Detroit and Ann Arbor

After a relaxing few days on the Lake Michigan shoreline, we drove inland, crossed the state of Michigan and found an RV park in the Ann Arbor outskirts. We were 40 minutes outside of Detroit and that was just fine with us.

The first night we drove into Ann Arbor to visit the University of Michigan campus and to walk the city itself. Ann Arbor did not disappoint. The town of just over 110,000 people was large enough to feel metropolitan, yet small enough to feel quaint. Ann Arbor had a feeling of old wealth to it, which was not surprising after the upscale communities we'd discovered on the western side of the state.The UM campus was bustling with student life when we walked through on the Diag, a diagonal sidewalk that crosses the campus. Ann Arbor itself was surprisingly busy for a Tuesday afternoon, and we saw lots of folks enjoying after work cocktails on outdoor patios on Main street.

Southern Michigan Shore

We had not heard much about the state of Michigan, and went into it with the thought that we’d drive through quickly, poke into Detroit and then be on our merry way. We wrongfully let our expectations for the state be driven by what we’d heard about Detroit. We went in expecting to see the state polluted with industry, along the lines of what we’d seen on the Indiana shore. What we actually found in Michigan was something very akin to what we’d found on the East Coast in previous trips. We found clean beaches and lighthouses reminiscent of the ones we’d seen in New England, and a long string of upscale lakeside communities that could easily rival Cape Cod.