstream through the lunch hour, and “if all goes well” we will head out in the afternoon for the Grand Rapids MI area.

Although we are seekers of adventure, it is nice to occasionally report that our drives are uneventful. Such was the case from Buffalo to Ohio, where we are now courtesy parked next to our friends’ home southwest of Cleveland.

However, I did notice some odd tire wear on the right side wheels, and I think it may be related to axle alignment.   We’re going to detour down to Jackson Center, home of Airstream, on Tuesday to have them check the axles and align if necessary.   I’ll have some questions for them about this, since these axles were newly installed in December and have only about 7,000 miles on them to date.   Seems too soon to be needing an alignment, and we haven’t hit any big potholes or curbs.   Once I know more I’ll report on the issue further.

We are parked in Ohio for the Labor   Day weekend, just chilling out with some local friends.   Yesterday’s primary activity was a visit to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, one we’ve missed on all the other times we’ve passed this way.   It’s a beautiful area of small villages lined along the Cuyahoga River (the one that was famous for catching on fire forty years ago) and the historic Ohio & Erie Canal. There’s little trace of the Cuyahoga’s “grossly polluted” past now, except for limitations suggested on the eating of fish caught in the river.   Some species still have lead and mercury in them.   Otherwise, the valley is a beautifully scenic area with a tourist train, charming villages and historic sites, an excellent multi-use trail along the former canal towpath, hikes, waterfalls, and even a tiny ski area.

The Junior Ranger program at this park seems to require three separate visits, a week apart, so Emma could not participate.   That’s the first time we’ve ever seen such a requirement. There’s one badge that won’t make her collection.   She did, however, get to help operate a restored lock on the canal for a demonstration.

A bunch of Airstream buddies are expected to show up tonight for a group dinner.   Lou says we are celebrating the anniversary of the hot dog being unveiled at some World’s Fair, but I’m pretty sure that’s a ruse.   The theme of the weekend seems to be more about just hanging out.   Larry and I have tackled a few small tasks, like washing the Airstream and adjusting the grease fittings on the replacement hitch head, but otherwise we’ve avoided work like most Americans in anticipation of “Labor Day.”

Culinary note:   Lou introduced Emma and I to peanut butter & mayo sandwiches.   The whole idea was so horrible-sounding that we had to try it.   The strange thing is, it’s really not half bad.   I’m not wild about them but have to admit that the flavor combination actually works. Try it at your own risk.

Routing note:   Our plans have been completely re-arranged in the past week.   We are now heading to Jackson Center OH, then Grand Rapids MI, then the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, then somewhere in northern Wisconsin, and then the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.   We’re looking for courtesy parking or camping suggestions in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota.