We took a 9 day trip in Wisconsin and Minnesota starting out on Labor Day. First we toured Door County, Wisconsin a peninsula jutting out in Lake Michigan, stayed at two state parks, Potawatomi and Peninsula and took a day trip ferry ride over to Washington Island. Both state parks were quite nice. Peninsula SP was maybe the ultimate park if you had a bicycle in that there were many easy trails and many mountain bike trails. You would think with the kids back in school the retirees would be out in force, and they were, but trailers, Class As and Cs still dominated. I was surprised at the number of tent campers that were apparently retirees. Both parks had about 3 Class Bs at most.
On the day trip over to Washington Island there was another Class B on deck and coincidentally it was another Advanced RV. How about those odds when few are on the road? We talked shop talk and then went our separate ways.
Our next stop was the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior. We took another ferry ride to Madeline Island and stayed at Big Bay SP. The campsites were probably the nicest we ever encountered in that they were heavily wooded, level, and spaced so you don't see any neighboring campers. Again, there was only one other Class B in the campground. The highlight was there was a 1-1/2 mile boardwalk along the lake and sand beach that connected to another municipal campground. No Class Bs there.
The trifecta of this trip is our must visit to the Minnesota north shore of Lake Superior to Grand Marais, MN to the 300 site city campground and marina. We try to at least make this trip annually as a base and then go up the 60 mile dead end Gunflint Trail that ends at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. This is the relaxing end of our short excursion since there are at least 15 eating establishments in the town including two breweries all in walking distance from the campground.
I forgot there was a three day music festival at the campground. There were only 3 sites left out of 300. We were lucky to get there before 2 PM. Part of the problem was a Facebook group of Winnebago View and Navion users (Class Cs passing themselves off as B+'s) were holding their annual rally. They were everywhere. From our campsite we saw nothing else. Maybe at least a 100 in the campground. I didn't bother to count. However, I surveyed the campground and found us and two other Class Bs out of 300. There were more tent campers (in an RV park) Truck campers and Airstream trailers than Class Bs.
We didn't get to Michigan's UP this trip since we plan to attend the Winter Freezeout in January at Tahquamenon Falls SP. Hopefully there will be lots of Class Bs there but I think erosion will set in now that the Wendlands (sponsors of the Freezeout) have expanded their scope with RV Lifestyle and have migrated to a Class C.
The point of my observations is Class Bs are less than 2% and probably holding of all RV types (trailers, Class Cs, Class Bs and truck campers) and if you add in tent campers it is less. Truck campers, BTW, are numerous in the upper midwest in that they are optimum for pulling boats and launching them at boat ramps.
Upper Midwest - Minnesota and Wisconsin
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