Tuesday, October 17, 2017

Marvelous Michigan- July 2017



Marvelous Michigan
July 17th-30th 2017

To begin this, I must say,  Michigan people are some of the nicest people on Earth.
Michigan has some of the prettiest rocks!
The only downside is that Michigan calls food spicy, but that just means it has seasoning on it-lol
- my husband missed his spicy food

    We flew into CIU (a super small airport 18 miles south of Sault Saint Marie USA side) You need to have pre-booked your car, because there is only one rental company and they have no extra cars!
(also note- mileage was not unlimited- 100 miles a day limit- for 14 days we came in at 1325 miles-whew- close call).
    Our first stop was Petosky (3 nights)..…We were off to a bad start… I had booked an Air B&B. It was not what I expected- I had not read all the reviews..I ended up cancelling it and actually got a refund because the place was moldy, really stinky moldy…so now we were without a place to stay during high season.  We found a motel on Lake Michigan in Petosky. It was great, but expensive ($180 a night- but the beds were comfy and location was outstanding)
    That evening we walked through town, down to the Harbor and out to the lighthouse. Petosky is a great little walking town.



    The next day we rented electric bikes (totally awesome) and set off on The Little Traverse Wheelway.
Doesn't the water look like the Caribbean?

 We rode north to Petosky State Park (to look for Petosky stones-fossilized coral) and out to Harbor Springs and had a picnic, supplemented with farmer’s market fruit. We returned to Petosky and then we rode south to the Inn at Bay Harbor for a well deserved beer. 

The Wheelway is fantastic and a must do- and the electric bikes enabled us to ride 30 miles comfortably in one day.
     My favorite event of the vacation happened during the bike ride; I was getting sad because I hadn’t been able to find any Petosky stones. As we were on the Wheelway, Sid spotted a sign that said “I sell Petosky stones”…we followed the sign to a workshop behind a tiny house and met a man named Raymond.  He had a huge collection of Petosky stones. He made custom pieces, like knife handles, from these stones.  I picked out a small stone that was mostly polished and asked him the price- he said $10.  I said okay and before I could pull out my money, he took the stone over to his work seat and polished and smoothed the rest of it for me and then drilled a hole in it, so I could wear it as a necklace. His price after 20 minutes of labor…still $10…unbelievable (they wanted $85 for a Petosky stone necklace in Harbor Springs).  As Raymond worked on my necklace, we chatted away with him. We gave him $20 and he said he would donate the extra $10 to charity.  Meeting people like Raymond is what travel is ALL about.
Raymond


Petosky stone
    The next day north of Petosky, we did the Tunnel of Trees drive and went to look at Leggs Inn Restaurant- a great place built from beautiful twisted logs. Unfortunately the weather was drippy so all the patio seating was closed and the wait for food was over an hour, so we just peeked inside to see the gnarly wood and left. 

    The day was clearing up so we headed south towards Charlevoix to do the Mt McSauba/North Point Nature Preserve hike. It was a wonderful hike to the beach and through the woods. I loved collecting pretty water worn rocks.

 On the way home from the hike we stopped at The Lilac Farm

 and The Burnt Marshmallow Brewing Company. 

 We had a great beer tasting and played bocci…we even got some marshmallows and toasted them over the fire in the fire pit.(They have hot dogs-you can roast- for sale as well)  It was a fun brewery that I would highly recommend.

   Our next stop was Traverse City(3 nights). We stopped along the way at Torch Lake, which is famed for its Caribbean blue water. It was very blue- but I think you need a boat to really enjoy this lake.  We checked into our Air B&B on the outskirts of town.  It was a king bed with private bathroom in the lower floor of a house. At $70 a night, it was a good deal-(hotels in town were $185 and up). 
   We drove up the Mission Peninsula and stopped at The Jolly Pumpkin Brewery

 we continued on to the lighthouse

 and took a 2 mile hike through the woods, ate a picnic lunch and then made a stop at Chateau Chantal Vineyard for a glass of wine with a great view.

  I must say, I preferred the white wines to the reds(which is never like me). The Michigan reds were leaning sweet and thin, but the dry rieslings were delicious.

   I was looking forward to more vineyards, but Sid couldn’t wait to swim in Lake Michigan, so we went to the local city park in Traverse City-great place to swim. 


  I watched as he went into the cool water (65 degrees)- too cool for me-lol. He said it was awesome. It was crystal clear… super, super clear…it did look inviting- but I was happy reading under a shade tree.

That night we ate dinner with some friends who used to live in Fort Worth but now live in Traverse City. 

We had a nice meal and great conversation, as we caught up with each other’s lives. They really love the pace and the quality of life in Traverse City and we can see why they feel that way.

    Scheduled for this day was a bike ride to the  vineyards of Sutton’s Bay (Leelanau Wine Trail), but I cancelled the night before because the morning weather was predicted to be nasty. Instead we drove to Sutton’s Bay, did a little window shopping in town, stopped at Ciccone Vineyard (owned by Madonna’s family) and Black Star Farms Vineyard where the weather cleared for an hour or so.

  We ate in Traverse City at Scalawags White Fish restaurant- good fish, nice counter help. We strolled along the marina park after dinner. Everyday can’t be bright and sunny!

    The next day cleared up so we drove out to Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes National Recreation Area. It was crowded so we didn't do this dune!

We chose the Pyramid Point hike.  It was a great 45 minute hike up the path to a huge sand dune (which we did NOT climb down- to get to the water- because it is supposed to take an hour and half to climb back up-straight up- no thanks). 
not hiking down this- or I would have to come back up
   The view from the top of the dune overlooking Lake Michigan was outstanding. 
  We took the long path back to car.  It was a great 2 hour hike.

Hungry for our picnic lunch we stopped at Cherry Republic which sells many things cherry flavored- we loved the cherry hard cider

  and the dried chocolate cherries. They had wonderful shaded picnic tables for you to eat your picnic food, or eat food from their restaurants and snack bars.

After lunch we found the beautiful Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive and saw more dunes

 and stopped at scenic overlooks and points of interest.  


The next morning we packed up again. We were excited to get to our next stop…Mackinac Island (pronounced Mackinaw- I don’t know why..)  Mackinac Island has no cars- only bicycles and horse drawn carriages. We prepaid online for parking in Mackinaw City using Starline Ferries. We finally figured out where the pre-paid gated parking was (across the street from the dock behind the hotel in the fenced area). A shuttle came and got us from the fenced area and took us to the dock area.  We carried our luggage on board the ferry.

 We found out later that if you are staying on the island, you can check your luggage and a”bicycle porter” will take it to your hotel.

  Anyway, we boarded the ferry for the 20 minute ride to the island and wheeled our luggage to our hotel.
    Getting off the ferry, is like stepping back in time. No car noises, just a clip clop of horse hooves (and the smell of horse poop)
If you could read the shop signs they would all say FUDGE


 However , the main part of  town it is crazy crowded midday . Many people are on the island just for the day. We were relieved, because at night, most people leave and then the island is very peaceful. Our hotel was $215 a night, we stayed 2 nights.

    The funniest thing about the downtown Mackinac Island was that every other store was a fudge shop. NOT KIDDING….you could watch fudge being made, you could see people eating fudge, you could smell fudge…it was everywhere.  My friends in Traverse City said that they call tourists “Fudgies”  lol. I love chocolate, but fudge isn’t my thing- thank goodness.

    While on the island we visited The Grand Hotel- it cost $10 to get into the hotel- they want to keep the riff-raff out.

  We paid the money and strolled the gardens, looked through the museum, had a beer on the grand porch and had a cocktail in the Cupola Bar.

 The cost to stay at The Grand Hotel starts at $585 including dinner…at dinner women are required to be in dresses or pant suits and men in jackets, slacks and ties. There is high tea served as well. It is a beautiful hotel, but I was glad we just visited for the afternoon.

    We also rented bicycles. There is a paved bike path the circles the island. We read that the west lower path wasn’t that scenic, so we decided to take the aggressive route-(meaning I had to get off and walk my bike up several hills-lol) We rode/walked up the hill to the center  of the island and then picked up the bike path. Once I was at the top, I was glad we did this route.  We got to ride through the woods, saw the Arch Rock,

 saw a great cemetery,

 and passed military posts. We stopped for a picnic lunch along the circle bike path and enjoyed the breezes off Lake Huron.

We did not do a carriage ride- but it looked fun and informative..and we did not visit the Fort.
fort on the ridge

We did have good wine at The Wine Cellar (though the bar tender/owner was a bit braggadocious) and then had a great , reasonably priced meal at The Ice House.
Ice House Patio

    We caught the ferry the next morning, picked up our car from the gated lot and headed to the Upper Peninsula (where people are called Yoopers). 

    Our first stop was Palms Book State Park to see the , Kitch-iti-kip lagoon.  It is a spring fed, crystal clear-naturally iridescent green lagoon with big fish.

  The park has a glass bottom raft that you and about 25 other people board and you hand crank yourself across the lagoon.  The problem was that everyone on our raft wanted to look and no one wanted to crank the pulley..lol..so Sid, me and one other man did all the work.
here is Sid cranking the boat pulley

It was really fun though. I had never done anything like this- I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a ranger, or rules about the number of people on the raft etc…YAY for people being personally responsible!!

    We continued on that day to Christmas, Michigan, where we checked into a room at the Christmas Motel- quaint, clean and cheap!!!(one night $67)  We had wanted to kayak to the Pictured Rocks, the Lake was rough and chilly- so I was glad the kayak companies were booked up that day!! 

 We headed into Munising to eat dinner at The Fish Basket food truck-yum (fresh fish caught that morning)- and to buy tickets for the sunset cruise at Pictured Rocks.  We read online that people start lining up 45 minutes to an hour before the cruise to get the seats on the right hand side of the boat on the upper deck (closest to the Pictured Rocks). So we get there 40 minutes early and sure enough there were already people in line.  Due to the popular time slot, the tour boat company decided to take 2 boats- so we got 2 of the coveted seats.  The Pictured Rocks were spectacular- the colors of the rocks intensified as the evening light came.





 But as the sun was setting the temps were plunging quickly. We had worn our fleece jackets and had hats and gloves, but had to finally go below decks for the last ½ hour of the tour.

 I would highly recommend this boat tour.

     We hadn’t had enough of the Pictured Rocks, so, the next morning we packed yet another picnic lunch and headed out to do a 10 mile hike that went along the coast.  We saw the Pictured Rocks from a boat last night, and now we were seeing them from above during the day.  It was a perfect day for hiking. The water below was calm (I wished I was kayaking today) and so translucent.

  The hike wandered through the woods for about 1.5 miles until it reached the coast.

The rock under the tree is eroding leaving the roots attached to the land that supports life.

  Then the trail followed the shores of Lake Superior for the next 7.5 miles and then went back inland for the last mile.  The last mile was the longest mile EVER!! This trail hit my trifecta for being a great trail: very little elevation change, lots of shade, and because it is fairly heavily used trail, I didn’t worry about bears!! (well maybe just a little bit of worry.)
But we should always worry about Sasquatch.(sorry had to throw this in)
 
   After the hike we piled our weary old bones into the car and drove to Paradise!
Paradise, Michigan is really tiny town in the NE corner of the Upper Peninsula. I picked this town because it was close to many things we wanted to see.  We stayed in a cabin right on the shore of Lake Superior (3 nights-$120 a night).  The cabin was great. 

  It had 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a full kitchen, living room, a BBQ grill and a fire pit.  I enjoyed grilling dinner , while Sid built a roaring campfire for us.

  We popped open a bottle of wine and sat by the fire listening to the wind through the trees and the splash of the waves hitting the beach. It was a wonderful evening.

   Over the next 2 full days we visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum (awesome)

Whitefish Point Light house,

Tahquamenon Falls State Park- which has a brewery!


searched for agates on Agate Beach,

 and climbed another lighthouse at Crisp Point which was down a 20 mile dirt road.  LOVED this part of Michigan.  


    The vacation was coming to an end.  Our last night was spent in Sault Ste. Marie.  (1 night $87).  We visited the Soo Locks- really interesting and very well guarded. We saw a few freighters go through the locks.

 There were things to do in town like a tour boat ride through the locks- (or kayaking through the locks-yikes). There is a house to house historical tour, a big ship you can tour, and a strange looking tower that has some spiritual tour…but we were kind of “toured” out, so we wandered around town, found a winery/brewery/pub and hung out on the patio, and chatted with the locals and watched ships go by. 

  The next morning we drove back to our little airport, turned in our rental car and waited for our plane.  We were totally amused by the sign near the security checkpoint…it told you to take fudge out of your carry-on, because it doesn’t  x-ray well…. fudge bombs!!  I was glad we didn’t live up to the name “fudgies” because we didn’t have any fudge to declare.

   Marvelous Michigan- you gave us a great vacation!!

*Side note- it was a great vacation, but the hotels in the bigger towns were a budget busters.  However if you eat a picnic breakfast and lunch most everyday, it helps offset that cost. . The Upper Peninsula had many more budget friendly options. 

Thanks for reading my blog. See below for an added bonus!
 
Below are some pictures of the cute houses we saw during our stay in Michigan. 








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