After a lovely wedding and visits with friends in the Detroit area, we headed up north to spend some time driveway camping with Judy & Gary.
As you might suspect, we didn’t go via the shortest route. Consulting the “Factory Tours USA” website, had us taking a route west of Ann Arbor for a stop at the Chelsea Milling Company.
Waffles are my favorite treat to make for breakfast and my family has always used Jiffy Mix. A chance to see how products we use are made is always fun.
Established in 1901, the company was the first to make a packaged baking mix in the 1930’s. The things we came away with were that they had never laid off any employees, are family owned, and the corn and wheat all comes from local farms. Much of the tour was done by watching a video with corny jokes (great for dads), but we did end with a walk through the active packaging floor. The company prints their own boxes and fabricates parts for the folding machines as the company that built them has long since gone out of business. You need to call a day ahead and make an appointment, but if you are passing near Chelsea, Michigan it is a fun stop. There is free coffee and you leave with at least a couple of boxes of mixes and a recipe book. You can get discounted cases of mix if you have room in your vehicle.
“Up North” is anywhere in Michigan’s lower peninsula north of about Saginaw. Our destination was Gaylord, where we would spend more time with Beth’s sisters on a lovely small lake.
After more than a week of driveway camping, we needed to deal with routine van systems on the way. Camping World refilled our propane tank at their mid-week 25% off price and we emptied our waste tanks at Higgens Lake State Park. This was the first time we’ve seen a dump station that provided hoses. That made things faster and there was no charge since we had purchased a annual pass for Michigan state parks.
Five days of pontoon boat rides, fun with three generations of family, and eating Gary’s great grilled food was a relaxing break from the daily travels earlier in the trip.
Neighbors have hand-carved a very cool fence, totem poles, and bird houses.
Our only field trip was to the “Call of the Wild” museum where Judy & Gary said we could see animals native to the area. I packed a 70-200 lens hoping to get some good shots of the animals and a maybe a few of grand-nephew David. Nobody told me that the animals were all stuffed! It was actually nicely done and provided good information about the different species. David enjoyed it too.
The whole family had a good time, especially tasting all the varieties of fudge while exiting through the gift shop.
Thank you Judy & Gary for putting up with all of us!