We explore the highlights of Michigan including the Upper Peninsula with our friend Bill on this weeks StressLess Camping RV podcast. We recount the highlights and hits - and a few misses - from 10 days touring Michigan.

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Automated transcript of Podcast Episode 219

Mark Ferrell

Welcome to the weekly podcast, all about turning the great American RV adventure into Stressless camping. Each week we explore tips, tricks, ideas, and destinations, and talk to the happiest campers in the RV world. Pull up a seat at the campfire as we enjoy some Stressless camping.

Peggy Barthel

Welcome to the Campfire.

Tony Barthel

I'm Tony. I'm Peggy.

Bill Elsbeck

I'm Bill.

Tony Barthel

And we are three. Three <laugh> travelers

Peggy Barthel

Who travel part-time in small trailers

Tony Barthel

Looking to share big adventures and help you with great tips, tricks, discounts, <laugh>.

Peggy Barthel

We are so happy that we are joined by Bill. We are so sad that this is the last evening together with Bill. We've been on a

Tony Barthel

Epic

Bill Elsbeck

19 multi-day, multi-week 20.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I should have counted the number of days. But anyway, we've been on a Michigan adventure together with Bill.

Tony Barthel

We were trolls in our ERs. Right.

Peggy Barthel

So as long as we were all sitting around having our last beer together, we thought maybe we'd talk about what our trip was like.

Tony Barthel

Absolutely. We met Bill last year at the Frog Rally and then he came and stayed with us for part of the Balloon Fiesta. Yes. Right,

Bill Elsbeck

Right at the end. And

Tony Barthel

Were there other,

Bill Elsbeck

No, I don't think so. We haven't

Peggy Barthel

Back to the ground Frog

Bill Elsbeck

Again this year. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Frog again this

Peggy Barthel

Year? No, Georgia for fca.

Bill Elsbeck

Oh, right. Fmca. One

Tony Barthel

More. Yeah. <laugh>.

Bill Elsbeck

Yes. That was a boondocking adventure.

Peggy Barthel

And after we planned this trip and we thought this would be the only time we'd see Bill this year, he decided he's coming back to Balloon Fiesta this coming years. This year in a couple weeks, <laugh> kind of <laugh>, so it won't be that long again before we get to see him in Zappo. But for right now, we're, this is our last evening together. We're each heading to our homes for a day or two to repack and do laundry and then head back out again.

Tony Barthel

One of the things we thought we'd do is talk about this adventure. We have the highlights and all of that from this. Peggy's also been doing a daily blog about this adventure, so that might be worth going back and looking at.

Peggy Barthel

So I should know how many days the 31st was number 13, 14, 15. So it was 16 days altogether

Bill Elsbeck

Since the Frog rally.

Peggy Barthel

Since the Frog rally, yeah. Just in Michigan.

Tony Barthel

One of the things that we all have in common is that we all have systems designed by a, B, C Outfitters, right? Yes. Ours was put in by the factory, but Bill sought them out and had his system put in.

Bill Elsbeck

I met them at the Frog Rally last year actually after you guys interviewed them for the podcast. Okay. And they made a pretty impressive proposal. And before I went to Albuquerque last year, they installed, I was their first upfit. So

Peggy Barthel

You went, oh wow. You scheduled it and went home and then stopped on the way back to Albuquerque, is that right? Yeah. I

Bill Elsbeck

Actually put the trailer in storage in Ohio. Oh.

Peggy Barthel

And left it there for a

Bill Elsbeck

Month, so I didn't have to drive it all the way back to the East Coast and back. So, and then I picked it up, stopped in Elkhart, stayed at the Harvest host the RV U Museum. Oh,

Tony Barthel

That's cool.

Bill Elsbeck

And they did an upfit, I think I was there three days with them. And the systems worked great ever since. Yeah,

Tony Barthel

We have been in some really sunny, bright, beautiful spots and <laugh>. We have seen some, we have seen

Peggy Barthel

Some weather

Tony Barthel

To challenge the solar system

Peggy Barthel

Some days that weren't so good for the solar system. And actually, well, we have electric now, but the last site we were in, Tony and I had a site that was very, very shady, but we were able to, we had to move sites the second day anyway because of availability. So we moved to like a super exposed sunny site. But Bill got a site for all four days and it was pretty shady. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. Mike trailer was tucked nicely into the shade. Yeah. Back in the trees. Beautifully

Tony Barthel

Shaded. You still never went.

Bill Elsbeck

I, I left the park after four nights with about 49, 40 8% battery on my

Tony Barthel

Battery, which is really now one of the differences between the way bill's Rockwood is configured in ours is we have a 12 volt fridge, which Right. Is a thirsty bugger

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. And we use starlink, which is also a thirsty

Tony Barthel

Bugger. Yeah. We also have starlink. So there are two reasons we really like being out in the open, but both cases, everything just worked fine. Which is pretty typical. So how was the process of getting your trailer Upfitted?

Bill Elsbeck

Oh, it was easy as can be. They had an online form that I filled out. They asked questions, how do you camp? What are you looking for? Et cetera. I actually sat with Ben for on a good half hour and Stacy, and they kind of quizzed me on different things. And they came back by the end of the frog rally, which is a week with the proposal. They gave me detailed blueprints. I have schematics of my entire trailer.

Peggy Barthel

Nice.

Bill Elsbeck

And yeah, it was just easy

Tony Barthel

<laugh>. And that's something that we have said over and over. When you get a system from a B, C Upfitters, it just works. And we have been proving that. So if you are thinking about getting a solar system or you're solar curious, we can't say enough about A, B, C Upfitters. We are all proof in the pudding as it were, <laugh>. And you can give Ben and his team and Scott and Stacy and all of a call at (574) 333-3225.

Peggy Barthel

Don't worry about writing that down while you're driving. It's in the show notes. Yeah. We have

Tony Barthel

Link in the show notes@stresslesscamping.com.

Peggy Barthel

So how shall we do this? I think, should we talk about anything we didn't like about this trip first and get that out of the way so we end on a high note? Sure. Because we don't wanna accidentally at the very end go. Yeah, but there was that day that I didn't like <laugh>. Okay. And I don't think there's a lot to say about this, but was, but I know that you have. Right.

Tony Barthel

Definitely something. Well, I'm very affected by weather. And the rainy drizzly, the rainy drizzly muck did bum me out where I was like, you know, it's August and it's all rainy and drizzly <laugh>.

Bill Elsbeck

You should leave that in

Tony Barthel

<laugh>. And it's all rainy and drizzly. And my expectation is, Hey, it's summer, it's sunny. Yeah. And it was not. And that's just not something I'm used to. And it bummed me out. And I was like, eh, this is kinda stinky. But then,

Peggy Barthel

So like on day six, he wanted to just end, go back to New Mexico

Tony Barthel

<laugh>. Yeah. I was ready. I was like, ah, I've had enough of this. It was sandy and muddy in that campsite. And it was like, Ugh, we're just tracking mud in and blah. I can't go outside. And,

Peggy Barthel

But you know what, the next day it got sunny. Yeah. It

Tony Barthel

Was all nice. And

Peggy Barthel

We had a great day. And you know, that's why we have two brooms and a vacuum <laugh>. Yeah,

Tony Barthel

That's true. It's not just for flying.

Peggy Barthel

Actually, we don't have a vacuum with us right now. But we do have three brooms. I realize.

Tony Barthel

Well, we also have three vacuums and all of those are at home too. In

Peggy Barthel

House. Yeah. <laugh>.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. A lot of things including, I'm thinking about you, my buddy Mike Sol, including my electrical Multimeter, <laugh>, which I have three of those too. And guess where all three of them are back in New Mexico. Right.

Peggy Barthel

Bill, did you have anything that you like wish could have been better or Tony

Bill Elsbeck

Too? I can only say the one I really liked our, uh, campground in Ypsilanti. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But I got bit by mosquitoes on my ankle and it took a week and a half for them to go

Tony Barthel

Away. That was tough. That's right. Yeah. Well now we are sitting in our Lippert picnic portable gazebo because of mosquitoes. And it's a great way to eliminate those. And we talked about this last week, so I don't wanna do it again, but this thing has been, it's very easy and fast to set up and it's been a really great addition to our camping repertoire.

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. Yeah. So we have, I gotta say, one of the, one of the best things, I know we're supposed to start with the bad, but one of the best things was that Bill did such an amazing job Yeah. Of organi, you know, like kind of coming up with ideas and thinking about the things to see at each stop and knowing how many nights to stop. And that's usually my job. And really every time Bill said, well, how about if we go here? I said, okay, I'm signing up <laugh>.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. To that. I want to add, typically what Peggy and I do is we'll do two or three nights and then sometimes a very long day of driving. Yeah. And then maybe a short day the next day. This was all, I don't think we ever went more than 150 miles

Peggy Barthel

The day about 150 each time. Yep. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

Kept it short. Yeah. 'cause this way we had time in the morning. Yeah, yeah. Get there. Not in a rush. And

Peggy Barthel

We always stayed.

Tony Barthel

I liked that a lot. That made it real easy.

Peggy Barthel

We always stayed at least two nights. So it made taking the tent out and popping it up and getting the nice chairs out and sitting outside. These are some things that Tony and I, if we're like getting somewhere when we travel, we blast through and we're one night. One night. One night. One night. One night. One night. Which is, we

Tony Barthel

Don't, which is somewhat how we're going back

Peggy Barthel

Too. And we don't do all these, these things too. Yeah. And we don't sit around a campfire and have a beer together and we don't use the tent. So that's been again, yeah. Terrific. Wrong time, wrong part of the conversation, but I just had to throw that in there 'cause it was really terrific.

Tony Barthel

And something we learned about the tent at the last site. We all went out on a day of sailing and we came back and our tent had moved. And I was bragging about the lag bolts that we used to hold the tent in. And we did go to the local hardware store and buy significantly longer lag bolts. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

About as long as the three tent stakes that our neighbor put in the <laugh> in the gazebo. So it wouldn't fly away while we were gone. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

People have been super nice. Yes. Including that dude who staked our tent down after it was blowing around in, in front of our camper while we weren't there for the day. All right. So let's start with things we saw that were absolute highlights and I will let Bill start. Any favorite things that stick out from the strip?

Bill Elsbeck

Well, I, I, I have to say the Henry Ford Museum, it just, it was incredible. The collection and Greenfield Village, you're able to walk around and like see the Wright Brothers shop and things like that. It was quite a collection, more than I expected.

Tony Barthel

And that was a day that we stayed back and worked,

Peggy Barthel

Had been there. But we did that last year.

Tony Barthel

So yeah, we did that last year. And I, boy that you're right, I still can remember walking around in there and we rode around in a Model T and you're right, the Henry Ford, if you have a chance to go to Michigan and go to that, don't, don't miss it. It's fantastic. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

So that doesn't get to be our highlight this time. No. Because we didn't get to do it this time. What's your absolute favorite?

Tony Barthel

Well, it was two, I mean, two really stick out, but there were a, a number of them. So I mean every

Peggy Barthel

Day. Right, right. Every day

Bill Elsbeck

That it didn't rain.

Peggy Barthel

Every day. That it didn't rain

Tony Barthel

Every day. That it favorite <laugh> rain. Well that day we went on the shipwreck tour. Yeah, I love that. And one of the things we saw was like an entire ship under the water. And so we're in this glass bottom boat floating around or well, you know, driving around on the water and you look down and you can see like an entire sunken ship. And I think the draft on that boat was like four feet. And the ship was like six feet underwater.

Tony Barthel

Six

Peggy Barthel

Feet underwater. So it was right there. So it was

Tony Barthel

Really close. Yeah. And the water coming from other places, the water here is so amazingly clear. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so you can totally see the boat. And then we saw a second boat that they had, I guess it was sticking outta the water in the past, so they blew it up <laugh>. And so we would go like over the debris field, including Captain John Johnson's John.

Peggy Barthel

That's right. The toilet and bathtub were just That's right. Barely exposed. So

Tony Barthel

That was funny. Yeah. They were just out there and the way they did this shipwreck tour boat, there were a bunch of viewing stations. So there, it wasn't like you were crowded and you know, like, oh, I can't see 'cause someone's in my way. It was really well done, right. By the way, you just heard Zappo Zappo Zappos here with us too. <laugh> Bill's dog. So that was a highlight. And then the thing, I can never remember the name of Kitche Kitch.

Peggy Barthel

Hey, you can't talk about that. That's my family. Okay.

Tony Barthel

<laugh> <laugh>. But other things, like, I love ridiculous roadside Americana. Oh gosh. And the, what was that? Lincoln

Peggy Barthel

And the land, Lincoln

Tony Barthel

And land this dude like who must be a welder and also an artist made like this whole drive through or walkthrough collection of metal stuff. And it was a bit, he definitely has opinions about things, which is good.

Peggy Barthel

Sure. There was some things that were not at all political, like flowers that said Happy Mother's Day. But there were some things that were taking a stance on some things, but yeah.

Tony Barthel

Or the slot machine that actually worked kind

Peggy Barthel

Of sorta. Yeah. That was fun.

Tony Barthel

So it was, that was neat. And then where was that place? The er tourist trap? Oh

Peggy Barthel

Yeah, the ERs tourist trap. The

Tony Barthel

Er tourist trap where you would stick your head in different things where they had all this weird stuff that

Peggy Barthel

Was just goofy yard art. Yeah,

Tony Barthel

Yeah. But like, you know, these people went above and beyond on the yard art, including an outhouse where you could stick your head through the business hole there.

Peggy Barthel

That's

Tony Barthel

Right. Those were my favorite things. But I guess I was gonna steal yours. <laugh>. So,

Peggy Barthel

So mine was the kit. Idy Tippi? No, Kitch. I think so teepee. Uh, he

Tony Barthel

Macarena,

Peggy Barthel

I feel like Tepe strong, big spring. It was the big spring. That's right. And it is a spring coming up through limestone and it's natural, but it's like 10,000 gallons a minute, I wanna say a minute. Yeah. Every minute, every day. All the time. So like a ma like I can't even think of how much water that is. And then there's an outlet, it's kind of a river that goes to another lake, which eventually amputees into Lake Superior. So I guess that's why it doesn't overflow.

Peggy Barthel

But it's, the water is so crystal clear, it's incredible. The thing is like 45 feet deep and we looked down and it looked like it was the same two foot distance to like, it was to the shipwrecks. It was just so clear and beautiful. We saw the cup that someone had dropped the day before <laugh> and the, the ranger that was driving, so you can actually drive it yourself. And I don't mean drive really, it's on a cable. So you can release the, the catch the brake or whatever and then turn the wheel and it drives across the cable and then drives back.

Peggy Barthel

But that morning there was a ranger there and at first I was like, oh darn, we don't get to drive it. But then he was so full of information that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So it was really good.

Tony Barthel

So this thing that she's talking about, it's, I guess you'd call it a boat 'cause it floats. But again, you look through, it's got a glass bottom right. And you look down on this spring and see the water bubbling up and, and all of that. And the clarity, actually,

Peggy Barthel

I don't even think it was a glass bottom. I think it was just, it might've

Tony Barthel

Just been a hole. Yeah,

Bill Elsbeck

Just a hole in the middle. Just open in the middle square D square

Tony Barthel

Donut

Peggy Barthel

Boat. Square donut boat. Yeah. And so you could just look down. And then to me it was pretty amazing that was that there were fish and he said there's only half a dozen fish or something. But they stalk it sometimes and put more, they stock them. So they're like trout that are aged out a little bit. So they just go there as their like retirement home or something. Well,

Tony Barthel

But the weird thing is because that water source is so sulfur rich, I guess that whole spring is very sulfur rich.

Peggy Barthel

Right? Right.

Tony Barthel

So,

Peggy Barthel

So you cannot, you absolutely are not allowed to swim or fish or boat or drink, drink that water. But it was just seeing the, you could see in a few places where the water was bubbling up through the loose limestone and just a big old cloud of mud. But it was so still that once you moved, you know, a foot away, it was again crystal clear and you couldn't see that cloud of dust anymore. Yeah,

Tony Barthel

It would, that was neat. That was one of my favorites

Peggy Barthel

Too. Yeah. So that was just a really just, I think I could just sit there and watch that water for hours. It was just so lovely.

Tony Barthel

Any other big highlights? Any of y'all?

Bill Elsbeck

Are we gonna talk about food or are we waiting for Well, we are

Tony Barthel

Food and beer <laugh>.

Peggy Barthel

I mean, we did do activities pretty much every day, either driving to a new site or going out and exploring. And that was, I think it was just fantastic. Like I said, we have a bad habit of getting to a place and then just working. Yeah. And so actually going out and sightseeing was a highlight

Tony Barthel

To me. That was, yeah, that was super awesome. Yeah,

Bill Elsbeck

Marquette was a nice visit with the big or dump thing. Oh yeah, that's right. The train and Oh yeah, that was

Tony Barthel

The big boat.

Bill Elsbeck

The ore

Tony Barthel

Dock. Yeah, that Ore dock was super neat where they bring a train on this pretty high up or dock. And then there's a big either ship or a, I think they're barges and they dump the ore down. We saw the train coming, but then we went back and they had already done their dumping. We

Peggy Barthel

Saw the boat in place and we drove by once and there wasn't a train. We drove by again, there was a train

Tony Barthel

Drove by. A third time train was empty,

Peggy Barthel

<laugh> train was empty. But we, we were kind of hoping that we'd be there just in time to watch the, you know, I guess, I guess the ore carts way up high drop into a a bin. And then from that bin some like channels flop down and tho

Tony Barthel

Yeah, they're like, and the, or

Peggy Barthel

Writes down those channels onto the boat. And that's that part we didn't get to see. We were kind of hoping that we'd time it just Right. But we did not see that happen.

Tony Barthel

That's the fact Jack. But yeah, that was cool too. Okay. So you had brought up food. Yeah,

Peggy Barthel

We've had

Tony Barthel

Some great food. Unfortunately, I think we, we were talking about this tonight at dinner and I think we all kind of have the same places. <laugh>, but Phil, since you did the research, go, go for it.

Bill Elsbeck

Well, I'll start with the one that I suggested, which was Slab Town Burgers.

Tony Barthel

Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

That was in Traverse City. Traverse City in Slab town area of Traverse City. And the burger I had was a Pungy, which was a burger stuffed with cream cheese, bacon and jalapenos. Oh

Tony Barthel

Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

And man, was that a great

Tony Barthel

Burger? Yeah. I had just, I think they called it classic or American. And it was a burger stuffed with cheese and it's just the stuff you expect on a hamburger. But they make their own fries. I love french fries, <laugh> and the slabtown fries are every bit as good as the incredible burger. I mean, the food was so good and it's just a little place.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. A little tiny place. It was one of those drizzly days and yeah, we didn't think we were gonna find seating inside. We were kind of standing around like, what are we gonna do? And then a couple of guys that were sitting at a table right there said, Hey, we're done. So you could take this spot. So we did. And I had the big blue and stuffed into my burger was a mixture of cream cheese and blue cheese and bacon and Oh boy. Oh

Tony Barthel

Boy. If you haven't guessed, they're stuffed burgers.

Peggy Barthel

And Bill, can you, I know that you told us what is Slabtown? What does that mean? So

Bill Elsbeck

Slabtown was an area that was built by the lumberjacks, I guess people who worked at the wood mills and slabs were like the leftover Oh.

Tony Barthel

Off the

Bill Elsbeck

Outside. And they built their houses out of that, out of the s So scrappy town.

Tony Barthel

Okay. Slab

Bill Elsbeck

Town. And

Tony Barthel

This little burger place was pretty small. Not a lot of seating indoors. Typically. They have a lot of out, well decent amount of outdoor seating. But another thing that I thought was neat is, you know, a lot of times you go to these places and they're either affiliated with Coke or Pepsi. This was all local soda pop? Yes. Or what do they call it? Pop here. <laugh> or Soda, whatever you call

Peggy Barthel

It. Yeah, it was a local, it was a local brand called, I wanna say northern or north something.

Bill Elsbeck

Northwood maybe.

Peggy Barthel

Northwood maybe. And they had all these great flavors. So Tony, Tony did like a flight. Yeah. But just in one cup he got a couple ounces of one and then he went back and got a

Tony Barthel

Couple ounces of something else. Couldn't 'em all. And so I did try 'em all and they were all, it's so refreshing. I'm not a big soda person, but it's so nice to A, support a local business and B, try something new. I mean that's, you know, like one of the reasons we like to travel is to taste stuff we haven't tasted before.

Bill Elsbeck

Right, right.

Tony Barthel

So we tasted sodas we haven't tasted before. Yeah. And that was, yeah, that, that whole slab town. That might've been the best. That might've been my favorite too. Maybe. I

Bill Elsbeck

Think that was my favorite meal we've had.

Tony Barthel

I, yeah,

Peggy Barthel

I, yeah, that was the, the best burger certainly in,

Tony Barthel

In a long time. Oh,

Peggy Barthel

Without a doubt. But you know, those sandwiches at Market 20, gosh two, I think those were a definite second place or first place if you're not counting, you know, whatever. They were right up there. Ev we got, you guys had Rubens. I think both

Bill Elsbeck

Of these.

Tony Barthel

Awesome. Oh my gosh, you were so

Peggy Barthel

Good. Oh my goodness. Those sandwiches were so terrific.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. And that was just a total, like serendipity find, right? Yeah, a lot of,

Peggy Barthel

I think for the most part, like I said, bill you know, said, oh we should, while we're in this area, we should go, you know, see the shipwreck tour or we should, but not necessarily planning out food. He had heard of a couple places that we looked up and tried, but kind of when we all said, Hey, is it almost time to get a meal? I'd just get out my phone and look for lunch and look for something with high stars. And we have to talk about pasties, right?

Tony Barthel

<laugh>, I guess

Peggy Barthel

We do. I mean we're in Michigan,

Tony Barthel

We're

Peggy Barthel

In the Up some, everyone told us we had to try 'em. We tried 'em in two different places. Upper

Bill Elsbeck

Peninsula. And lower

Peggy Barthel

And lower. And when we were in the lower peninsula and we got them, we got gravy. And so everyone knew that we were being trolls because only the lower Peninsula has gravy. However, when we were in Munising and we got off the shipwreck tour, we did go get pasties and they had gravy. So we did get gravy there too. It wasn't, it wasn't, it's not only a main Michigan, Southern Michigan thing.

Tony Barthel

Hey Michigan just f y I, you can put spice in your food. Don't feel bad about that <laugh>.

Peggy Barthel

So yeah, the first place, I'm gonna say the reason I liked it better is their pie, their dough, their pasti.

Tony Barthel

Oh yeah. It was super,

Peggy Barthel

It was like a

Tony Barthel

Pie

Peggy Barthel

Dough. It was super, super good. It was really, really good.

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. It was a much better dough. The other one was more like a croissant

Peggy Barthel

Dough almost. And thinner. Yeah. It wasn't, there wasn't as much to it. And really, I mean, a pasti is like some hamburger and some chopped up potato and rutabaga and carrot and salt and pepper. I guess as an afterthought. I don't know.

Tony Barthel

<laugh>, it didn't seem like they were, I

Bill Elsbeck

Think the salt came from the gravy <laugh>.

Tony Barthel

I think you're right. Yeah. Because they were, I was like, oh, these are not, they're very, very bland to me. Yeah, they were. But I'm the guy who likes the green chili bacon, so. Right, right. By the way, it's, it's spelled pasties.

Peggy Barthel

It is. It's

Tony Barthel

Spelled pasty. And it's spelled Mackinac <laugh>. So Michigan, you can also like say things so

Peggy Barthel

When we catch the way, catch ourselves and say Mackinac of all, that's because we're seeing it in our minds with the ending with a C. Yeah. We did spend a day on Mackinac Island. That was fun.

Tony Barthel

We did, that was where we got the fudge.

Peggy Barthel

That's right. So Mackinac Island, for whatever reason, is like famous for fudge. Even in LA at the LA County Fair. We'd see Mackinac

Tony Barthel

Fudge. We had Macina Island Fudge there. Well we also went on like Fudge Day, like it was the, oh

Peggy Barthel

Yeah, it was Fudge Festival Day. That's right. Fudge Festival. That's right. There's about seven to 10 companies and there's like 13 stores because three. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Some of them,

Peggy Barthel

Few of stores have two stores. And the experiences were different. You know, of course the fudge was different and everybody's gonna have their favorite. But the experiences were so different. When we went to Joanne's Fudge, which was like our first stop, they were so friendly and so nice and so accommodating. And they gave us a taste of, you know, like everything,

Tony Barthel

Anything we wanted,

Peggy Barthel

We asked for. Tony said, you're gonna get tired and kick us out. And she said, no, tell me what you wanna taste. And we did by fudge there. A couple of the other stores we walked in and they're like, do you want a box of fudge or not? Yeah.

Tony Barthel

I mean it was, the customer service experience was so different. Like some of 'em, they were so great. Well, that Joanne's was. Yeah. And that was also coincidentally where my favorite fudge was. That is, it was Oh so good.

Peggy Barthel

And that also is where the woman who won the contest and got to be a fudge flipper or whatever it's called, right? Yeah. Fudge

Tony Barthel

Maker, whatever,

Peggy Barthel

On the big marble tables, helping stir and flop the fudge so that it cooled properly.

Tony Barthel

It's interesting how they make this, 'cause there's a big copper kettle. Yeah. And they melt, I guess sugar and butter and cream and whatever, flavorings. And uh, they, uh, sorry. I just saw a squirrel. Literally. I literally just saw squirrel and it distracted me <laugh>, my word squirrel.

Peggy Barthel

I was just waiting for Zappo to react

Tony Barthel

And Tony <laugh>. Right. And instead it was me. <laugh>. That's funny. Anyway, so they boil, I guess all this in a copper kettle. And then they have these big marble slabs and they put a metal square on the table and pour it out, which keeps it from running over the edge. And then they have these big wooden shoving things and they keep flipping it and flipping it, flipping it until it gets firm. And bing bang, boom. You got yourself some fudge sun

Peggy Barthel

Form it into a big old log and then slice it up. Yeah. Yeah. So we did, I mean, I think there was maybe only one other place that even offered a sample. Oh. There were samples sitting in little cups at the back of one of the stores. So we tried it, it was okay. But again, nobody really like made us want to buy fudge. And there was one other notable place. We didn't go into the place. It was in a hotel, which also had a restaurant, which apparently also makes fudge. And there was like a barker out there on the sidewalk.

Peggy Barthel

She was fantastic. Yeah,

Tony Barthel

She, she was like,

Peggy Barthel

Who wants a fudge? We got great fudge.

Tony Barthel

Come and try this F somewhere from one of the Caribbean islands,

Bill Elsbeck

I'd say. Yeah. And

Tony Barthel

She's like, you know, just out there first was fudge samples. Then we went by later and she was uh,

Peggy Barthel

She was showing us the dinner samples, which was I think some kind of seafood or something.

Tony Barthel

No, it was Mexican park. Oh, it

Peggy Barthel

Was Mexican night. You're right.

Tony Barthel

Yep. The weird thing about Mackinac Island to me is no cars like, no. The only motorized vehicle on there I think is the ambulance. And

Peggy Barthel

We did not see that. And

Tony Barthel

The boats, no, we didn't see that. Which is a good thing.

Peggy Barthel

We saw horses, towing carriages. And we saw bicycles galore. Including a bicycle. Towing. A bicycle that was, had a flat tire. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

It was a bicycle. Tow truck.

Peggy Barthel

It was a bicycle. Tow truck. Truck was a bicycle. Even the man who picks up after the horses was on a bicycle with a trash bin on the back. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

I guess for him, business is always picking up.

Peggy Barthel

Always picking up.

Tony Barthel

And that was, I enjoyed going out to Mackin Island. More

Bill Elsbeck

Food. I gotta, I gotta interrupt. Oh

Peggy Barthel

Yes.

Bill Elsbeck

So desserts count. We've gone on to fudge. Oh yeah. And I had some really great ice cream. Oh gosh.

Peggy Barthel

Oh gosh. Yay.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. What was that?

Peggy Barthel

Boomers. Boomers.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Yeah, we ate that twice. <laugh>. Yeah. The first

Bill Elsbeck

Mac at Macinaw Island was the one. Yeah. Mac. The

Tony Barthel

Second one was

Peggy Barthel

Mackinaw Island inverse. But we first had it in Traverse City, which I am thinking was the first store. I don't know if I got that story

Bill Elsbeck

Right. Yeah, I think so. I think that's like the

Peggy Barthel

Original. And that is, that is one place that Bill said there's food I've heard of. We have to try. And we sure

Tony Barthel

Did. And boy it was, oh that ice cream is so good. Yeah. Yes. What did I have

Peggy Barthel

You

Tony Barthel

Had? I know, I didn't have any sea salt caramel.

Peggy Barthel

He did not have any sea salt caramel. 'cause you went in the store Not No.

Tony Barthel

Oh yeah. They didn't have. Oh gosh.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. We asked for, we, we wanted a cup of coffee. It was our time to have afternoon coffee. And Tony said, do you have just coffee? And she says Yes. So she hands us two scoops of coffee. Ice cream, just coffee, ice cream. And we said, no, no, no. We just wanted coffee. So while Bill was getting his cherries Muee

Bill Elsbeck

Cherries muee. Yes. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

We ran across the street where they did have coffee and Tony was in the store so long. But I finished my salted caramel and then he came out and finished his butter pecan. But he did not get taste of mine because

Tony Barthel

I didn't really, yeah. The idea was I was gonna get to try the salted caramel and I did not. I got You

Peggy Barthel

Did not. So you got it at Mackinac?

Tony Barthel

Yeah, I got it at Macan Island. So there,

Peggy Barthel

And that's when I got cherries, moee. 'cause that looked so good. And what did

Tony Barthel

You

Bill Elsbeck

Get? I think I got salted caramel <laugh>. I think

Peggy Barthel

You're right. I think you did.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. I guess it's like the merry-go-round. It just came round. Yeah. So yeah, that was, that was good.

Bill Elsbeck

I have another dessert. Oh. Some of the best cookies I've ever had. Oh gosh. Made by monks. You're right from the jam pot.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Yeah. We should talk about the jam pod. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

Again, it's the place I heard of and we said we gotta go by. And Peggy made sure we found it. <laugh>

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. I did a lot of the navigating so that bill could drive and

Bill Elsbeck

Oh, it was much easier as a solo driver, having somebody to look at the maps and pick out restaurants. A lot less fast food. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

I don't think we did any fast food.

Peggy Barthel

No. I tried to avoid it. The only time was that day that Tony said, or maybe Bill said, I heard of a great place that had burgers. And I looked at the map and I said, oh yeah, this Burger King <laugh>. No, no, no. That's not it. <laugh>,

Bill Elsbeck

It only had two stars that

Tony Barthel

Many

Bill Elsbeck

<laugh>. But Jam pot is a bakery, I guess. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they sell jam, obviously it's run by monks. I think it's been there for like over a hundred years in kind of the middle of nowhere. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Yes. Upper

Bill Elsbeck

Peninsula of Michigan. And actually the key one up peninsula. So even further up than kind of That's right. The upper, the main part. Part of the upper, the upper of the upper peninsula.

Tony Barthel

Upper the, the, the upper peninsula. The super super uper. Duper

Bill Elsbeck

<laugh>. And you know, I've heard stories of lines out the door and there was a constant crowd while we were there. And we

Tony Barthel

Got there in the morning. We got

Peggy Barthel

There not long after they opened.

Bill Elsbeck

I had a peanut butter and jelly brownie. Brownie. Oh my

Tony Barthel

Gosh. Gosh. That so good. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

Good stuff.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. That was good. And we bought peanut butter, oatmeal raisin cookies. And even though raisins really don't belong in cookies, ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you these were just great. Tony's

Peggy Barthel

Been really dying to get some maple syrup while we were up here.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Because we keep seeing maple syrup from up here. So we got, so

Peggy Barthel

I did, we got a jar of maple syrup. We got some jam of course. 'cause we were at the jam pot and we got the brownie to share. And while we were sharing the brownie bill said, wow, these cookies sure are good. So we ran back inside and got some cookies too. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

I went back in and got a bag of cookies and I'm like, oh, you have cookies. He goes, yeah, these weren't here when you were at the register last. Okay, I'm gonna get some. And I did. Then we just got fudge again, which we haven't tried yet.

Peggy Barthel

That's right. We got a sample. We were in Calumet, and that's just a little bit north of where we're staying in Hancock, which is just on the other side of the Keon, uh, not peninsula. The Keon waterway from Houghton or Hooten, which is where I

Tony Barthel

Can see people from Michigan are like, what in the world? We're talking about people.

Peggy Barthel

Michigan Tech. So it's a college school.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. We saw people rushing. We did <laugh>. There was a, there was like a kitty pool out in front of the frat houses, or it might've been a sorority house. I don't know. There was a big kitty pool and a bunch of people in it.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah. Uh, so anyway, so there was a, a gift shop there. And we were sitting and having a sandwich and I kept seeing people go in and go in and go in and Yeah, it

Tony Barthel

Was like that, like ca on Gilligan's Island where people never come out. Yeah. Looked

Peggy Barthel

Like this. Looked like this tiny little store. And people kept going in and not coming out. And I'm like, where are they going? Well we went in and it turns out that, that all three storefronts on that whole block were all connected. Yeah. So we walked through all three stores and in the back Tony found a fudge

Tony Barthel

Place. Yeah. Some guys who made fudge. So that was more fudge we had to have. And we have not tasted it yet.

Peggy Barthel

We haven't, like we hadn't three minutes ago and we still haven't now. <laugh>. So you guys also did kind of a little bit of a beer tour while you were here.

Tony Barthel

I don't know if you would call it a little bit <laugh>. We had a couple of beers every night. And they were all from local breweries. Yeah. Yep. Or we went and got the beer there. Yep.

Bill Elsbeck

That I think started with Goshen. Yeah, I did. At the Frog Rally. Yeah, at

Tony Barthel

The, at the Ocean

Bill Elsbeck

Brewery. Ocean

Peggy Barthel

Brewery. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the one that we started touring. Well because we'd

Tony Barthel

All, we went there I think three times because

Peggy Barthel

We had all been there last year for Frog. We'd been in the area. So, you know, we've talked a lot already about the, the donuts that are called Amish Crack. Oh my gosh. In

Tony Barthel

The local

Peggy Barthel

Food there and Chip Shaana. So we weren't really gonna throw that in, but Really? Yeah, the beer tour started in Goshen.

Tony Barthel

So that was, at least for me, one of my top beers was the,

Bill Elsbeck

The con concussed. Con

Tony Barthel

Concussed. Yes. Oh gosh, that's, that

Bill Elsbeck

Was a great, I p A, in

Tony Barthel

Fact, we have two left.

Bill Elsbeck

I have one <laugh>. Oh, you,

Tony Barthel

You have. Maybe we each have one. But we bought a lot of that when we were there because it was really, if you're ever in Goshen, which I realize is in Indiana, and we're talking Michigan <laugh>, but if you're ever in Goshen, go to Goshen Brewing. And if you like beer, if you don't like beer, then go wherever the heck you want.

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. Where else? What else? The next

Bill Elsbeck

Brewery was Frankenmuth. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Yes. Frankenmuth.

Bill Elsbeck

Which was a cool city. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

It's like a German Bavarian ish city where we even had German food. Yeah. Which was okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. It was just having eaten my share. And your share and everyone else's share of German food growing up. Yeah, it was.

Bill Elsbeck

It was okay. Yeah, it was okay. It wasn't as good as the German food we had in other places. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

It was not as good as that second place. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. Where they had proper ler. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

Yes. It was very good.

Tony Barthel

But that was Frankenmuth Brewery, right? Which is that the oldest brewery Micro brewery in the US or something like that? Yeah,

Bill Elsbeck

I think that's what they said. Oldest either Michigan or the US. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

And it was,

Bill Elsbeck

They had quite a collection of beer.

Tony Barthel

A big collection. Yeah. And so what did you get?

Bill Elsbeck

I got a Frankenmuth lager, which we would call the Brown Can <laugh>. Yeah. <laugh> and Brickhouse

Tony Barthel

Brick House was one of my favorites on this.

Bill Elsbeck

I like brick. I actually liked the lagger a lot too. It was both of the Frankenmuth, the two that I got, I liked a lot.

Tony Barthel

And the two that I got, I didn't like as much. I mean they weren't bad, but one was October Fest and one was like a honey wheat. It was Okay.

Peggy Barthel

I have to make sure we're clear. We didn't eat at the Frankenmuth Brewery.

Tony Barthel

No, that's correct.

Peggy Barthel

We ate at Bavarian Inn or something like that. Bian. Yeah. And then we walked over to the brewery. So. So if you have been to Frankenmuth Brewery and had the best food you've ever had, don't be confused by us. Right. We did not eat at Frank

Tony Barthel

Brewery. Did what we did do in Frankenmuth though was go to the world's largest Christmas stuff store.

Peggy Barthel

Oh gosh. It is. It's, that's like

Tony Barthel

Huge.

Peggy Barthel

Wonderful.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. It's all ornaments and

Peggy Barthel

Mostly ornaments, but a lot of other things. And you know, giant polar bears and

Bill Elsbeck

Kind of things. Yeah. Ornaments and Yeah. Christmas trees. Fake Christmas trees that up to like 15 feet tall.

Tony Barthel

Yeah, it's like a fake Christmas forest. <laugh>.

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. And they had like a whole cabinet or whatever section for, let's see for pets, one for travel, one for nurses, one for teachers, one. You know. And every one of those was had like 50 different kinds. One for rock and roll <laugh>.

Tony Barthel

Yeah. You. And then they also had people that are making custom ones. So you could go in Uhhuh and they would make one

Peggy Barthel

For you, get your name put on online or something. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

Your name or whatever.

Peggy Barthel

And the same with stockings. They had stockings. That's right. So you could have embroidered or whatever. Yeah. So that was a fun stop.

Tony Barthel

Any other pop out memories? Recollections.

Bill Elsbeck

It was a beautifully landscaped town.

Peggy Barthel

It was Frankenmuth

Bill Elsbeck

Walked up and down. That was,

Peggy Barthel

There were so many flowers. It was gorgeous. Gorgeous.

Tony Barthel

It gorgeous Was like being in Germany. Yeah. It was beautiful. Back

Peggy Barthel

To be.

Bill Elsbeck

I think the next beer we got was Kanon.

Tony Barthel

That was good too. Yeah.

Bill Elsbeck

I got a six pack at the supermarket that has like meat, one of each flavor. Right. <laugh>. And it was like, pick which one you want, just pick one.

Tony Barthel

<laugh>. I had a black widow. I think it's a, a black ipa. A dark. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. That was really good. I really liked it.

Bill Elsbeck

And the couple I had were citrus. I had one that was tangerine and

Tony Barthel

Interesting. You're gonna have to drink one of the last concussed to make up for that.

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. Right. <laugh>.

Bill Elsbeck

I have two brick houses too. Oh.

Tony Barthel

Oh man. Yeah that was, maybe

Bill Elsbeck

We can work out a trade <laugh>. Yeah,

Peggy Barthel

There you go.

Tony Barthel

I'm good with that. I do wanna remind people every day Peggy has been doing a compendium of what we've seen and done and with the links and notes and just all of that geology

Peggy Barthel

Rather than our crazy back and forth freeform as we like to do talking. That was actually one day, one post. So each day I did just kind of pictures with picture. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

You can see what we saw, what

Peggy Barthel

We did that day.

Tony Barthel

So I had zero input on the planning <laugh>. I just, my job was to point the schnoz of the ram wherever I was told and not crash. And that's what I did. But Bill was the primary planner and then Peggy helped a lot.

Peggy Barthel

As I said, I usually use the trip wizard and plan our trips and decide how far we're gonna go and where we're gonna stop. Bill was so terrific. So before I could get to it, he'd say, okay, well what about this being the next stop? And we were sharing our Trip Wizard planners back and forth. And then he also had a spreadsheet that he made of, while we're in Frankenmuth, we have to see these things and while we're at Mackinac Island we should make sure to get this fudge and things like that. So that was again very, very helpful for us to, you know, make sure we stayed enough days to see all the things and make sure we saw all the things in the days we had

Bill Elsbeck

<laugh> going back and forth. I think in on one night or maybe two session, just texting back and forth. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's go to this campground. How's this one looking? Are we trying to find, and we've made reservations for this

Peggy Barthel

Site is next to that site everywhere. I'm booking this one. You get that one <laugh>.

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. And I think we did really good with campsites. This one was a little tough for me to back into. Oh it was tight. And your first site in Muning was tough, but then you got the perfect site. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

Newing. Yeah, I think that <laugh> catch that fly Zappo. When we decided that this last stop would be our stop, I went ahead and looked online and you know, I've gotten better about remembering to look for sunshine, but I knew we'd have electricity so that wasn't such a thing. But looking for northern exposure so that we can get our starlink to work. You know, it was just a cartoon map and I thought that I picked the best northern exposure and not only did I not do that, but I picked the two smallest tightest sight in the whole camp Griffin.

Tony Barthel

No, I think we've been, we've been fine with the starlink. Oh yeah, its been, it's

Peggy Barthel

Been good. Yeah. It's just something that I'm just learning still.

Tony Barthel

Right. But we, I need to do an article about it. But we've put the starlink on a CAMCO flagpole and it's been way high up, which is a little bit entertaining. <laugh>. But yeah, the RV Trip Wizard, I mean it's been, I presume a great planning tool for Yep. Yeah. Collaborating.

Bill Elsbeck

Get the distances. That's why we had reasonable drives.

Peggy Barthel

And that's one of the things I like about the Trip Wizard is I can say I wanna drive between 102 hundred miles a day and it will give me rings that show me where that ends. Right. And so, and then being able to share, I tried to share a trip wizard map with someone who doesn't use it and they weren't able to get it. But being able to share the map was really helpful.

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. I got your A map and then Uhhuh <affirmative> kind of put my input and found things to do by Yeah,

Tony Barthel

That's a great

Peggy Barthel

Tool. That's a great thing about Trip Wizard. If you are trying to travel with someone else and you're both using it, you can share the same trip and it makes it so much easier. And then finding campgrounds from there

Tony Barthel

You can read reviews of campgrounds. There's a lot of things. Yes. So it's, it's worth trying. And if you'd like to try RV Trip Wizard, you can do so we have a link on our show notes where you can try it for free. I recommend if you, another thing you can do the size of your rig. So if you're with a small rig or a large rig or whatever, you can input that and that way you don't be on uh, YouTube's 11

Peggy Barthel

Foot eight, 11 foot eight channel. Yeah. So I used a feature that I hadn't used before and this time I've been recording the prices of each of the campgrounds that we're staying at. Which it has, it has a, a pretty good gas. You know, it'll tell you, if you tell it your mileage and your tank size, it'll tell you on the map you're probably about ready to put gas in the car, truck, whatever. We usually fill up before that. Or like we did while we're sitting still, we each run out and fill the tanks with gas so we don't have to worry about it in the morning.

Peggy Barthel

But having that kind of a little reminder like, oh we need to build in X amount of time for putting gas in the truck today.

Tony Barthel

It's a great tool. So if you are planning to do a travel, whether it's with someone else or just all by yourself or whatever, we recommend giving RV Trip Wizard a try.

Peggy Barthel

So today being our last day we did a really fun activity too. And we went on the tour of the Quincy Mine that's here in Hancock, Michigan. We tried to go yesterday, but we found out that it is a, you know, of all the other things everywhere, it said, oh, get there early or do this or do that because of the crowds. We've really been super lucky, I think with crowds even today. Like it was a full tour but it wasn't a crowded tour.

Peggy Barthel

So thinking about doing it yesterday and they said, no, we're full today. So we made our reservation for today and we went on the tour of the Quincy Mine. And with that tour you also can include going to the other location, to the smelting facility. At

Tony Barthel

One point the Quincy mine was the largest copper mine in the world. And some of the copper they pulled out was like basically pure, right?

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. They just pulled it outta ground. They just had to melt it.

Tony Barthel

Yeah, that's amazing. And so copper's all over the place here and we bought some copper souvenirs and such. But you guys went under, I did not go. 'cause my back was hurting. So Peggy and Bill went on the mine tour. It was an underground operation

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>.

Bill Elsbeck

So the, it was cold.

Peggy Barthel

It was cold. It's 43 degrees there all the time. The unfortunately the tram that rides you down the side of the hill broke yesterday or the day before. So we were in a bus, which was fine. But we did a little bit of, you know, we saw some of the buildings up at the top and then rode the bus down and went underground. It was far right, like we walked a mile, I'd say at least.

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. It's at one point halfway through the tunnel that we walked, there's this blue light and he goes and he stops and he goes, you're now crossing the highway you drove in on.

Tony Barthel

That's impressive.

Bill Elsbeck

Yeah. <laugh>. And it was kind of weird that it was, that we were under and then we walked another half a mile. Yeah.

Peggy Barthel

Bill and I were talking about like, it's weird to think like when you're up on the top of the ground, you don't necessarily think about all the things that are going on underneath. And you know, like right now we might be sitting on a mine shaft <laugh> 'cause they're everywhere, right?

Tony Barthel

Yeah. I mean it's amazing what they pulled out of the ground here.

Peggy Barthel

And then we were talking about, you know, like in cities, how there's multiple subway levels in New York and things like that. And when you're just driving around down the street, you don't think about all the structure that's below you. It's kind of weird. Oh you've

Tony Barthel

Gotta think there's sewer and water even there. But that mine,

Bill Elsbeck

It was unbelievable. He had a model of the Empire State Building. Yes. And it was like four or five of them deep. Oh wow. And just like some of the areas were just like big empty. They had a name but I don't remember areas. Yeah. In the mine big roof, they crossed multiple levels. Hmm. Like we were on level seven, you could see up to level six. Yeah. You know, a hundred feet up or however. Right. And it was a little scary. <laugh>. Yeah.

Tony Barthel

This was a happen in town for mining in the early, I think right about at the turn of the previous century for about 1900 to 1912. Although the mine kept going till the seventies

Bill Elsbeck

And it started just before the Civil War is when they really first started. Yeah. And actually Hout in the name of the town was when Michigan became a state. He was like the mineral guy. And he came up and figured out that we should do mines here. Dig

Tony Barthel

Here. <laugh>

Peggy Barthel

<laugh>. We're actually using our weekly gadget today because it's, it's a little still today.

Tony Barthel

The first night you brought the little Ryobi fan out and I'm like, oh I have those. Yeah. And then we got 'em out and we, well so if you don't know, Rabi makes all kinds of power tools for work. But they have some really neat gadgets that we bring camping with us. And among those are the little Rabi battery powered fans. And they can clip to stuff like awnings, which is where we had it until we got the tent or tables or chairs or we put ours on our bedside.

Tony Barthel

'cause we like the breeze. They're little fans and you can move the head around so they can point up, point down, point front, point back and gosh, the batteries

Bill Elsbeck

Last forever it lasted.

Peggy Barthel

It's amazing

Tony Barthel

How long they

Peggy Barthel

Last. If we just use 'em overnight on warm nights, usually we can go two or three nights. We each have one on our side of the bed and we can run 'em two or three nights before we have to charge that battery again.

Tony Barthel

Every week we ask a question of the week. And last week was one near and dear to my heart. Do you bring I didn't answer it. And that is, by the way, on our newly renamed Stressless campers Facebook group.

Peggy Barthel

That's right. And what was last week's question? Do

Tony Barthel

You bring a musical instrument with you?

Peggy Barthel

Well, since you forgot to write your answer, why don't you, while I'm trying to get the answers to come up on my Facebook, why don't you tell us what your answer is

Tony Barthel

Right now? I have nothing with me. Which is a, there's a lot of stuff we don't have with us that I wish I did. The smoker being one, but also the washboard and the Cajon. Those things would've been good to bring. I used to play clarinet and I still have one. I don't bring that, even though I'm in the Frustrated Maestros, which is a group of F M C A <laugh> people. But one of the things that we used in that post was a photo from last year's frog rally,

Peggy Barthel

A photo of Rick playing his bagpipe.

Tony Barthel

And he answered, he's like,

Peggy Barthel

I always, always bring my bagpipes. He did. I always bring the bagpipe. So Rick brings bagpipes, Brenda says her husband brings three guitars and a mini music studio. That's

Tony Barthel

Pretty impressive. And here's something we've known Cheryl for years and years. I did not know her husband Terry played keyboard.

Peggy Barthel

That's right. They carry a keyboard with them. Shannon doesn't. But she said sometimes her son brings his trumpet. Beverly carries her one man band. Robin's husband Richard brings his guitar. <laugh> Mark, like I answered. No, I'm not musically inclined. <laugh>, Kathy's husband brings his flute, which that sounds awesome. Steve carries, no, Steve has three guitars and a ukulele, but he never seems to remember to bring them. That's kind of like us.

Tony Barthel

Now Larry, he says he brings a drum set and I, knowing Larry he's, it might,

Peggy Barthel

He's 20 might

Tony Barthel

<laugh> I, I don't know if he's kidding or if it's true and he also plays trumpet but doesn't seem conducive to the aura of Stressless camping. I don't know. Ah,

Peggy Barthel

Lori says there's always room for ukulele. Bill wanted to know what, what did you wanna know? Bill? Does a

Tony Barthel

Bluetooth speaker count?

Peggy Barthel

Yes, I think so. Because you usually get good music out of that. That's

Tony Barthel

Right. Better

Peggy Barthel

Than

Tony Barthel

I'll ever play. Including great music from our now newly departed friend Jimmy Buffet. That's right. That was last night. It was so coincidental. We were playing all this Jimmy Buffett music and then this morning we find out he passed away. So fin's up buddy.

Peggy Barthel

Yeah, Felicia said she has taken her cello and her husband has taken his auto heart.

Tony Barthel

A cello is no joke. No, that's so well I guess a bagpipe is no joke. Right.

Peggy Barthel

She said she's taken the cello when camping proceeded a rehearsal or performance or a workshop and she can play it with a music stand in place inside their 22 foot camper. But she says, then I block the kitchen and bathroom area <laugh>. It's like having a third person in the rv but she won't move if asked <laugh> <laugh>, she says her husband played his auto heart for Heritage days at a core of engineers campground. That's really cool.

Tony Barthel

That's really cool. You can always answer those questions or weigh in with your own questions or get answers from a really friendly community at Stressless campers, our newly renamed but ever popular Facebook group,

Peggy Barthel

Still fun and friendly, that's

Tony Barthel

Still fun and

Peggy Barthel

Friendly. We could call it the Fun and Friendly Stressless Campers Facebook group <laugh>. And we only dropped one name then <laugh>.

Tony Barthel

So what is our question this week? This

Peggy Barthel

Week I was just curious, have you traveled in a a kind of a caravan road trip like we are?

Tony Barthel

Yeah, that's a good question. And you can answer that on Facebook at Stressless campers, which is linked on our website@www.stresslesscamping.com. And in the hamburger menu you'll find links to all the places where we are social. So come and join us wherever you are. We're probably there too.

Peggy Barthel

Also in the hamburger menu, you can find in the Contact us a place to sign up for the newsletter.

Tony Barthel

Did you know that this month if you are a new subscriber to the Stressless Camping Weekly email newsletter, you have already been entered in a chance to win a Air Gear RV Tire changing kit. All you have to do is sign up for our newsletter if you haven't. And that's all it takes. And someone Buddy is gonna get notification that they got the air gear tire changing kit and that will be in our weekly newsletter. So

Peggy Barthel

That's all we do is we send a once a week newsletter. We don't, you know, sell your name to anybody. We don't try to spam you. We send you links to videos and podcasts and whatever news that we find that might be helpful in your Stressless camping experience. Yep.

Tony Barthel

To

Bill Elsbeck

Help you be a Stressless

Peggy Barthel

Camper, to help you be a Stressless camper. You might notice we're a little rough because we did not have our script in front of us today. We don't have any notes. So what do we say next? You guys? <laugh>, come on. You know this as well as we do. Oh,

Tony Barthel

Heck. Well, it's just a pleasure to be here with you all. Bill. It has been an absolute joy. It

Peggy Barthel

Has these past few

Tony Barthel

Weeks to travel with you. I, I hope it's, we

Bill Elsbeck

Do it. It's been really great. I, it's better than I could have imagined.

Tony Barthel

I really do it again. Agree. Well, there was some suggestion of us doing a pub crawl tour, so That's right. Who knows what's coming down the road. Well, that's what we have for you this week. And again, if you would be so kind, if you haven't yet, don't forget to write a review on whatever podcast catcher you are using. That really helps them know that people are listening and that means they tell others about us. If you've already done that, don't forget. You can share any content on our website with your friends or people you don't like, whoever, whatever suits you <laugh>.

Tony Barthel

But that also helps too. And we sincerely appreciate your being with us again here this week. And

Everybody

Happy camp, happy camping!

Mark Ferrell

We hope you learned a lot and had some fun and got some tips for your next Stressless Camping Adventure. We're honored by your reviews on Apple Podcasts, which helps others find us too. Don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss out on the adventure. And we look forward to your joining in us next week. Until then, happy camping.