Michigan Is a State of Mind Pt. 2, Northern

A Mushroom House in Charlevoix

 I must say, we were really looking forward to our first visit to Traverse City. I must also say, we were pretty disappointed overall. We'd been hearing the hype from "celebrity" chefs and the like about all the great food and cool places to visit. Don't misunderstand, it's not a complete wash out, but this is not another Santa Fe or some other food centric place like it! We did the usual hard nosed studying of places to hit and tried quite a few...only to keep striking out to the point that our favorite regular stop was the local natural food grocery for cooking at home. Another interesting point, mostly for you fellow RV'ers is that RV parks are few, expensive, and many do not offer full hookups. We figured this out quickly as we began our trek up the Lake Michigan Coast. It's a very short tourist season. The parks have to make it on their open months, so they charge accordingly. We ended up staying the first five days in T.C. (Traverse City, as nick named by locals) in the RV and big rig lot at the new and beautiful Turtle Creek Casino/Grand Traverse Resort complex just outside of town. It was a cool way to test how long we can stay off the grid completely too. In other words, we were simply parked in the lot with no external power, water, or sewer...off the grid. Our amazing solar panel on the roof, which is the newest black quartz, high amperage output type, kept us with TV, lights, and other essentials the entire five days,  without any effort. Our large capacity fresh and waste water tanks were not even close to being spent after our stay. We had a safe, attractive, and fun place to begin our visit, and the cost? Zero! (Although we did manage to spend a few fun hours in the gaming area). We moved over to a little RV park next, called Everflowing Waters. It's on the outskirts of Traverse City, and it gave us a chance to explore the whole Grand Traverse Bay area, which is really pretty large and diverse. We travelled up all the peninsulas to places like Suttons Bay, Leelanau, Glen Arbor, and then all way up the Western Lake Michigan Shoreline to Charlevoix and then Petoskey.

Sunset view from our RV park in Petoskey

 The highly publicized Traverse City Cherry Festival was fast approaching at the end of June (by the way, there are NO cherries ready for picking in the entire area this early in the season...just another strange idiosyncrasy here. A cherry festival..without cherries!), so we had an extra reason to say of the area, "been here, done this." Besides, we quickly fell for the natural beauty and charm of the Petoskey area, and knew right away it's more our kind of place. It is the week before Independence Day, 2013, and we      thought finding a good landing spot for H2 there was not going to be easy. There's an amazing little city owned RV park right on the lake, right in town, and as luck is often on our side, there was a space for us (and our buddies Craig and Linda for one last Michigan visit!). This place is sitting, as I said, right on Lake Michigan, and about three blocks from the center of downtown. Petoskey has to be experienced first hand. It's not enough to say "charming" or "historic" anymore. This town is still a summer playground for those lucky enough to have been left one of the homes that were built in the late 1800's to early 1900's, or just lucky to know this is one of the gems of the entire area and make it an annual summerstop. We saw cars from Texas, Arizona, Montana, Florida, Georgia, and other places..

Downtown Petoskey

lots of them. Not normal for the rest of Michigan. Until we got here our Texas plates got a lot of stares! We definitely felt like foreigners but not in Petoskey! It turns out that Earnest Hemingway spent quite a bit of time around here as a young man. His parents had one of those summer houses. Craig and Linda made another trip up from their home in Three Rivers to join us. We hit another couple of local microbreweries (they're EVERYWHERE, all over Michigan), and one has better brews than the next. Michigan's the fifth largest beer producer in the country, and the industry employs around 6,000 people in the state! We also dined at a few local eateries like Palette Bistro and The Twisted Olive, with their great lakeside views. We found a little bakery called Suzys Pies http://www.suziespies.com/, which is a small storefront in a strip center. Two ladies were there working, making scratch pastries and fresh fruit pies. What we tried, especially the Canadian Butter Tarts, were totally excellent! We took a day trip and a ferry ride up farther north to Mackinac Island. This one's on most peoples' hit list, including us, and the journey is quite worth the time. The iconic Grand Hotel there, made more famous from the movie "Somewhere in Time" actually charges an admission fee just to get close. I guess they figure it keeps the riff raff out. Fortunately, the rest of the island is free to explore. There are more ancient (for this country at least) homes and mansions and a very Disney like downtown area (it came before Disney though!), which must contain half a dozen fudge shops. We drove over the 5 mile long (still the fourth longest expansion bridge in the world) Mackinac Bridge to the little Upper Peninsula town of St. Ignace. That is the farthest north in Michigan we've travelled so far. Another trip, this time down, to another charming water town took us to Charlevoix. We specifically drove there to lunch at Roquette Burger Bistro, where everything, even their soda! is homemade. We also drove around in Boulder Manor, a unique neighborhood made up of whimsical stone homes (see the pic at the top of the story), mostly built during the 1930's. One of the more notable people who lived there was a fellow named Norman Panama, who wrote such famous screenplays as Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and White Christmas. These homes are amazing, and the entire area is filled with them! They look like something that The 7 Dwarfs might have contacted their real estate agent about purchasing! (Snow White might have already been living in the neighborhood).

Some Lilac Festival revelers in Mackinac Island

 We had mixed feelings about not climbing farther north into the U.P. of Michigan, but sometimes you have to set a limit, and this was it. The U.P. is a pretty vast geographical area, and we would have had to circle back around to head ourselves eventually into the eastern part of the U.S., so we made the decision to visit there sometime in the future, maybe when we head into Northern Wisconsin some time, coming over from the west.

Roquette does serious burgers!

Our week in Petoskey went by faster than even usual. We said goodbye to Craig and Linda again and headed H2 and Smarty south for our final stop in Michigan, Detroit and it's educated neighbor, Ann Arbor.

Michigan is a State of Mind, Part 1, South & West Michigan

During our extended stay in Forest City for H2's punch list to be completed, it turned from late winter to full blown spring. The place literally exploded with colorful blooms overnight. Spring in Iowa is something to write songs about. The front porches of the old Victorian homes were lined with flowers of every imaginable color. In the yards, trees and shrubs in all shades of green, purples, white, reds and oranges, yellows, and even blues showed their brightest looks of the year.

Spring in Iowa

  Since H2 was polished up, tightened, and reworked inside and out, it was time to head east towards Three Rivers, Michigan, and the home of our RVin' buddies, Craig and Linda. The drive from North to Southeastern Iowa and in to North Central Illinois was pretty uneventful. We were mostly paying attention to all the systems on board that had been tweaked, to make sure all was well. So far, it was. With Mary Ann captaining the rig now, I navigated us through the south extremities of the giant Chicagoland area and around Lake Michigan, through a small piece of Indiana, and then into Southern Michigan. We really had no idea what to expect. Mary Ann has never been here, and the only experience I have with this place is a couple of family visits to South Haven from St. Louis when I was around five or six. (Lots of Midwest families headed to the cool waters of the Great Lakes back in those days). Craig and Linda are in the rv business...they own a rep company that sells to many of the rv manufacturers, so they are well equipped to host H2 and us. We pulled in behind their lovely home in Three Rivers, about 40 miles south of Kalamazoo, to what they call The Barn.

H2 & Smart at The Barn

Actually, it's a very large metal structure that houses their motorhome, G2, an exact matching model of H2 except for the exterior and interior colors and a few minor variations of equipment. There is an additional 50 amp electrical hookup there for us, so we could stay with our friends, behind the house, which is actually about two or three acres and a wooded area away from them. We visited a little in their guest room and split it up by sleeping in our own bed in H2. Michigan boasts an abundance of micro breweries, but there's a small one in Northern Indiana that is actually our hosts' favorite. It's Iechyd Da (pronounced simply..Yacky Da). We tried some great Porters, IPA's, and Stouts here! Cheers!!

H2 with Cousin G2

 A trip up to Kalamazoo took all of us one evening to a locavore restaurant called Food Dance. Most everything they serve is from farms in the area, and we were to find that Michigan is indeed a local farm to table kind of place. They've been doing it that way forever and don't make too big a deal of it. We also got to visit the Elkart, Indiana area, with probably the most concentration of rv suppliers and manufacturers in the country (and the reason our buddies live nearby!). The RV Hall of Fame Museum and complex is there and a special stop of interest to us, of course.

A Flight of beers from Iechyd Da

  After several days of visiting, we left Craig and Linda temporarily, and headed over to the shore of Lake Michigan. Our plan was to see as much of the western side of the state as we could, since that would take us up to the UP (Upper Peninsula). South Haven, where some of my oldest vacation memories are from, is typical of many towns that line the western side of Lake Michigan. These small summer holiday places, with brick streets and small shops and restaurants, and a sizable marina with lots of sizable (some ocean going!) boats, have been entertaining people on holidays since the 1800's. In fact, a lot of the second homes there belong to Chicagoans, Detroiters, and other Midwest folks. One exception is a fireman we met from Dallas, whose family has had a lake house near Traverse City for years. He said the small house was probably worth $80,000 and it's small lot right on the shoreline...maybe another $1,000,000! We found a nice little off the radar rv park right in South Haven and spent a week there, enjoying the beach and using it as a launch area for a few trips south towards more lake towns; St. Joseph, Benton Harbor, and as far down as New Buffalo (which is almost a Chicago suburb). For one of these trips, we'd heard of a legendary bakery in Stevensville, Bit of Swiss (http://www.bitofswiss.com/) . Naturally, if there's a Danish or other goodie within reach...I'm there. Well, it turns out the legend is true. The chef has won awards here and in France for excellence, and this is probably the culinary highlight of our entire Michigan visit! The array of pastries there is mind boggling. Everything is made from scratch in the European tradition. I was like a kid in a pastry shop! Not since Chocolate Maven in Santa Fe have we seen the likes of this place. Our only regret is that we didn't take more for our freezer. Craig and Linda

Linda, Craig, and M A in South Haven

drove over to South Haven from Three Rivers on one of their inaugural cruises in their new coach. All systems tested well for them, and when we'd all seen all there was to be seen of South Haven, we headed in a caravan up to another cool lake town, Pentwater.

Bit of Swiss Bakery in Stevensville..mmmm!

 Pentwater and other towns along the western side of the lake are idyllic places that reminded me of New England. Of all the places in this area, the little water town of Saugatuck has the most charm, but the others are close runners up, with B and B's, little bistros and bars, great walking venues along the water, and quaint little shops lining the perfect streets. As usual though, we wondered what these towns look like in the dead of winter! Again, Craig and Linda headed home, and we headed inland to Gerald Ford land, Grand Rapids. This place surprised us because it has a whole healthy and serious food thing going on. We ate at Trillium Haven (upscale, casual, total farm to table) and Marie Catrib's (http://www.mariecatribs.com/), a really eclectic mix. We shopped at a small but very well stocked store called Nourish, and we found some bread and buns from a bakery named Little Rooster (http://www.lubbersfarm.com/), which is a part of a farm that does healthy meats and eggs as well. Grand Rapids is a nice sized town, old but mostly well kept, and has a good feel. The east side is especially inviting, with neighborhoods that look like the picture book of The Quintessential Midwest.The people were warm and mostly very friendly. Again, think favorite son, Gerald Ford.

Trillium Haven

   From Grand Rapids, we travelled back over towards the lake and drove through places like Ludington and Manistee. Our next major stop, towards the northern part, and our next posting, is Traverse City and beyond.