Day 11 - Roadtrip!!! Traverse City & Leelanau Peninsula

We woke up early Tuesday morning excited about our roadtrip planned for the day! We rented a jeep and were ready to explore the Leelanau peninsula and the ports we were not able to fit on our trip! It was a beautiful drive up the east coast of the leelanau peninsula from Traverse City, and then back down on the west coast of the peninsula.

We started up the coast on the east side of the peninsula, and the drive was beautiful! Our first stop was in Suttons Bay, which we had heard good things about, and we loved it! We parked and walked around by the marina & downtown, just taking in the small town vibe.

We continued up the coast to Northport, which was much smaller, but still a cute stop! The marina was very nice and everything in town was within walking distance to the marina. Overall it seemed like a nice place to stop, but I'm not sure we would spend more than a day there.

.

Our next stop was the Grand Traverse lighthouse. We had a lot of fun exploring, looking around the museum, climbing up to see the view from the top of the lighthouse, and spending some time on the rocky shore. I think that would have been a cool job to have, although in the history of the lighthouse only one woman temporarily held the post. They had binders and binders of all the old lighthouse keepers records to read through, dating back to the 1800's.

Driving along the top of the peninsula, I could see pyramid point on the map, and a road that looked like it went close by it. So we took an impromtu turn down a dusty gravel road that led us into the forest near the coast. We stopped for some photos along the way, then found a parking lot that had a trail up to pyramid point. If you saw one of our previous posts, we found safe harbor outside pyramid point, where we had lunch on the way to charlevoix. It was so beautiful, we wanted to see it from the land side too! We passed a sign that warned of cougar sightings in the area, so armed with my cougar fighting stick, we started out on the trail. We didn't see any cougers, but we did meet a cute little porcupine! Have you ever seen a porcupine in person? I hadn't! And I also didn't know they climed trees! Anyway... about a quarter mile in we reached the cliffs of pyramid point. The dunes were very steep here, so we just admired the view from the top for awhile and took a rest, then followed the trail back to the rented jeep!

Moving south on the west side of the peninsula, the next town we came to was Leland! We walked around Fishtown for a bit, then had lunch/dinner at the Bluebird. The food was good and it had a cool atmosphere, so it turned out to be a good place to stop! The marina in Leland looked really nice, with rocking chairs on the porch, so it might be a good port to stop in on our next trip!

We ended the day climbing up the dunes at Sleeping Bear National Park to watch the sunset, but the clouds moved in and instead we got some cool cloud photos!

When we got back to the marina and checked the marine forecast for the rest of the week, we were starting to see some bad conditions on the way. Up to 12 foot waves and gale warnings! We had some decisions to make, and a lot of marine forecasts to check to decide if we would be able to continue on our scheduled itinerary.

We had a Four Winns factory tour scheduled for the morning, so we decided to wait until after that to make any decisions, and I think we both had a bit of restless sleep trying to weigh the options that night.

Day 10 - Charlevoix to Traverse City

We waved goodbye to our new favorite place, Charlevoix, for new adventures on Monday afternoon! We had an approx 45 mile journey to Traverse City planned, with waves predicted to be around 2 feet. As usual, as we headed out, the water was pretty rough. Inside Grand Traverse bay, we took the speed down to about 8 mph to give ourselves a break from the pounding waves. The whole trip took us about 3 hours, and we were happy for a few days on land.

Once docked in Traverse City, slip 66, we went off in search of dinner. A few blocks west of the marina we found North Peak Brewery, a really cool bar/restaurant with several handcrafted beers on tap. We both ordered beer and pizza, and then splurged on the Black and White Brownie for dessert! It was a brownie, with cheesecake on top, covered in hot fudge, with a scoop of chocolate and vanilla ice cream on the side! Oh and covered in whip cream! So delicious... and I was glad we had to walk back to the marina to burn some of it off.

We spent the rest of the evening just relaxing on the boat, watching the sunset and reading. We were excited for renting a car the next day so we could explore the rest of Leelanau Peninsula!

Charlevoix round 2! Day 9

After our 2 days in Mackinaw City, our first stop on the journey south was Charlevoix! This was the day we had originally scheduled Charlevoix on our itinerary, it was just luck that we ended up there 3 days last week! We had a pretty rough ride south on the lake, and although the trip went by quickly, we were very happy to pull in to port, just 2 slips down from where we were before.

It was a 90 degree day, so all we wanted to do after our boat trip was swim! We cruised around Lake Charlevoix for a bit, and settled into a small shallow cove, where we dropped anchor. We pulled out the snorkel gear and had some fun swimming around in the crystal clear water. It was a bit colder than at home, about 71 degrees, but it was comfortable. Ben also used this opportunity to give the boat a much needed scrubbing.

Once we arrived back at our dock, we made friends with the couple in the boat next to us, Chad and Allie. They were vacationing with their two daughters, ages 1 & 3, in their Sea Ray Sundancer 250 that they trailered up from Grand Rapids. After the girls went to sleep, we hung out on their boat with a few cocktails and Michael Bublé. :-) A perfect end to our time in Charlevoix. Happy travels the rest of the summer guys!

Recap of Trip Heading North

Day 1 (Aug 21) Portage, IN to White Lake, MI (stopover in Muskegon, MI)

Day 1 Miles: 154.9

Travel Time: 7 hours 9 minutes

Total Miles :154.9

Lake Conditions: Northeast Winds, Waves 1-2 feet

Fuel Used: 77.7 gal

Average mpg: 1.98

Day 2 (Aug 22) White Lake (attempt to leave White Lake for Manistee, turned around due to lake conditions)

Day 2 Miles: 15.5

Travel Time: 20 minutes

Total Miles :170.4

Lake Conditions: North/Northwest Winds, Waves 4-6 feet

Fuel Used: 7.9 gal

Average mpg: 1.96

Day 3 (Aug 23) White Lake to Frankfort

Day 3 Miles: 99.5

Travel Time: 4 hours, 43 minutes

Total Miles :269.9

Lake Conditions: North/Northwest Winds, Waves 2-4 feet

Fuel Used: 50 gal

Average mpg: 1.99

Day 4 (Aug 24) Frankfort to Charlevoix (rerouted from original itinerary to Beaver Island)

Day 4 Miles: 75.6

Travel Time: 4 hours, 5 minutes

Total Miles :345.5

Lake Conditions: Northwest Winds, Waves 2-3 feet

Fuel Used: 39.1 gal

Average mpg: 1.93

Day 5-6 (Aug 25-26) At port in Charlevoix

Day 7 (Aug 27) Charlevoix to Mackinaw City

Day 7 Miles: 58.2

Travel Time: 2 hours, 55 minutes

Total Miles :434.9

Lake Conditions: West/Southwest Winds, Waves 4-7 feet

Fuel Used: 31.2

Average mpg: 1.86

Day 8 (Aug 28) Mackinac Island

Day 9 (Aug 29) Mackinaw City to Charlevoix (with playtime on Lake Charlevoix)

Day 9 Miles: 73.8

Travel Time: approx 3 hour

Total Miles :508.7

Lake Conditions: South winds, 2-4 feet

Fuel Used: 36 gal

Average mpg: 2.05

Day 10 (Aug 30) Charlevoix to Traverse City

Day 10 Miles: 46.9

Travel Time: 2 hours

Total Miles :555.7

Lake Conditions: South/Southwest Winds, Waves 2-3 feet

Fuel Used: 23.6

Average mpg: 1.98

**Proposed itinerary for remainder of trip, may change due to lake conditions

Days 11-12 (Aug 31-Sept 1) At port in Traverse City, renting car to roadtrip to Cadillac, MI for Four Winns factory tour, plus visit Leland, Fishtown, Northport, Suttons Bay, and wineries on the Old Mission Peninsula

Day 13 (Sept 2) Traverse City to Arcadia

Day 14 (Sept 3) Arcadia to Ludington

Day 15 (Sept 4) Ludington to Holland

Day 16 (Sept 5) Holland to Portage! Home sweet home :-)

Day 9 - Mackinac Island

Historic downtown Mackinac Island. It was very crowded when we arrived, but by the time we were leaving, it was clearing out. This was taken on the way back to the ferry, about 7:30pm. We did everything we set out to do on the island... rode our bikes around the entire 8 mile path, and sampled fudge! We decided on chocolate cherry and dark chocolate pecan.

Views from the ferry on the way to the island.

There are no cars allowed.. so all transportation is either horses or bikes!

The Grand Hotel, we couldn't get any closer since we were not in suits and dresses!

These photos are views from around the island. There is a 8 mile bike path that circles the island... each side is unique and beautiful! We had a great time on our bikes... even if Ben made me ride uphill about a mile out of our way! I was ready to pass out!

Mackinaw Bridge at night

Day 7 (Friday) - Charlevoix to Mackinaw City

The weather forecast for this morning called for 2 foot waves, building to 2-4 foot later in the day, but we decided to get up early and try to head to Mackinaw City anyway! Mackinac Island was our ultimate goal for this trip, and we didn't want to give it up even though the waves/winds have not been cooperating! So at about 8am we loaded up our bikes and got ready for departure to Mackinaw City, approx 55 miles northeast.

The lake started out pretty managable... about 1 foot rolling waves out of the west... but soon those waves started building. About 5 miles into the trip, they had built to 2-3 foot waves, and were still building! The worst part about the wave conditions was the direction they were coming from... west. We were trying to travel north, but to do so we would be constantly broadsided by the waves, so we had to alter course to hit the waves from more of an angle, and then turn to have them following from behind.

By the time we entered the Straits of Mackinaw we were in 5-7 foot waves!! They were slow building waves... just enough time between each so we could watch them build up in size and get thoroughly scared about the size. It was honestly the most scared I have ever been with each wave twisting us a different direction, and there wasn't much we could do about it. If we went any faster than the crawl we were going at, we would slam into the trough and back side of the wave in front of us, making it possible to breach the boat! Any slower and the waves could come up from behind and swamp the boat....it was the longest 3 1/2 hours of my life, and a situation I'll be sure to never get in again!

After we reached Waugoshance Point the waves subsided enough, partially blocked by Beaver Island for Dana to grab the video camera and shoot some video.

Finally we made it to Mackinaw Bridge and got our picture under it! (This is how we look after a soaking wet, windy, hellish 3 1/2 hour lake trip. Was it worth going through 3 1/2 hours of rough lake conditions?? We haven't decided yet. Maybe once our backs stop hurting we'll have a different view! :-)

Needless to say, when we got to the Mackinaw City Municipal Marina at 11:20 am and docked in slip 35, we were beat. But extremely happy to be off the lake for a couple days. We followed our soaking wet boat ride with some comfort food, a lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup on the boat, which made us feel a little better, and then hot showers and a 4 hour nap, which made us feel very refreshed!

We finally headed into town around dinner time and did a little shopping, followed by dinner at the Admiral's Table. It was a little off the beaten path, and the clientel looked like they had been coming there all their lives. Even though it was about 8pm when we arrived, the place was packed! We ordered crab cakes, followed by perch for me and cod for Ben. I also tried a glass of the leelanau reisling, a local wine, and it was delicious! We ended the night by tracking down the cupcake place I just had to find and I got the red velvet cupcake I'd been dreaming about all day! Oh... and stocking up on food & supplies at the local IGA, a good 3/4 mile from the marina.

Overall a long day... but we were excited to explore Mackinac Island in the morning!

A few more reasons to love Charlevoix