7/16/2015 Traverse City and Michigan's Upper Penninsula

Chateau Chantel Winery overlooking Lake Michigan

On July 7 we arrive in Traverse City Michigan to visit with friends Jane (from Fairfax) and Rob.  First time camping in Michigan so we add another state sticker to our map!  We camp for the week at Traverse City State Park along side Lake Michigan.  The sand is so soft and the water so clear, but try to swim in it (mid 50 degrees) and your 'parts' turn blue.  We are tucked under nice pine trees where the black squirrels scamper up the trees and over tents.  And there are no bugs! The sunny 70-80 degree days and 50-60 degree nights are absolutely wonderful, especially when much of the country swelters in the high  90's and 100's, have wild fires and record floods.  On the news we just saw big RV's floating away in Arizona flash floods where they haven't seen rain like this in 300 years. We get the truck in for service and the transmission diagnostic turns up nothing.

Jane has planned lots of fun things to do - we drive around Old Mission Peninsula where we see hops, grapes and cherries growing everywhere.  We enjoy a lovely view of the Lake on both sides of the peninsula from the Chateau Chantel Winery where I have to sample the sparkling cherry wine.  Sweet, but good in small amounts.  Since cherries are the main crop around here we also have sampled chocolate cherry coffee, cherry salsa, cherry BBQ sauce AND Rob made a delicious rhubarb cherry cobbler. All this and much more can be found at the local Cherry Republic Stores.   

People Hiking Up the Dune Climb

An afternoon at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park Shoreline is a must.  We see the lighthouse, collect very cool rocks from the lake shore including petosky stones and rope coral fossils from this 300 million year old sea bottom.  The dunes are so steep at the "Dune Climb" you feel like you're going to fall off.  Many people (not us) of all ages are running 460 feet down to the lake shore but then have to make a 2 plus hour hike back up.  There is a large bull dozer sitting at the top of the dunes and signs on the dunes say be sure you can make the climb up because there is a large fee if someone has to go down to rescue you.  In Traverse City we biked, attended an outdoor concert, and kayaked in a nearby river.  

Mushroom Houses

Charlevoix, Michigan

After a great visit we head north to the Michigan Upper Peninsula (aka: the U. P.). On our way we stop at Charlevoix and enjoy walking around this quaint little harbor village.  Especially cool are the stone mushroom houses built by Earl Young beginning in the 1920's through the 1970's.  We cross over the bridge between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron and are officially on the U.P.  We almost drive past Wandering Wheel Campground outside of another cute village called Munising.  The U.P. is a pretty remote area and you CANNOT rely on your GPS as we found out. This area quickly gets high on our list of great stops with the natural beauty of Lake Superior combined with significant opportunities for great hiking, biking, kayaking, camping and eating at the Falling Rock Cafe. Again surprisingly no bugs!  We can't understand why this place isn't packed with people, it is so fantastic - not that we are complaining. 

Kayaking Pictured Rocks next to Bridal Falls

Pictured Rocks are beautifully colored and shaped cliffs, 50-200 feet high along the shores of Lake Superior.  We kayak along a few of the 40 miles of cliffs and hope to be able to camp on them on our next visit.  There are water falls all over this area and one day we make a very rough 5 mile drive down a dirt road to hike out to

Pictured Rocks

Chapel Falls.  Another day we take a small boat out to Grand Island where the only motorized transportation on the island is a 9 passenger van that takes tourists around the dirt roads a couple times a day. WARNING:  Read The Brochure Before You Go!  Our tandem bike did fine on the dirt roads but the bike trails were too rustic for us. By not reading the brochure until after we arrived on the island, in addition to not knowing the trails were for 'mountain' bikes, we missed the strong suggestion for bug spray and head nets. OMG did we

View of Lake Superior from Grand Island

regret this oversight.  We had an almost empty bottle of bug spray which we prayed would last till we got off the island. The hills and road conditions made this 3 hour, 10 mile route challenging enough but we could hardly stop to enjoy the views because we were either getting swarmed by mosquitoes or eaten alive by black flies.   We were able to stop at Mather Beach where Deb collected a couple of polished granite, quartz, jasper and basalt rocks for her future mushroom shaped rock garden.