Finishing Michigan’s Counties

Road Trip around Northeastern Michigan | Cheboygan | Onaway | Ocqueoc Falls | Huron National Forest | August 2023

Today started with driving across the Mackinac Bridge and returning to Michigan’s lower peninsula. We had two days before our next commitment, so we decided to take today and tomorrow to drive back to Curtis’ parent’s home so we could spend one more night with them. Given these two days to drive back, we saw two options for routes heading South: We could follow Lake Huron’s Western shore South and get some of the counties we needed, or we could zigzag through the countryside to grab all the counties we had left. Mileage-wise it would be about the same, so we decided to do the Curtis and Jess thing and zigzag our way home. We had loved all the lake views and lighthouses we’d seen throughout our time in Michigan, now we wanted to finally be able to fill in those pesky holes on our county map. (And as we always say, we’ll always come back…to see the lighthouses and lake views we missed)

Our first stop was in Cheboygan, another town that we had briefly visited on our honeymoon. Curtis had to take a work call, so we hung out at the lighthouse park here for a couple hours. Shortly after we parked, a guy drove up and parked next to us and asked, “Are you guys hippies?” We got to talking with him, and he said he was also wanting to build a van, so we gave him our best advice from our three months in ours. As we continued talking, he also shared that his son had just gone to boot camp for the Navy and had been selected for submarines, so Curtis was also able to share a little about what to expect with that.

After Curtis’ call was over, we had some lunch and then continued driving South and East. Our next stop was in the town of Onaway where we went for a walk around a sculpture park. After the local ‘steering wheel factory’ (#justmichiganthings) closed, the owners decided to create a park explaining the history of Onaway, its steering wheels, and how ‘Onaway Steers the World’, complete with the world’s largest steering wheel. Then, a local iron worker began producing unique sculptures in the early 2000’s, and one thing lead to another, and now there’s a sculpture park on the grounds of the old factory. There were several interesting and perhaps more reflective and artistic sculptures here, but the ones that brought our attention to the park were the giant heads of American figures, like President Lincoln, President Ford, and the Statue of Liberty. 

After our walk and another close encounter with wasps while letterboxing, we drove further East and slightly North to Ocqueoc Falls, the highest waterfalls in the lower peninsula. Alas, when researching places to go, we should have been a bit more skeptical when this was the ONLY waterfall listed for the Lower Peninsula. While they may be the tallest in the lower peninsula, they are extremely underwhelming, more just like small cascades; to the point that, after having seen them, I kept walking further down the creek hoping to see something more impressive. Nope, that’s all there was.  

We quickly ditched the falls, and began our long zig-zagging drive mostly heading South, jogging East or West when necessary. Curtis had another work call which he took at a rest area, then we continued driving. There were two counties that we simply drove into, only to turn around and drive back out, but we reasoned that it was ok because, of course, someday we’ll come back and drive along the Lake Huron coast. 

The drive got a bit more interesting as we entered Huron National Forest, following the Au Sable River and seeing one of the dams. There were some monuments along the way, but we were tired and wanted to be done driving. Our chosen camping area for tonight was a dispersed spot in a wildlife area. We were all alone for the most part, just until a few birdwatchers showed up around sunset. We walked over to the nearby pond to see what we could. We spotted a couple of swans, geese, and egrets out on the water. But naturally, that much water meant that many mosquitoes, and we retreating to the van shortly after sunset. Overall, this trip had some pretty great campsites, most of which were empty and all except the one in Wisconsin were free!

The next morning, we had only 2 more counties and about 3 hours of driving to reach Curtis’ parent’s house. We successfully entered and drove across both, making Michigan our 10th state for visiting every county. We made it back to Grand Rapids around noon, and enjoyed one more night with Curtis’ parents before it was time to move on.