We left a very hot and humid Traverse City on Wednesday morning and pulled out of the campground as torrential downpours started. We hoped that it would bring in some cooler weather with it, but after the 3 hour drive to South Haven, we realized it didn’t. We are missing the cool sweatshirt weather from Mackinaw City and Lake Huron!
We arrived at our next campsite, Jellystone South Haven and for the first time this trip, the camper was over 100 degrees we when parked and plugged in. Add in a campsite with no tree cover and it takes a long time to cool down. We headed out for a late lunch/treat to escape the hot tin can AKA home on wheels. The town of Douglas is home to a unique roadside stop that we knew we needed to see as soon as the Instagram reel rolled into our feeds. The Douglas Root Beer Barrel opened in 1952 as a unique shop on Oval Beach to sell root beer and footlong hotdogs. It closed in 1975 and sat dormant for 25 years. In 2010 the property was purchased for $1 and a fundraising campaign started to revive and rebuild it. They moved it to its new location in Douglas and reassembly was completed in 2016.
We cooled off with root beer floats and sampled some dogs.
We headed back to check on our cool down process and it hadn’t budged much so some of us headed to the pool.
Instagram struck gold again and we read about a genuine southern restaurant serving up amazing food in the town of Saugatuck. We headed out for a late dinner and it was worth it. Every bite was so good and the service was on point! We left with a ton of leftovers and headed back to a cooler camper after sunset. Anyone in the southern Michigan area, we highly recommend The Southerner.
