Trailering Kismet Across Country During Covid-19

Jim is driving, and I am writing this blog post, the first one in quite a while. We are in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, taking Route 2 west as we begin our trek to Washington State. We hope the Canadian border will open while we are out there so we can cruise up to British Columbia. Ideally, we’d like to explore more of the Broughton Islands.

We missed going to Florida this year, as we were helping our son, Ross’ family move to Michigan from Portland, OR. Well worth staying home to spend five months with our daughter-in-law, Sarah, and our two grandkids. Our original summer plans were to trailer the boat to Prince Rupert. We would have launched Kismet there and headed to Alaska. Then Covid-19 happened.

In our minds, safety, while traveling away from home, was the first issue to contend with. Then the borders closed which caused another problem. We spent most of March through June in quarantine, due to Covid-19, talking about maybe we’d be safer on the boat. So, where would we go, and when? I think the mere discussion of it helped us through those first few long-isolated months. No more dinners out, no family or friends in our house, and it was cold in Michigan for most of March, April, May, and part of June. Our socializing only resurfaced again when we could distance ourselves outside, with happy hour on our porch with rotating friends and family.

Covid-19 Arrived and Plans Changed

At the beginning (March and April), we were still planning on going to Alaska. So, research and focus remained in that direction until it became painfully clear the border would not open in time to execute our plan. We would have had to leave Mid-May.

So, after stocking up the boat with masks, gloves, and lots of hand sanitizer and cleaning materials, we are on Route 2, our third morning on the road. We left home a little later on the first day so we ended up breaking up our first planned day into two shorter days. It turned out to be an excellent plan; we were so tired from packing and cleaning the boat. Stopping earlier on the first two days gave us time to get some stuff organized on the boat. Now the trip is so much more enjoyable.

Preparing for the Trip

To prepare for the trip and to be as safe as possible, I pre-made dinners for five nights and figured on simple breakfasts and sandwiches for lunch. No cooking on the boat, no eating out, just warming up food, and using paper plates and bowls. I had never thought of doing this before, guess I never had to think about it, but I do like having the pre-made dinners because after a long day on the road it seemed daunting to unhitch the truck from the boat and drive around the nearest town to find a restaurant. Yesterday we had lunch at a scenic pull-over spot right on the beach of Lake Superior, lunch doesn’t get any better than that. Guess we have Covid-19 to thank!

Few people are wearing masks here, however, they probably don’t have many cases up here and we are not entering stores or businesses, so we don’t really know if they require masks or not. Last night, as Jim went up to the camp’s facilities to use the restroom, I was on the boat reading an article on how flushing public toilets can be unsafe considering the existence of the coronavirus. I had not thought of this possibility. Apparently, flushing aerosolizes waste material that you can inhale. No more public toilets for Jim, just using the head on the boat, we are still using public showers. Think we will be more than good with that until we get to Anacortes, WA.

The first night we stayed at a KOA in St. Ignace, Michigan. It was a nice stop, with friendly staff wearing masks… sometimes. Before we landed there, we had stopped at a small RV camp, not soon after we crossed the Mackinac Bridge, it was across the street from the water, however; they did not have shower facilities open; they said they could not get enough cleaning supplies to open it. So, we moved up the road to the KOA. It is an enormous park, and we got some much-needed exercise exploring the mostly empty campground.

Last night we stayed at Alpine Campground & RV Park, near Wakefield (above), on the Black River. While checking in, we met the owner, Inga, and her two cute dogs. She is quite a character and runs a tight ship. It was hot when we arrived, Inga made sure we got a tree to shade our boat. After a walk through the campground and the woods down to the river, we enjoyed a few beers under our shade tree, had our warmed-up dinners, and played a few games of Siamese Mah Jongg. Life is good!

Second Time We’ve Done this Route Across the United States

We’ll soon be in Minnesota, with Fargo, ND as our planned stop for the night. We’ve done this route, back and forth, one other time, it was when we headed west to pick up our new Ranger Tug R29. Many other times, when we drove cross-country, we went south from Traverse City, Michigan, around Chicago, and up north. I have to say I much prefer this route, which hugs Lake Superior’s shoreline. It is such a scenic drive lined with white and yellow spring wildflowers.

As we drive through Ashland, Wisconsin (right now) Lake Superior again popped up. As we seem to inch along, we were in four states today; Michigan, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, and North Dakota.

We finally made it to Fargo, ND and it is hot at 92 degrees with a predicted storm to arrive tonight, hail, and possible tornados. Wish us luck!