Our latest adventure started Monday morning, as we headed East and stopped at Indiana Dunes National Park. It’s only about an hour from our house, but we hadn’t yet visited. We headed to the Visitor Center and watched the film about the park and the dunes, and picked up the map & brochure…our plan was to stop back on Friday on our way home (Monday’s weather was too hot and humid for a hike!). After a quick lunch, we were on the road to our ultimate destination: Hopkins, Michigan…just south of Grand Rapids, in “West Michigan”. I’d been calling it “Western Michigan”, but apparently that’s not how Michiganders refer to this region.

We arrived at Sun Retreat Gun Lake campground and soon after, I had to check the calendar because it felt like a Friday the 13^th. Mark connected the water line, and there was clearly water coming out of the spigot, but for some reason, none of the faucets in the trailer were working. Hmmm. He was able to trace it to a quick connect that he’s previously used without issue but for some reason decided not to work. Okay, now the kitchen sink and shower both work, but not the bathroom sink. Hmmm. Turned out the little screen on the faucet was clogged and preventing any water flow. Fixed that. Then the light in the refrigerator wasn’t working…annoying but no big deal, probably just a blown bulb. Then the TV wasn’t cooperating. It’s a Roku TV and it wouldn’t launch our apps, couldn’t find our WiFi hotspots, and was generally just being very grumpy. Finally got a little better. Oh, and the window shade near our kitchen sink got stuck in the down position once again. It does that sometimes, usually fairly easy to fix, but it just didn’t want to cooperate today.

We had dinner and went for a walk, and then I noticed that the refrigerator thermometer was showing that the temperature had been steadily rising since we arrived. At first, we wrote it off to opening and closing it a lot at dinner time, and the fact that it was about 95 degrees outside. But the more Mark thought about it, he realized…hmmm, the light isn’t working and the temperature is rising…there’s a bigger issue here. I jumped into the Facebook group for owners of our specific trailer and did a search for refrigerator issues. There were several troubleshooting suggestions so Mark started tackling each of them. Removed the grill on the front of the fridge to see if the fan was running and if the fuse was located there. Nope. Lots of the wiring for the trailer is under the hitch tongue, so Mark got under there to try and see if there was a blown fuse. He found one that was badly corroded, so he swapped that out (fortunately he keeps extra fuses in his tool bag). No luck. Found another one with a broken wire, so he swapped that one out. WooHoo! That was it…refrigerator light went on, fan started running. YAY! But, food had been above 50 degrees for a few hours at that point…so we figured we’d have to make a grocery store run on Tuesday to replace stuff…not worth taking any chances!

The weather Monday night was crazy throughout the Midwest, and our campground was under a tornado watch…fortunately the worst of the storm was just south of us in Kalamazoo. It rained most of the night. Phew. Glad that “Friday the 13^th” was over with nothing more serious.

Tuesday morning started a little bumpy…in all the craziness on Monday, the hot water tank got turned off, so my morning shower was a bit cooler than I would have liked. Brrr.

We headed North into Grand Rapids, to the Heritage Hill neighborhood, one of the country’s largest urban historic districts. It is filled with over 1,300 beautiful homes dating back as far as 1843. There’s a variety of architectural styles represented, including one by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Meyer May House. Unfortunately we weren’t able to get tickets for a tour, but we admired it from the sidewalk.

The weather was gray and overcast, so we decided to head indoors, to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. Last summer, we visited his Presidential Library which is located on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (his alma mater), so we wanted to get to his hometown for the rest of the experience. As with other Presidential Museums, it does a nice job telling his life story. I always find it interesting that he is the only person to have served as both VP and President who was never elected to either role.

One thing that stood out about Ford’s time in office is how his pardon of Richard Nixon haunted him for years and likely cost him the election against Jimmy Carter.

President and Mrs. Ford are buried in the shadow of the museum, which lies along the Grand River.

We walked along the river briefly, and then headed to the nearby Fish Ladder. It wasn’t the right season to see fish on the ladder, but was still interesting to see how it’s setup and try to figure out how the fish actually get out of the ladder through a very narrow opening.

From there, it was time to find an ALDI and get our replacement groceries so we could eat for the rest of the trip!

On Wednesday, we ventured to Holland, Michigan. I’m guessing the first thing that came to mind when you read that was TULIPS! Obviously, it’s not tulip season, so we didn’t get to experience that, but we did visit Windmill Island Gardens. I guess we didn’t get enough of all things Dutch when we visited the Netherlands in May…

Windmill Island Gardens was started to keep the area’s Dutch heritage alive, and in 1964, they were able to secure the last working windmill allowed to leave the Netherlands, “de Zwaan”. It is America’s only authentic, working Dutch windmill. It was a bit different from the windmill we toured in Kinderdijk because that was a polder mill, used to move water. This one is much taller (5 stories) and is used to grind grain into flour.

They have a street organ, just like one that we saw at Keukenhof, and it was interesting to see how it plays music. The organ was donated by the city of Amsterdam as a thank you after World War II. Unfortunately, it has no volume control, so it was a bit loud to stand next to!

The drawbridge and buildings are all replicas of locations in the Netherlands. The grounds are beautifully landscaped with lots of flowers (and tulips in April & May), and the place is full of Dutch ambience. It’s a really well-done place, not at all cheesy (and the Dutch do like their cheese! 😁)

From Holland, we drove toward Lake Michigan to Mt. Pisgah, a sand dune that rises 150 feet above Lake Michigan. We took the boardwalk and stairs (over 250 of them) to the top where you can see Lake Michigan, Lake Macatawa, and the Big Red lighthouse. The dune was pretty impressive, and it was interesting to see all the trees and vegetation growing in the dunes. We learned at Indiana Dunes that it’s critical to have this growth as it helps to protect the dunes from shifting.

Our next stop was South of Holland, in Saugatuck MI. We visited the Felt Mansion, built in 1928 by an inventor and businessman from Chicago as a summer home for his family. The home is now owned by the township, and it open for tours and events, including wedding packages that include overnight stays in the mansion. It was so unusual, and refreshing, to tour a historic home and be able to walk everywhere, touch things, sit on the furniture…we were told they “don’t believe in velvet ropes”.

We spent some time at the campground Thursday morning. Mark had a couple of projects to work on (he always does!), including finding us more storage in one of our cabinets – the way the manufacturer installed a panel to hide wires also hid several inches of usable storage space which is now accessible!

Thursday afternoon brought us to the highlight of this trip, Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. The park was started by the founder of Meijer stores and his wife, and it has become one of the best sculpture parks in the country (voted #1 in 2024 by USA Today readers). The 158-acre campus includes a huge variety of gardens, each landscaped differently.. There are more than 50 sculptures spread throughout the grounds, each unique and interesting. We spent a wonderful few hours, on a beautiful day, enjoying each area of the park.

The Japanese Garden in the center of the park is truly impressive – we probably spent over an hour just in that area, wandering each of the paths, enjoying the beautiful plants and water features.

We found a few Chihuly pieces in the welcome center as we were leaving!

Friday morning, we packed up and headed back to Indiana Dunes National Park. The weather was much better for hiking and checking out the scenery. We started with a trip down to one of the beaches, to see the dunes there and an amazingly blue Lake Michigan. Then we hiked the Dune Ridge Trail which took us high up on a dune to overlook wetlands and forests. The hike itself was partially on loose sand which is always fun, and there were some steep sections up to the highest point. It felt like a rainforest at times as we hiked through the thick foliage – pretty amazing that we were on a sand dune the whole time.

To get back to the main road, we drove along the lake and ended up in a very interesting section of the park – The Century of Progress Historic District. In 1933, the Century of Progress World’s Fair was held in Chicago, and afterwards, a developer bought five of the homes from the housing exhibit at the Fair and moved them to Beverly Shores, IN, which is now part of Indiana Dunes National Park. Four of the homes were subleased to people who have restored them in exchange for long-term leases. The houses were ultra-modern back in 1933, and are still pretty cutting edge today. We loved seeing them and learning a bit about each.

Once a year, the homes are part of a tour…Mark and I plan to return so we can see the interiors!

There are several other trails to explore at Indiana Dunes, but we decided to wait and do them some other time – since it’s a quick day trip from home! We sat in Chicago traffic for quite a while but finally made it home late afternoon on Friday. And we discovered that the refrigerator had once again stopped working. The temperature was up and the light was off. Ugh. Saturday morning, Mark confirmed the fuse had blown again and he replaced it. We brought RoVer Too to storage Saturday afternoon, and the 25-minute drive there had caused the fuse to blow yet again. So, more troubleshooting to be done now, to figure out why the fuse keeps blowing…fortunately our next trip isn’t for seven weeks, so we have some time to get things working (I say “we” but I mean “Mark”). That trip will last for four weeks with stops at several campgrounds – so having our fridge quit working every time we drive will be really inconvenient, to say the least.

It was a fun week in “West Michigan”. We covered some of the state last summer, and we still have lots more to explore in the Mitten State in 2025 and beyond!