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Siblings Slideshow 3A & Videos - Family UP Michigan Trips - 1966-73

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This page is about our camping trips mostly to Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. After the trip to California, the following summer Mom and Dad decided to try more vacation trips starting with camping at the Northern Michigan Huron National Forest Campground Old Grade outside of Manistee. The first thing on the agenda was to buy a large nine-person tent and other camping equipment, including sleeping bags. Since Dad's vacation was two weeks either around the 4th of July holiday, or the third week in July, we packed the red station wagon and left for our first camping trip in July 1966. Check out the first photo, looks a lot like the photo we had Mrs. Barnes take for the California trip, except you can see we are one-year older, and it was daylight :).

Along the way to Manistee, we made a stop to buy sweet cherries and another stop at a very scenic rest area with a natural spring on US 31 to wash the cherries and take a break (see photos and video from the rest area).

We only spent a couple of days at Old Grade and decided it wasn't where we wanted to continue our vacation. It was very rustic and there were way too many mosquitoes and no lake, just a small river and creek. Mom and Dad wanted rustic, but not that rustic, and we kids wanted swimming. They decided to go further north to Wilderness State Park on the tip of the Western Northern Peninsula along Lake Michigan. Mom had seen a brochure that made it look quite beautiful. We arrived at the Wilderness State Park late in the evening and it was very busy and almost full, it was cramped as State Parks generally are with one site right on top of another. Mom and Dad were quite disappointed and rather than try to squeeze our tent into a really small campsite they decided we should go somewhere else. Someone told Dad about a National Forest campground over the Bridge near Strongs called Soldier Lake. We crossed the Bridge and arrived very late at Soldier Lake and Dad pitched the tent in the dark with the headlights on him.

Thus, began the Christopher love affair with Soldier Lake. We stayed the rest of that vacation at Soldier Lake. We returned two more times in 1968 and 1971 with trips to The Soo Locks, Point Iroquois, Tahquamenon Falls, Muskallonge Lake, Whitefish Point and Sault Ste Marie, Canada. We drove into Newberry occasionally on all trips for groceries because it was the largest town around Soldier Lake. There was a small "town" just a few miles away called Strongs, it was just a gas station and very small grocery store.

Crossing the Mackinac Bridge was very exciting for the whole family. We children asked about sharks because we were told there were sharks in the water beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and we assumed there would be sharks under this bridge. We were taught about the difference between fresh water and ocean water (technically S.F. Bay). It was always a thrill to cross the Mackinac Bridge and as usual Mom tried to make everything exciting and fun with her enthusiasm.

In 1967, the old red station wagon was on its last legs and Mom and Dad decided to go on a shorter one-week vacation to a lake within a couple of hours of St. Joseph (video footage suggests it was near Holland). Dayle stayed at Grandma Wally's much of that summer and did not go on the vacation with us. Dad rented a boat and used it quite often fishing, well into the dark one night. Mom rowed around near the shore with us kids. I am not sure which lake it was, but it was fairly small, and the campground was very small. They had a small roped-in swimming area and a raft that we would swim out to and jump off of. We only stayed a few days. There is a video for that vacation below but no photos. One of the cool things about the video is you can see the shadow of the car with the cargo carrier on top as we motored toward our destination.

In 1968, Mom and Dad bought the Ford station wagon (be sure to check out the photos of us with cars page) and we had the 16' aluminum fishing boat from the previous trip. The boat served a couple of purposes; perhaps the most important was we used to it to pack our luggage and camping equipment. We had used a luggage rack and canvas on the 1965 & 1966 trips. The boat had a 25 hp outboard motor but we couldn't use it in Soldier Lake because no motors were allowed. As you can see from the photos below, we dragged the boat down to the shore and oared around the lake for fun. The first year the boys had to wear life jackets to swim, we hated that! In 1968, the first day we had to wear them but soon Mom relented.

One story we may all remember is the night we left to go up north in July 1968 with our new car and boat in tow and as we crossed the bridge into Benton Harbor Dad commented on the unusual number of police cars and they were wearing riot gear. As we continued through Benton Harbor, people were out in the street with police cars all over the place with people in the streets, particularly, as we drove up the hill by the old YWCA through to Crystal Avenue. The next morning when we were resting and visiting the Michigan Capitol in Lansing, we read that we had driven through riots in Benton Harbor the night before.

We traveled all over the Eastern U.P. in 1968. I don't have any photos of the Soo Locks from that year, but there is some video of the Locks in 1968 below. We also crossed over the International Bridge that year into Sault Saint Marie, Canada. We went to a park called Bellevue Park which had animal pens, including buffaloes, bears, foxes and many other animals in a zoo-like setting. The highlight for us boys was the retired Algoma train engine #10, nicknamed Porter, which had just been donated to the city in 1967. We had a really good time at that park; unfortunately, we don't have any photos of us playing on Porter but there is a very quick feint shot on the video of us on the engine. There is a current photo of the train engine in the video for 1968 Camping Trip below or click here to see Porter as he is now. Note: the city removed the animals from the park in 1997 and in 2011 declared Porter culturally and historically significant and children are no longer allowed to play on Porter. There was no smile on the face of the engine when we visited in 1968.

We drove up to Muskallonge Lake on the shores of Lake Superior to see the State Park there and the largest Great Lake up close in 1968. We visited the Point Iroquois Lighthouse that year, Bernie and Dad climbed the stairs to the top of the light. We loved Whitefish Point on the eastern most part of Lake Superior. Today, there is a very nice shipwreck museum there with many exhibits and pieces of the Edmund Fitzgerald. When we visited it was just a few buildings and the lighthouse.

One of our most adventurous activities was an attempt to hike from the Lower Tahquamenon Falls to the Upper Falls in 1968, about four miles. You'll see a couple of photos from that attempted hike to the Upper Falls. We didn't realize it would be that long of hike and the younger kids were very tired and complaining hard enough that we turned around. You'll see a video of us coming back along the trail to the Lower Falls. If you look closely you'll see in the photo of us listening to Dad explain about the climax forest and Robin eating a snack on that hike. There is another photo of Dad on the path with the Upper Falls in the background - we walked from the Upper Falls to get that viewpoint. That was also the year Jimmy ran ahead to get to the Upper Falls viewing platform before us and fell down the long flight of stairs to get to the overlook. In the video, you can see him crying and hiding his head - more over embarrassment than injury. The photo of him standing next to the "Falls Stairs" sign was meant to be funny and to cheer him up.

I think it was the 1968 trip where we attempted to drive to Pictured Rocks in Munising on the same day we visited Lake Muskallonge and got lost on the dirt roads that Dad thought would be a shortcut. When it fell dusk, he quit trying and we found our way back to camp. It seemed like a short distance on the map but there were no direct paved roads at that time between Lake Muskallonge and Munising, nor a good map of the dirt roads.

On the 1968 trip, as you will see in a photo and the video below, we stopped in St. Ignace at a souvenir shop, and all got to buy something. Larry, Jimmy and Robin bought Indian weapons and feathers. I am not sure what Bernie and Dayle bought.

We went up to the Upper Peninsula and Soldier Lake again in either 1969 or 1970. Chris Nelson went with us on that trip. Still trying to figure out more details.

On the 1971 trip, we continued camping at Soldier Lake. Chris and Billy Nelson joined us on that vacation trip. Among the new things we did was to visit Fort Michilimackinac (called Colonial Michilimackinac today). After seeing it from the Bridge for the first two trips, it was fun to go inside. It was, and still is, an active archaeological site. They only had the Fort walls and a few buildings reconstructed at that time. Today, they have added several more reconstructed buildings and continue to dig for artifacts and ruins. Of course, we bought fudge from the shops in Mackinaw City. We never went to Mackinac Island as family because it was just too expensive with the seven of us.

Mom wanted to go camping again in 1972 but Dad did not want to go and instead followed us to a campground near the Dowagiac area to help us set up. However, we found the campground too small and cramped and Mom decided to take us to a State Park near White Cloud and Newaygo instead, no photos (: The kids had a great time jumping off the 10' diving board into the lake. I have not been able to find the name of the campground.

In 1973, we went back to White Cloud, Jim and Dayle joined us with their newborn son Chris. There are two photos in the slideshow below.

Dad took Robin and Larry back to Soldier Lake and to the Soo Locks with Leona in 1975? Bernie and Larry went with our wives to Soldier Lake in 1989 while on a camping trip in the U.P.