As we were leaving our New Hudson campground we discovered people who felt they’d been sold a “lemon”” weren’t restricted to car owners.

The relatively short drive from the Detroit area north to Frankenmuth was completely uneventful.

The city’s name is a combination of two words. “Franken” represents the Province of Franconia in the Kingdom of Bavaria, home of the Franks, where the original settlers were from. The German word “Mut” means courage; thus, the name Frankenmuth means “courage of the Franconians.” The area was settled and named in 1845 by conservative Lutheran immigrants from Roßtal area of Franconia (now part of Bavaria) in Germany. The group of settlers left Germany on April 20, 1845 and arrived at Castle Garden seven weeks later. They traveled via canals and the Great Lakes from New York to Detroit and arrived in August 1845. Sailing on the Nelson Smith, the settlers made their way to Saginaw and travelled over land to the present location the city of Frankenmuth.[7] Originally part of Bridgeport Township and later Frankenmuth Township, Frankenmuth became a village in 1904 and finally a city on October 1, 1959 … and today has a population of just shy of 5,000 residents.

After getting settled,

we opted to try to decompress after past two exciting but hectic days of seemingly non-stop tours.