A shore thing

We're still traveling along the shore of western Michigan. We were in Frankfort for 3 days looking to cross Lake Michigan but we had storms come through and the wind and waves were too much so we decided to continue south and proceeded to Ludington, MI.

Docked at the Frankfort marina, the boat and I got pounded by waves.

Departing Frankfort on our way to Ludington

When we arrived, the city was awaiting the arrival of the Vietnam Traveling Wall. There was a motorcycle escort accompanying it to Ludington’s City Park for a 4 day stay. The city had special events scheduled at the Memorial each day.

We were again waiting to cross the lake to Wisconsin but we remained in Ludington for 5 days because of the high waves and white caps.

I got to see the only coal-fired steamship in operation in the U.S. The S.S. Badger is the largest car ferry on Lake Michigan and runs between Ludington and Manitowoc, WI. The ferry carries up to 600 passengers, 50 crew and 180 vehicles. The 60 mile trip takes 4 hours, with an average speed of 15.6 knots. The Badger is over 400 feet long,7 stories high and her 2 anchors each weigh 7,000 pounds. She’s been in service over 60 years, first transporting railroad freight cars and later switched to passengers and cars. In 2009 the ship was placed on the Nation's Register of Historic Places.

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Meet Paul, he greets everyone on the dock.

We decided against crossing and headed south along the Michigan coast to Grand Haven. We had a lot of fog and 2 foot waves, and covered 68 miles. It was crazy entering Grand Haven, boats were everywhere and going in every direction. We’ll have to stay here due to weather and we were fortunate 3 transient slips were available for our boating group over the busy Labor Day weekend.