Odometer: 148025
Distance So Far: 3307
Days On the Road: 14
Final Stop: Portage, IN

Three great lakes down, and so much of Lake Michigan skirted that they’ve started backtracking, Mom and dad are enthusiastically making headway on the Great American Bucketlist.

From Dad

September 13, 2025
We started the day off driving a few miles down to Ludington, MI, and finding a gorgeous sandy beach with almost no one on it (yet) The temperature outside was 68 degrees, and the water was probably the same. But I promised Linda that we would go swimming (not just wading) in Lake Michigan today, so we put our suits on and took the plunge; well, actually, it was more of a slowly go deeper and get used to it in stages. But we ended up all in. And we swam around for about a half hour.

Our next stop was Silver Lake State Park, where we bought a day pass that would get us in to as many state parks as we could visit in a day. There were sand dunes here, but much smaller than Sleeping Bear. From there we went a few miles to Little Sable Point lighthouse. I climbed over a sand dune to get to it. Linda decided that was too much. On the other side of the dune I discovered a concrete sidewalk from the parking lot to the light house—no climb necessary, so I called back to Linda to go down the parking lot and come over on that. They wanted $8.00 per person to climb the light house. We passed on that.

Driving a little farther, we arrived at Duck Lake State Park. This is an inland lake that connects to Lake Michigan by a stream about 100 yards long. We ate lunch there, then drove a little farther to Muskegon Lake. While there, we saw a ferry coming in. Apparently, there is a ferry that crosses Lake Michigan from Muskegon to Milwaukee. Who knew?!

By this time, we had burned a lot of daylight, so we stopped in Muskegon and topped off the tank and bought some food for tomorrow, plus batteries, because my camera is going through them like crazy. I have already used up 4 sets. And I’m not using the flash. I thought they would last 2 months, and it’s only been 2 weeks.

[Editor’s note] Despite the noted battery depletion, around this time mom and dad got lax about the phone pictures and started using the proper camera, which means we got less narrative in the Whatsapp chat and less blog-ready content. Stay tuned for additional photos later, since we’ll need to do a photo dump eventually when they get uploaded.

We got to our hotel in Portage, IN, then went out for Chicago style pizza, then found a laundromat to restock our suitcases. Great day, great week. It’s a good thing we get a rest tomorrow, because I made a lot of mental mistakes today—wrong directions, mostly.

September 14, 2025
Rested up today in Portage. Attended church in Valparaiso, at a very friendly ward. Spent the rest of the day in our room, including a three hour nap. Ready to go for it again tomorrow.

From Mom

Some of the trees are really turning beautiful! I’ll bet they are starting to turn at home too! There are just so many trees around here that when they turn colors it is very beautifu! Beautiful! Hope you are enjoying a wonderful Sabbath. We went to church in Valpariso, Indiana today and it was very nice. Now we are both ready for a Sunday afternoon nap! Love you all!