No two camping trips are ever the same. They’re especially different when the destinations are on opposite ends of the state. My wife and I bookended May by camping downstate near Flint and then upstate near Grand Marais. The two excursions offered different flavors.
Metamora-Hadley Recreation Area is about 15 miles east of Flint and 20 miles north of Pontiac. It is not a location I would choose to get away from it all. It is a place I normally would avoid, because I am allergic to heavy traffic and downtowns that stretch as far as the eye can see.
Yet we found ourselves camping there because it was close to people we wanted to visit. Since I am also allergic to unnecessarily spending money, camping seemed preferable to booking a motel for a week.
Four hours of driving toward the 43rd Parallel delivered us to Metamora-Hadley on the Thursday before Mother’s Day. We found a mostly-empty, shaded but pleasantly open campground on the shore of a small artificial impound called Minnawanna Lake.
Friday morning, the campground quickly bulged with bulky RVs, most at least twice as long as our little trailer. The pleasant park transformed into a three-ring circus of fishermen, children, grandparents, scooters, bicycles, pickup trucks and campfires.
Exiting the campground to make our visits and find dinners immersed us in the usual downstate snarl of drag-racing commuters. Years of blending easily into Traverse City traffic does not prepare one for the full-throttle madness that is downstate normal. I felt like a student driver thrust into the final laps of a NASCAR race.
But Metamora provided us a safe nighttime haven from that madness, a relatively calm island in the middle of the downstate storm. It was cold at night in early May, even in Michigan’s deep south, and the campground got quiet after children parked their wheeled toys. The park served its purpose of a place to sleep while away from Grand Traverse County.
A couple of weeks later, we trundled up to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to camp with family at Hurricane River Campground. The journey north to the edge of Lake Superior was fine, with light traffic, smooth roads and clear skies. I felt like a professional race car driver enjoying a leisurely ride to the local U-pick farm. I always enjoy driving across the Mackinac Bridge, especially the section on open steel grids.
Experienced Upper Peninsula campers know that mosquitoes are thick in early summer, so the campground was only about half full of people. The mosquitoes, though, were doing their best to match Detroit’s population — there were lots of them. And they were hungry. Repellent helps, but all humans suffered some bites.
We filled our time at Hurricane with shared family dinners, plenty of talk, and several hikes on and near the North Country Trail.
Car traffic was light when we drove into Grand Marais for showers, dinner and ice cream cones. I know from past experience that full summer brings lots of side-by-side traffic to the tiny town, but in May, it was safe to stand in the middle of the street and take a leisurely look around. It was lovely.
My sister’s brother-in-law caught some Menominee (also called round whitefish) and fried them for dinner one night for the group. Delicious.
Rick had misplaced his fishing license at home before driving over from Marquette, and had to pop into Grand Marais to buy a replacement. The clerk went online to help him make the purchase. She hit the button to complete the sale as he started digging for cash in his wallet — where he found his misplaced license. Now he owns two copies. Back at the campsite, we joked about the memory problems that naturally come with retirement age.
The fishing license incident made me ponder the contrast between camping upstate and downstate.
Up North, laughing about the license, the wallet and memory seemed natural. It was just one of a string of happy moments in a tranquil part of the state. Troubles fade away when surrounded by family, under a canopy of majestic trees, steps from waves gently lapping sand, far from the core of society.
Downstate, I don’t tend to get that feeling. Down there, I was constantly aware that the noise and motion of society was grinding, grinding, grinding, just out of sight beyond the woods around Metamora. The campground itself was fine. For me, though, it was merely a place to park the trailer.
Hurricane was much more. It was a spa-like destination, a healing balm on my soul.
The Traverse City area exists somewhere between downstate and upstate. It has some traffic issues, sure, but nothing like they have in Dearborn, Ann Arbor, Lansing. And Traverse City, though not as remote, is surrounded by amazing natural places that equal the beauty of the Upper Peninsula.
All my life, I have been drawn to the remote. I enjoy visiting natural places where I’m alone, or at least feel like I might be alone if I squint hard enough. Mountain trails. Desert canyons. Deep forests. Off-season beaches.
Apparently, I’m not alone is wanting to be alone. Pictured Rocks, and the entire Upper Peninsula, attract more visitors each summer. I’m glad for local businesses that profit from the growing traffic. On the other hand, I feel a personal sense of loss when I visit a spot that now has a big paved parking lot and I recall years-ago visits when it had just a couple of rustic parking spots at the end of a dusty two-track.
But I’m part of the problem, because I keep visiting those spots and therefore add to the traffic pressure. So I can’t complain. And I can’t stop myself, because I continue to crave summer visits to the Upper Peninsula.
Last summer, my wife and I paddled a canoe in the Sylvania Wilderness for the first time. It was beyond beautiful. I’m still amazed there are discoveries to be made in the U.P. after a lifetime of travels to the Porcupine Mountains, Copper Harbor, Sault Ste. Marie, Tahquamenon, Black River, Big Bay, Iron Mountain, the Garden Peninsula.
We plan another week in the U.P. later this summer, so I can again listen to the cool breeze wafting through pine trees while watching Lake Superior waves caress the shore. There might even be fewer mosquitoes in August.
But much of this summer will be spent near home, reveling in nature and city alike. Because Traverse City offers the best of both worlds, a dual personality, a smorgasbord of U.P.-like natural beauty spiced with just a dash of downstate traffic.