Category: Travel

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Michigan WanderLog

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (aka The UP)

Our Travel Log for Michigan

Travel Dates: August 7-17, 2015

We left the Dells, and arrived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula unceremoniously on Friday afternoon, August 14, 2015 after driving up from Walmart down near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Totally ignored the time zone change to Eastern Time as we searched along the west shore of Lake Michigan for a place to stay for the weekend.

We finally ended up in Pioneer Trail County Park in Gladstone and snagged a rustic camping spot for the weekend. Played some disc golf, got laundry done, went grocery shopping, and made it to church.

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Bright and early Monday morning we headed farther to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We stopped at Muldoon’s Pasties & Gifts in Munising on the way up for lunch and thoroughly enjoyed our first pasty. Delicious, especially the dessert pies.

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Found a beautiful boondocking spot south of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and spent a few, slightly frustrating days exploring the park with all the tourists on vacation.

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Headed back west, we spent two nights at Marquette Tourist County Park. The town is super cute & Sam and I managed to squeeze in a bike date to get ice cream at Frosty Treats. We also rode out to Presque Isle with the kids and hiked a bit around the peninsula/island. Super pretty. On our way out we ate at Jean -Kay’s pasties & subs and enjoyed our first vegetarian pasty.

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Drove to the Keweenaw Peninsula where we had reservations at Linden County Park so we could send packages ahead of us. The park isn’t amazing, but the kids enjoyed the swim beach.

11261374_860672233968730_479493537_nWe day tripped up to Calumet and the Keweenaw National Historic Site Visitor Center to earn our 74th Jr. Ranger Badge and enjoyed learning about the history of the area.

Our third and final pasty taste test was at Roy’s where their chicken & broccoli pastie totally took the gold medal. We also ventured into Hungarian Falls and were disappointed the reports of swimming in the waterfalls proved to be false, but had fun throwing rocks into the pool and hunting for frogs.

Moving farther west, our next stop was the Porcupine Mountains. We woke up super early to try and get to the Union Bay Campground for a first come, first served spot. Unfortunately, there was no Verizon signal anywhere and we weren’t very impressed with the campground anyway.

Instead, we decided to have Sam take the day off and we went hiking! After a quick lunch in the Visitor Center parking lot, we drove up to Summit Peak and hiked the loop ending with the lookout tower.  It was beautiful and only about 5.5 miles of pretty gentle grade. We loved it.

11326513_1517456441878056_1670842139_nIt was still only about 3:30pm so we drove over to the Lake of the Clouds overlook to check that out. Super pretty views, but all I could think about was the hike along the ridge that would be EPIC. So many back country trails and campsites at this park.

Lastly, we grabbed this pull out spot next to the side of the road and the kids played on the beach while Sam and I cooked up a grilled sausage and pasta dinner. Afterwards we had our weekly Family Night on the beach, followed by treats and then about an hour to Walmart in Ironwood, MI for the night.

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That wraps up (for now) our tour of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It really is a different place than “the mitten” with absolutely gorgeous views of Lake Superior, and more back country hiking than I expected (not that my expectations were high to begin with!).

Next up we went back to Wisconsin to backpack on the Apostle Islands!

Categories
Fitness & Recipes

Airstream Kitchen: Healthy Zucchini Bread Muffins

Delicious, HEALTHY zucchini bread muffins. Yum!

I love zucchini bread! One of my favorite things about having a garden (okay, in my past life) was planting a zucchini and reaping the rewards all summer long!

Growing up my mom had a super tasty recipe, but unfortunately was also not very healthy. Lots of sugar and butter, so I stopped making it awhile ago and began the search for a substitute recipe.

I found one! This one is tasty, filling, and uses coconut oil and applesauce and only a little bit of sugar. Total win.

Delicious, HEALTHY zucchini bread muffins. Yum!

Healthy Zucchini Bread Muffins

Yields approximately 16 muffins, 2 per serving
21 Day Fix breakdown per serving: 1 G, 2 Y, 1 tsp

Ingredients:
Nonstick cooking spray
6 large egg whites
1/4 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1  3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
3 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (my kids like these more when I chop the zucchini pretty small)

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line muffin tin with paper liners and spray with nonstick cooking spray for good measure.
3. Combine egg whites, oil, applesauce, sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl. Set aside.
4. Combine all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl; mix well.
5. Add flour to egg mixture; mix until just blended.
6. Fold in zucchini and mix until just blended.
7. Spoon batter into muffin tins until 2/3 full.
8. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
9. Remove from pans and cool on a rack.
10. Eat & Enjoy!

Delicious, HEALTHY zucchini bread muffins. Yum!

Categories
WanderLog Wisconsin

Our First Taste of Wisconsin – The Dells

Travel Dates: August 4-6

We left Minneapolis, MN (again) and drove the long 4.5 hours east to the Wisconsin Dells in one day. We decided it was worth the push to get there in one day – and get in late as we knew the RV Park at Mt. Olympus would not be very scenic. The kids had been looking forward to a water park here for at least a year, and since we could add it to the itinerary, we decided we should.

The next two days were spent at Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park. We had a blast.  The first day we spent the morning at the Waterpark, ate lunch at a cafe, swam some more and made it back to the Airstream for an early dinner. After dinner we went back in until about 8pm and rode the rides.

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The following day we did in reverse. We hitched up the Airstream and drove early over to the Mt. Olympus Parking. We got in first thing and rode the Hades 360 roller-coaster (the lines were at least an hour the day before), and then more Go Karts and our other favorite rides. We went back to the Airstream for lunch, changed into our swimming suits, and Sam stayed to work while I took the kids back in to swim. We stayed at the park until about 5pm, then whipped up a quick dinner in the parking lot and drove a few hours to a Walmart outside of Green Bay, WI for the night.

The next morning, after a frustrating attempt to find someplace to stay in Door County, we abandoned those plans and decided to head north towards the Upper Peninsula of Michigan instead. We feel like Wisconsin totally got the shaft, but we had plans to come back after some time in Michigan.

Next: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Wrap Up

Categories
Daily Life

Downside to Full Time Travel is We Are ALWAYS Planning

Route for Fall

Typical vacation planning goes something like this: you decide where you want to go, plan where you’ll stay, and search the area to see what other activities they are. Once you are planned, you carry out your itinerary, relax, enjoy yourself, and then go home to regular life.

As full time travelers, we are constantly in the planning mode. The first steps look the same – we plan a route, decide where we are going to stay, and search around for activities (science museums, can’t miss restaurants, national parks, etc.). But once we are there, and often even before we get to destination #1, we are looking ahead to the NEXT spot. I feel we are always in “plan” mode right alongside “execution” and “enjoy the plan” mode.

Sometimes its exhausting.

I think this is why we mostly just fly by the seat of our pants and don’t plan very far out. Rarely do we have our schedule detailed more than just a week or a week and a half out. This last week we put together a rough itinerary for the next couple of months,  which was the easy part. The hard part is actually dialing in and figuring out specifics of where we’ll stay and what exactly we want to do. For example, I know that we want to hit Sault St. Marie, but I won’t figure out WHERE and WHAT until possibly the week before we actually get there. This type of planing definitely keeps us on our toes, but it also helps me not plan out an entire itinerary that changes because we decide to move on or stay longer than the original plan.

Rough plan for this leg of our trip is to head over into Wisconsin, then up to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan, and across the top and backpack in the Apostle Islands August 23-25 back in Wisconsin. After that we’ll hit Duluth and the north shore of Lake Superior sometime around the end of August. September will be Canada, Sault St. Marie and then down into Michigan before meeting up with the Urban Airstream Rally in Eaton Rapids on Oct 1-4. After that we just have to catch flights to Salt Lake City out of Chicago on Oct 16th. Sounds easy, right?

Categories
Minnesota National Parks State Parks WanderLog

Cosmos, St. Cloud, Itasca & The Voyageurs – Northern Minnesota

Travel Dates: July 16 -30, 2015

After 4 weeks in Minneapolis, it was time to leave! We headed out bright and early heading west for Cosmos and a paragliding competition. We had been invited by the hosts to come check it out and even get in a tandem flight! It felt so good to finally be leaving the Twin Cities area and headed out to explore more of the state.

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We met up with Anna and her family who were hosting the Midwest Corn Alps Paragliding Competition, and even though it was crazy hot and humid we had a fantastic time!

Check out the full details here: 2nd Annual Midwest Corn Alps Paragliding Competition

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Leaving the competition we headed for an all Airstream RV Park in Clear Lake Minnesota. We had heard on Instagram that it was a favorite of another traveling family and decided to check it out. We went swimming in the pool and then joined in on the Mexican pot luck and pinata party for the kids. Everyone was extremely welcoming and super nice!

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Conveniently it also put us close to St. Cloud and some college friends of ours. They took us to a local swimming hole called Quarry Park & Nature Preserve where we spent the afternoon.

Minnesota is Warmer Than I Thought It Would Be

On Sunday at church, the leaders announced the nearby town of Brainerd, MN needed volunteers for some disaster cleanup. A tornado had touched down in the town and leveled a lot of trees and generally made a mess of things.

Since we don’t do enough service as it is, we decided to take the day off and drive up and help. We cleared brush and logs from a driveway and the kids were fantastic little helpers!

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That evening we drove to the Cuyuna Country State Recreation area and found a spot in the nearly empty Portsmouth Campground. This was a total shot in the dark, but I had heard from a girl in Minneapolis that the mountain biking here was superb. It didn’t disappoint. I still dream about those trails….

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Next up we went to Itasca State Park where the headwaters of the Mississippi River are located. We found a great spot in the campground and headed out to enjoy the park. Since we were unable to get great cell signal, we decided to make the most of our time there.

We swam in the lake, attending a ranger fishing program, and rock hopped across the Mississippi River. Much easier to do here than down in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We planned a great hike this morning, and failed during execution. The first two miles along the lakeshore turned out to be a breakfast buffet, with insects doing the feasting and us as the selection of food.
Our repellent was insufficient.

The best way to escape the bugs was to move faster, and we cleared that section of trail in record time.

Our plans to hike to the observation tower were scrapped, and we returned home via a longer but decidedly less buggy route. We still hiked 7.5 miles today, so even in our failure we won.” – Sam

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“After dinner, @jesscurrenand I snuck away for a short bike date. 8 miles of paved bike path with some ridiculously good chocolate in the middle. And when you find a random patch of cell service for the first time in days, it is worth checking your voicemail.” – Sam

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We spent the weekend at Lake Bemidji State Park, mostly just taking it easy and sticking out as some of the only “non-weekenders” in the campground. Lots of work, some laundry, and church on Sunday.

“Our afternoon wander yesterday took us into a nearby bog. Andrew and Rachel surprised us with their knowledge of carnivorous plants. We saw two types on our wander. Shown here is the Pitcher Plant, which attracts insects with a sweet smell, uses tiny hairs to prevent them from leaving, and drowns them in liquid. The plant captures bugs to gain minerals not found in the soil.” -Sam 

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Monday morning we drove north to Voyageurs National Park and Wooden Frog Campground. This turned out to be one of our favorite stops so far on our journey. The National Park is amazing, full of history and great ranger programs.

We also rented a canoe for a few hours one morning and paddled on Lake Kabetogama.

Check out our blog post for more details: 5 Interesting & Fun Things to Do with Kids at Voyageurs National Park

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