Sunday, July 7, 2019

Charlotte, Michigan

Leaving Hopkins, Michigan, we headed north a few miles to the industrial south side of Grand Rapids for a stop at WW Williams Service. Williams services, maintains, and repairs medium to heavy duty trucks, and they have a technician on staff that is trained in the operation of the Allison transmission that is installed on our motorhome. We wanted them to check the transmission for proper operation.

First, we learned that mechanical equipment these days is mostly computer controlled, so the tech simply plugged a laptop into a connection that displayed all the operating parameters. We took a short drive, going through various driving conditions while the tech watched his computer screen, and returned to the shop. A minor change to one setting and a check to see if updated software was available (it wasn't) and we were again on the road, confident that all was operating as it should. Good to know!

Later in the afternoon we pulled into Charlotte, just 30 miles or so south of Lansing for yet another episode of motorhome maintenance. The chassis on our motorhome was manufactured by Spartan Motors in Charlotte, so we decided to return to the mother ship to address a few issues. Spartan has a small parking area adjacent to service, so we joined a handful of other "visitors" and checked in.




Only electricity is provided at each site, but Spartan has just installed a place to fill your water tank and empty your...other...tanks, so it's not to uncomfortable. Wednesday morning, Brandon showed up on our doorstep at 7:30 am to take Nessie away! That night we enjoyed a brief thundershower and were appreciative of the return of our home!


We met Dave and Toni in Nappanee a few weeks ago, and discovered that they spend most of the summer in this area, visiting family. Dave owned a custom car shop and Toni was a registered nurse, so they have extensive knowledge of the area. While Nessie was in the shop, we visited them at their rv park: Adventure Awaits, in Vermontville, Michigan. This park is an older park that has just been purchased by a dedicated couple who are completely refreshing the park. It is a tremendous undertaking as the park had fallen into disrepair, but they are making great progress. In addition to grass and gravel camp sites, they offer a spring-fed pond with a water slide, a very nice beach adjacent to the pond, and water toys for kids. This is a nice quiet place now, and will be wonderful in the future.

While we were strolling the park, the subject of lunch came up....so, we were treated to a visit to Joe's Gizzard City in Potterville, Michigan! OMG! A complete breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu is available, and yes...chicken gizzards are available! Add in some deep fried green olives, maybe an order of deep fried meatballs, or how about some Potterville Poutine? We tried to restrain ourselves and ordered the Triple D Burger, cut in half to share.


This tasty treat is a 1/3 pound burger with bacon, cheese, onions and all the fixings, then deep fried. Yep! It is served with a generous helping of huge slices of potato. Let me tell you....this is an experience! Guy Fieri from the tv show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives came to Joe's awhile back to check out the Gizzard Fuss and ended up helping to create this burger with Joe. They did a fine job!


Thursday, of course, was our country's birthday, and we were invited to return to Adventure Awaits to share in their celebration. One of the staff members has a mobile smoker, and set it up to smoke an entire pig. There was enough pulled pork for the entire town of Vermontville! Thank you so very much, Adventure Awaits! Best of Luck with your park!

Michigan prohibits certain fireworks, but the locals simply drive south to the next state and load up with the good stuff. While Charlotte didn't have a sanctioned fireworks show, the neighbors kept us up until about 3 am with their own activities! Sasha didn't care for all the noise, so we kept her under cover as best we could, and waited for things to calm down. The weather is warm and humid, and the air conditioner noise helped drown out some of the outside noise.

The day after the holiday we needed to take care of some much needed errands. A trip into Lansing got the oil changed in the car, and a trip to the market restocked the refrigerator. Back home we hooked up with Dave and Toni for dinner at Cancun in Grand Ledge, Michigan. What a feast! Beautiful small town along the Grand River with well kept old houses and a great Mexican restaurant.

Saturday found us going back north to Lansing to visit the State Capitol and check out the town with our friends. Since they lived here for 30 plus years, they know their way around. It was great being chauffeured around! Michigan has a lovely State House and we enjoyed a tour. Very interesting how locally grown White Pine wood was painted to look like marble!


D and T on the Capitol steps.


The first floor of the rotunda commemorates the many flags flown by Michigan volunteers during the Civil War.


 The Rotunda floor is famous for its glass tile. Only 5/8ths of an inch thick, the glass tiles can support over 40,000 pounds! They are designed to allow light from the Rotunda windows to penetrate into the basement below.


As we left the Capitol complex, a statue caught our eye. After a 104 years of exposure to harsh Michigan summers and winters, the detail on this memorial to Civil War veterans still remains as clear and detailed as when new!



In East Lansing, the campus of Michigan State University dominates the landscape. It's a huge campus, but beautiful in its greenery and trees. Of course, they are know as the Spartans.


MSU is known as an agricultural university, with a large animal college as part of that. We were introduced to the Dairy Store, where milk from university cows is processed into ice cream! Of course, a bowl of their best was consumed! Kids were enjoying the cool ice cream also!


On campus, Brody Hall is the place to eat on the MSU campus. Culinary students prepare, serve, and clean up after a variety of food presented in a buffet. We stuffed ourselves on sushi, pizza, soup, stir-fry, and ice cream.....probably shouldn't have done that, but for 10 bucks apiece, you can't go wrong!

Ok, all service is complete. I think. As I write this (Sunday morning) we're preparing to head north into the heart of the Michigan Mitten. It's been fun, but time to move on...

TTYL

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