Road Tripping Around Saginaw Bay

Wilmington, DE to Grand Rapids, MI | Week with Curtis’ Parents | Weekend Road Trip to and around the Saginaw Bay Area | October 2025

It’s hard to believe that from August to mid-October we were on the road for work, but after almost 9 weeks, we were finally done for the season. Nothing stood in the way of us being free to travel where we wanted, except for our return to the van. Because we’ve done such an efficient job collecting counties in the mid-Atlantic, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, we could take the direct route. It’s all interstates, boring, and very expensive with tolls, but we’ve had enough East coast for the year.

We left our hotel in Delaware and effectively repeated our drive to MI from a month before, but diverted through Detroit in order to see my Grandmother. She graciously allowed us to stay the night, and in the morning we also got to spend some time with one of my uncles before finishing the drive to my parent’s house.

We allotted about a week to stay in Michigan, during which we caught up with my family, saw my other grandmother, and did some maintenance on the van. I can now say I’ve done the brakes on a Ford Transit, and it is not the easiest project: thank goodness for YouTube mechanics. But we haven’t died yet, so I guess I did it right.

As a test run of the new brakes, my parents invited us to join them on weekend Letterboxing trip to the Saginaw Bay area. We had passed through the area two years ago and even finished our last Michigan county in that area. But we had only *just* crossed the border on a few of those counties and figured it was a great way to enjoy some warmer autumn days. Some people pay good money to see upstate Michigan in the fall after all.

We drove up on a Thursday afternoon, making it to Bay City State Park just before sundown. After helping my parents set up their tent and enjoying a late dinner, we settled in, happy to return to our van. The next day we piled into my parent’s van and headed North up the Huron coast. We made a stop in Pinconning to get some Pinconning cheese: a local delicacy that my mother remembers her grandparents eating. We could even have bought some 50 year old cheese to get the full 1970’s experience.

We ended our drive North at Sturgeon Point lighthouse. The lighthouse itself was beautiful of course, but once you got onto a spit of sand that went into the lake, you could really see the colors up and down the lakeshore. My parents planted and found some letterboxes, and then we started back South. We stopped briefly in Oscoda for a very cold and windy lunch by a lake before we drove through the old Wurtsmith Air Force Base looking for a place to plant a letterbox. We ended up finding some along trails in the National Forest nearby and went for a long loop hike along the Au Sable River.

We then left Lake Huron behind and followed the Au Sable up river through Huron National Forest and towards the Lumberman’s Monument. This was something we meant to visit on our pass through in 2023, but couldn’t for some reason or another. But we’re glad we made it this time. The monument – which commemorates the early lumberman of the Northwoods – sits on a high bluff overlooking the Au Sable river. After seeing the monument, we wandered around the bluffs and found our way to a lookout with an amazing view. Thousands of acres of trees all in their autumnal splendor. But…through a miscommunication, only Jess and I enjoyed this view. My parents, who were busy planting a box, had been patiently waiting for us back at the van.

By now it was getting late, and worse it was getting wet. We had one more stop at Rifle River Recreation Area. Only my dad and I got out here, and only to plant his final box. Now he and my mom have also been to every county in Michigan AND planted a letterbox in each one.

We returned to our campsite, but not before grabbing dinner in Standish. It would have been a fulfilling and uneventful adventure but for one thing. Since we opted to eat in, we left my parent’s dogs in the van. We locked all the food in the appropriate bins and otherwise sanitized everything…except for one box of pancake mix. When we returned to the van following our meal, we opened the door to the smell of blueberry batter and a floury haze in the air. They’re good dogs.

In the morning, we enjoyed a short walk along the Tobico Marsh with my family before parting ways for the rest of the day. My parents had a few more letterboxing errands to run, and we opted to go our own way and meet back at home. We made one prolonged stop in the town of Midland where we enjoyed a walk up and down the river green ways. Most importantly we got to visit the Tridge, a three-way bridge over the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittabawasee Rivers. Overall we liked Midland, it seemed like a quaint college town.

We returned to my parent’s home much the way we had left. We enjoyed one last evening with them and then packed the van for the journey further west.