Frankenmuth

When we left Walmart we drove to the Bavarian themed town of Frankenmuth.  Since it was only a 15 mile drive we arrived before most of the shops were open for the day.

There was one shop open on the lower level of Zehnders. We tasted a couple types of strudel and bought a slices of the strawberry strudel.   We returned to the motorhome to eat our treat and waited about half an hour for things to open for the day.

While we were waiting for things to open we walked over to the Historic Holz-Brucke Bridge over the Cass River.  The bridge is 239' long and built entirely of wood.  It was constructed in 1979 and is held together with wooden pegs and no metal fasteners. 

Next to the wooden bridge is a building with beautiful butterfly murals.

The first shop we visited was Bronner's Christmas Wonderland.  It is an enormous warehouse sized store dedicated solely to Christmas decorations.  There are Christmas trees, lights, model villages, nativity sets, and bulbs for every imaginable theme you could ever want.  Bill was thinking there's no way they could stay in business selling only Christmas items but they have been in business for over 80 years and when we were leaving a tour bus arrived and unloaded a bus full of shoppers.

We spent close to an hour looking at everything until we reached the point of being overdosed on Christmas decor. At that point it was time for all the shops on the main street to open so we headed back to the large parking lot behind Zehnders.  We visited several shops including the Cheese Haus.  We had heard that Zehnders is world famous for their fried chicken dinners so we decided to try it for lunch.  I had researched a bit and found that going downstairs to the cafe you can get food faster and for less money, so that is what we did.  We each ordered a two-piece chicken dinner which came with two sides.  Neither Bill nor I thought the chicken was anything special.  It was a little dry and kind of flavorless.  Del Rhea's Chicken Basket from a few says ago was much better.

Tomorrow we will be at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore so we are spending the night at Lively Acres RV Park.  They charged $65 and the only amenity they offer is electricity.   They have no water, sewer, bath house and only pit toilets.  Since we have a generator we had the same amenities available to us last night at Walmart except it was FREE.  The park has the potential to be nice and has a great location but they have a long way to go to justify the price they are charging. 

At least we have electricity and groceries so we cooked up some ground beef and made tacos and banana pudding for dinner. 

Good night for now and we'll let you know about Sleeping Bear Dunes tomorrow.