Florida to Michigan

Oct 10th to Oct 29th, 2019

Harvest Hosts

Harvest Hosts is a camping program where you can stay overnight at a business and enjoy whatever their business provides. There is only a yearly fee to join the program and the camping is free. There are usually no hook ups, you are dry camping. It is generally expected that you patronize the business in return for the free camping. The majority of businesses are wineries, farms, and museums. Harvest Hosts continues to add other unique businesses such as golf courses.

We stayed at our first Harvest Host on the way out of Florida at Island Grove Wine Company in Hawthorne, Florida. What a great experience! The winery is located out in the country in the middle of a vast collection of blueberry fields.

Linda gave us a tour of the winery and some samples. We bought a few bottles of wine and spent the night parked in the grass out front. It was very quiet at night and got down to 68 degrees; good sleeping weather.

We stayed at our second Harvest Host the next night at Horse Creek Winery in Sparks, Georgia. It is right off of I-75. This winery has a bistro attached. We ate dinner there and also enjoyed some wine slushies. We of course bought a few bottles of wine.

KOA Cartersville, Georgia

We continued our journey north and stayed overnight at the KOA in Cartersville, George. It is also right off of I-75 and is very convenient. The temperatures at night continued to drop as we headed north. The traffic through Atlanta was awful as usual.

Kentucky Horse Park, Lexington, Kentucky

Our next stop was the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. We stayed 2 nights here so we could visit some of the local distilleries. KHP is s nice campground with lots of mature trees. We were there during close to Halloween, so many campers were decorated for the occasion.

We visited Woodford, Four Roses, and Buffalo Trace distilleries. There are many more in the area, so we will have to come back another time.

Van Buren State Park, Ohio

Another nice quiet, out of the way campground is the Van Buren State Park in Van Buren, Ohio. It is only a few miles off of I-75 with some very nice and helpful camp hosts. There is also a section in back that allows camping with your horses if you take them with you…

Wayne County Fairgrounds, Belleville, Michigan

Wayne County Fairgrounds was our final destination. We stayed here for 13 nights and visited Laura’s father and sister. The campground is part of the county fairgrounds and has full hook ups for about half of their sites. The sites are a little tight and on firm grass. It is very close to the Yankee Air Museum and only about 30 minutes from Detroit.

Yankee Air Museum

The museum is about 2 miles west of the Wayne County Fairgrounds at Willow Run Airport. This airport is famous for being the site of a large B-24 factory during WWII. The YAM contains displays from early military bi-wings to more modern airframes.

Eastern Market

Eastern market near downtown Detroit is a mecca for area shoppers every weekend. It was really cold the day we went, but a lot of the produce was inside and we filled our bags.