Michigan

September 15: Old Mission Peninsula, Sleeping Bear Dunes

We started off our day with a good long walk on the Traverse Area Recreational Trail. It seemed as if we’re well on our way to fall but there were a few bits of color.

Note the red stems. These guys were catching the sunlight as they were blown in the wind. 💜

Someone else’s weed turns toward fall and it’s actually gorgeous.

After lunch and some lounging around camp, we headed up Rt 37 to the tip of the Old Mission Peninsula, hitting a couple of wineries (there were too many to count!) and the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula.

Chateau Chantal Winery

Bowers Harbor Winery

2 Lads Winery; Old Mission General Store

We were disappointed; they were closed on Wednesday.
But what a great view back toward Grand Traverse Bay!

Soda fountain. The best thing about that store? The squeak of the old wooden floorboards!

Old coolers

You can find all kinds of things at an old-fashioned General Store!

Mission Point Lighthouse and Hessler Log House

Mission Point Lighthouse. While we were walking around outside, the park volunteer was explaining how the lighthouse light could be focused (pretty sure he was talking about Fresnel lenses). I had all I could do to not stop and explain in detail about them, and add more details of my own. But there was no graceful way to do that, so I just had to let it go. No need to be THAT person, even if I could’ve added a bunch of factual information.

Stairs to the beach at Mission Point. You-Know-Who really wanted to go down those steps and have a “fetch the stick session” in the water! (These beaches don’t have many sticks!)

Older and newer glass in the Hessler family home’s windows. This log home, built 1854-1856, was moved from it’s original location on the southern part of the Old Mission Peninsula to this spot near the lighthouse (reflected in the windows). It was moved and refurbished in 1992-1997.

Joseph Hessler, from Canada, and his wife Mary, from Ireland, were among a number of Irish, English, Scottish, and Canadian immigrants living in the southern part of the peninsula in the 1860s.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

I got up to about 80-85% up to the top of the dune and just when I thought I would soon be relishing a view of the lake from the top, there was yet another dune, this one even taller than the first one. Dan stunned me when he returned; there were five dunes (you did go down after dune #4 and then back up to the top of dune #5 in order to see Lake Michigan), but I felt ripped off. Bait and switch at a National Lakeshore. I knew that, even barefoot and not carrying my shoes like Dan was, I didn’t have it in me to continue up to the top of the second dune…I felt vindication when he told me there were THREE MORE!

Self portrait shadow

See the (very) large man and the very small boy, holding his hand, at the top of the first dune?
Photo added just for scale. These sand dunes were BIG.

Dan, atop the third dune with the second dune behind him. The second dune completely obscures the first dune and the parking lot. He still had two more dunes to go!

The view from the top of the fifth dune, looking “west-ish” toward Lake Michigan. The trek the rest of the way to the lake shore was 2 more hours from where this was taken. One way. At this point, Dan turned back to join Fleur and me at the bottom of the first dune!

September 16–more wineries: Petoskey, Charlevoix, Cross Village and more!

Our day began by heading to the Tunnel of Trees. To get there, we had to pass by the Farmer’s Market in Charlevoix. Oh My.  I wanted to stop…baked goods, produce, soaps, etc. YUM. Of course, as we returned home, it was long gone….Charlevoix itself is worth a stroll down the Main Street of cutesy shops. As we were headed back to TC, I decided that we didn’t plan long enough here and need to return just to this area—for a week or more…we weren’t even that far from Mackinaw City….

The Tunnel of Trees was so nice, the road so narrow, and the homes so beautiful (I’m a sucker for big, or fancy, or log homes and there were plenty of all of those!) that I never took a single photograph other than a SnapChat video of part of it!

Soon enough we were through it (we decided that the road itself was the reason we didn’t feel the need to move to this beautiful area! No easy access to anything!) and looking for a lunch spot in Cross Village. There were two and we chose the one whose line was shortest! And we had a wonderful lunch at the Old World Cafe.

The Old World Cafe was a lovely place for lunch. And the setting was beautiful!

After lunch, we went in search of wines, starting with Petoskey Farms Vineyards.

The view from our table at Petoskey Farms Vineyard

Also part of the view from our table!

 

The tasting room at Boyne Valley Vineyards is surrounded by the prettiest flower plantings of any we’ve seen recently. Why can’t mine look like that?! We sampled a flight of four wines here and honestly, liked every one of them! How did we find this one? Well, I asked our server at Petoskey Farms Vineyard to suggest a winery recommendation. She did a great job! 

We drove down to the bay front park in Petoskey, searching for the lighthouse. We found a light, but no “house” to go with it. So we headed toward home and the Winery/Bakery that Dan had wanted to see. We had plenty of time; Dan checked Google. But by the time we got there, we only had about 25 minutes before they closed! They’d changed their hours for fall but hadn’t told Google! There were a ton of hard ciders on tap and by the bottle—Dan has been enjoying these! Between the wines and the ciders, we’re well stocked for winter!

We found the World’s Largest PIE PAN in Traverse City! Baked in 1987 to take the World’s Largest Cherry Pie Guinness Book of World Records title from nearby Charlevoix, set in 1976. The record pie in 1987 was 28,350 pounds and 17 feet, six inches in diameter. Interestingly, this record was broken by the town of Oliver, British Columbia in 1992 (39,683 pounds!!), but Oliver destroyed the pie pan after this record, so Traverse City still has the record for largest pie PAN. Too Funny. Dan refused to pose with the big pan. In his defense, it had been a long day. (With too much wine?)

The sun sets at the end of the golden rail road tracks on the Traverse Area Recreational Trail..which Dan suggested we take to get ice cream. Who am I to argue?  Stay tuned; we will be heading down the west coast of Michigan tomorrow. It’s been a wonderful few days here, along the north coast!