2020 Big Truck across the Upper Peninsula, Day 1

August 1, 2020

Germfask, MI

Big Cedar Campground

Site 19 (do not recommend)

This year's trip has undergone at least 3 full makeovers. Due to a global pandemic and the tailspin it has put our entire nation in, our original plan to head out to Utah to visit Kimberly's niece was nuked when her job was postponed until next year (sorry Cassie!). Next, we planned a backup trip to Voyageurs, Teddy Roosevelt, Devil's Tower, etc. After researching the ever changing state by state requirements for camping, reservations, National Parks closing visitors centers and campgrounds, we decided to keep it simple and stay in our home state. This meant revisiting a couple of previous trips and spending close to 2 weeks in the U.P.

The plan is to do a loop, hitting some familiar spots with a much older Jordan. Last time we had her at Pictured Rocks she fit in a backpack. This time she is nearly 13 and has not stopped talking since about February. We intend to do some hiking/exploring in and around Pictured Rocks, head up to Copper Harbor, then to the Porkies, then Escanaba area & back down south toward home.

Our rig setup is essentially unchanged from years past, with a fresh set of ball joints on the Big Truck and still missing the passenger side rear hubcap, which was liberated last year somewhere on the east coast.

In contrast to previous trips, we only have 4 destinations, allowing for 3-4 day stays in each locale. Because of this we didn't have an 18 hour, 1,000 mile day (Kimberly's personal favorite) planned for day 1, but rather a reasonable 5-6 hour drive to camp just outside the Seney Wildlife Refuge.

Since we had a very manageable day lined up, we decided to stop for lunch at a place recommended by our buddy Nate from Tripelroot, purveyors of the finest brews in the land. The recommendation? Paddle Hard Brewing in Grayling, MI.

This place was cool, the loaded mac & cheese was money, and we snagged a few stickers for the collection. Growler fills never hurt either.  As we left, we had to jumpstart the Big Truck for the 2nd time that day. Not a great omen for the start of the trip. At home, we had it plugged into power, so never really had to run it off the van battery. A quick trip to the local NAPA & $150 later we were in business. Well, kind of. As a rule, no repair to a vehicle can go smoothly. See if you can follow this short, two act play.

Act 1:

Act 2:

Until I hit a large enough bump for the handle to arc to the underside of the hood, this is an acceptable mid-flight repair.

Back on the road, we beelined for the UP.  Our destination was Big Cedar Campground, something easy to reserve and within striking distance of the first come first serve campgrounds in Munising the next morning.

Crossing the Big Mac is always a treat with this setup, and this time was no different. The backup was only about 20 minutes, and paying $14 to cross the bridge has stopped seeming absurd after how many times we've done it. It did, however, prompt Kimberly to wonder what the overall revenue of the bridge toll charges is. A quick search of the Mackinac Bridge traffic stats shows 4.7M vehicles crossed the bridge in 2019, so a conservative estimate of $5 per vehicle puts the number at $23.5M in toll revenue. Crazy talk.

Fast forward to our arrival at Big Cedar. No one in the campground office, and when we found our site, we thought someone else was on it. Nope. As it turns out, someone I used to work with (Hi Greg Leenstra!) was camping 2 sites over, recognized the Jeep and my incredulous voice at how someone must be on our site, and strolled over to let us know that this was in fact site 19, it just happened to be about 11 feet wide. As we were backing in, someone from the campground staff told us to move EVEN CLOSER to the left as we were apparently cramping site 18's style. The end result? Kimberly is showing the entire usable width of the site. This will hereby be the last excursion we make to Big Cedar.

After watching other campers come flying into their sites in their pimped out Can Am X3s (thank you for blaring Kid Rock's Hillbilly Stomp just to confirm your authenticity), we wandered down to the banks of the Manistique River along the back of the campground. Plenty of 'root beer' water as Jordan describes it up here.

From there, since we didn't want to hang out at our 7 square foot site, we decided to head to Seney to do the scenic drive. Let's just say it did not disappoint.

After cruising a couple of miles back to the campground, I had to scramble to put the top up on the Jeep and move a few things inside due to a 30% chance of rain. We caught up with Greg & his family (still crazy to have a former co-worker 2 sites away in a tiny campground 6 hours from home in the middle of absolute nowhere), then called it a night.

Tomorrow - chancing it on a site in Munising for the next 4 days, then exploration of Pictured Rocks.