Traverse City Area

Joining us for this part of the adventure are local residents Rick and Mary, friends of the Cola's. Mary is a top-notch tour director and has planned two days of sightseeing for us. On Thursday we toured the Old Mission peninsula wineries.....to taste and purchase local wines.



Peninsula Winery's tasting room is in an old schoolhouse,.I bought a yummy red wine named "Detention".

We stopped at an old General Store, it was so full of stuff one could hardly walk around. I bought a wonderful homemade garlic sour-dough loaf. This is what men do when women shop.

We lunched at the Happy Pumpkin near the shore of Lake Michigan, rumor has it the house is haunted by a former owner of the building. Made a good story! The group went on to the tip of the peninsula to see the lighthouse.

Rick and Mary, tour guides

Friday Mary planned a full day at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, first stop at the vistors center. Chip was able to add to his t-shirt collection; Sarah never has to wash, Chip merely wears a new t-shirt every day.

A great sport at this national park is climbing the dunes...some of us climbed  just so we could say we did it. Of course the views are incredible!

Next stop was Glen Haven, an historic steamship stop on Sleeping Bear Bay. The park provides maritime museum to tell the stories of shipwreck rescues. The winds were so high we saw incredible waves on the shore...I could have been at an ocean beach.

We enjoyed our picnic lunch on Glen Lake....then went to the Cherry Republic, a store selling all things cherry, in Glen Arbor for "dessert" ...the joke being that they offer so many free samples of all their products one can't eat another thing.

 

Next stop was at one of the farms on the Port Oneida Fair tour....seven historic farms demonstrating life on each of the farms in the past. Great learning experiences for children with the goal of preserving historic Sleeping Bear.

Final stop of the day was to Leland to see the historic Fishtown, very quaint wooden buildings at the marina that housed the fishing industry in the past...now full of shops for the tourists. Leland is a very popular tourist destination.