Our ‘Splorin’ time had to wait a few weeks due to other commitments, and it took us out of Wisconsin again this week – we were attending Odyssey of the Mind World Finals in East Lansing, Michigan. We had a very busy week — Mike judging and Tammy helping the Wisconsin teams with whatever they needed to be sure they were ready for their performances. We decided to take the “long way” home and spend a couple days in the UP of Michigan and celebrate Tammy’s birthday. We stayed in the small town of Petoskey Michigan, famous for its Petoskey stones.
On our way to Petoskey from East Lansing, we stopped in the little town of Grayling, MI and had lunch at the, appropriately named, Grayling Restaurant. Mike had to go inside to put our name on the list and had a nice little chat with an old couple who said “there might be a wait, but some things are worth waiting for” (they were easily in their 80’s, so you don’t discount that kind of advice). We were told the wait would be no more than 20 minutes, but the hostess came out and said we could have two seats at the lunch counter if we wanted to get in — we took them!! We had a wonderful late breakfast/early lunch — honestly trying to remember back what we had it’s difficult (writing this a month and a half later), but pretty good guess that Tammy had something with veggies and Mike had something with meat. We needed gas in our car, so we were going to stop at a gas station before getting out of town. However, Google Maps had other plans — the way it took us back onto I-75 we didn’t pass a single gas station. No big deal — we’d stop along the way… <insert ominous foreshadowing music here>
Off to Petoskey!! Our splorin’ destination was Petoskey State Park. We got off of I-75 and started winding our way through beautiful country roads — we still had 15 or 20 miles to get to the state park. BING…BING…BING — what’s that sound? Oops, Mike forgot to stop and get gas when we got off the freeway. No big deal, the car said we had 50 miles to empty and we only had 20 miles to the state park (surely there would be a gas station along the way, right?) and then …who knows how many miles to the hotel because we didn’t have cell service!!! While Mike was calm, cool and collected not worrying about it, Tammy was not so calm, cool or collected. We HAD to pass a gas station somewhere. Nope…. We pulled into the park, stopped at the park office and one of the first questions Mike asked was “Where’s the nearest gas station?” The kindly ranger lady assured us it was about 5 miles down the road toward Petoskey. <no need to insert ominous foreshadowing music here>.
Mike had already look at all the trails and had a game plan in mind. Not arriving at the park until 2:30 meant we couldn’t do all the trails, but still meant we got to do some! There was a trail called “Old Baldy Trail” right from the ranger’s office. The ranger said it had beautiful views of Little Traverse Bay. So — off we went. About 100 yards into the trail, we hit the first staircase. OK, some stairs….and more stairs….and more stairs…. Mike wishes that we had known about all the stairs so he could have counted the steps just for fun. We had to take a couple of breaks along the way, but getting to the top we were rewarded with an absolutely amazing view of the bay. It was gorgeous!!! We then made our way up a little higher and then back down. The trail going down was all dirt, rocks and roots — so glad we went up the stairs instead of up this side of the trail.
Upon reaching the bottom Mike had an inkling that the other trails we were about to go on had LOTS of hills too. He failed to mention this to Tammy (on purpose). The next trail was the “Portage Trail”. There was an “easy” portion and a “hard” portion. Tammy now knew the “hard” portion most likely had hills, but she chose it like a champ. Mike made the incorrect comment of “a portage is where you carry your canoes from one body of water to another, how steep can the hills be?” (in case you, our dear reader, haven’t figured it out yet, Mike likes to jinx a LOT of things). So off we went on the hard Portage Trail. Almost immediately we were going straight up hill. Many breaks were had. We made it to the top and then it walked along ridges — it was awesome! Mike was actually winded after getting to the top. And we made our way, uneventfully, back down.
Tammy had to go to the bathroom really bad — they had pit toilets at the end of the trail, but we knew a short walk back to the car and we could drive down to the beach where they had real bathrooms. After spending a little time on the beach, we walked back to the car to make to the gas station and then the hotel. Getting back to the car, we had quite a few of these strange black flies flying around us and in the car (because Mike left the sunroof open)… <insert ominous foreshadowing music>
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: We are thinking not only should be have Splorin’ Saturday magnets, bumper stickers and travel gear, we think we should have a music track or two too. Tammy may have to reach out to all her musician friends to inquire about this….)
We got gas. WHEW!! OK, when Mike was actually pumping gas into the car he could admit he was a little worried too (but not REALLY worried). We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Petoskey. Nice hotel, but since we booked late we didn’t get a room with a balcony or facing the bay. They did have a gorgeous common area where we were able to sit and play cribbage while watching the sunset over the bay. (which you can “kind of” see if you look closely over the rooftops of a stripmall that was below the hotel 🙂
Before playing cribbage — it was “Supper Club Saturday — Sunday Edition”. On a recommendation from the hotel, we went to the City Park Grill right in downtown Petoskey. It was a wonderful little supper club and we even “cheated” just a bit for their REALLY GOOD biscuits – worth it! We had a great conversation with our waitress — she was called in to work and had to leave some family time but you’d never know it. We were her only table for awhile and it was wonderful time. She even talked Tammy in to taking home some carrot cake for her birthday.
When we left after dinner, we had some time to walk around downtown at a nice little park right on Lake Michigan. I imagine it gets quite busy in the summer, but since the day was winding down, it wasn’t very crowded at all.
What we weren’t expecting were the BUGS!! TONS AND TONS of little, black, flying bugs everywhere. They weren’t biting, but they were just everywhere. It is so hard to describe but hopefully these pictures give you an idea:
At first they were just a little annoying and almost made Tammy giggle a little, but it was clear our walk wasn’t going to be a long one.
The next morning we walked to breakfast (no not very far, about 1/4 of a mile) to J W Filmore’s Family Restaurant (sorry they don’t have a website). A nice little place for breakfast — we had omelets and salads again (Mike is getting bored with this for breakfast). We then set off splorin’. First stop was Cross in the Woods in Indian River, MI. Mike had already been here, but it was really cool and on our way to a winery. So — we needed a little prayer time before doing some day drinking.
And then another state park! This time it was Cheboygan State Park in (you guessed it), Cheybogan, MI — not Sheboygan, WI. This park had some really cool trails — one where we walked about 2 miles along the Lake Huron shoreline. Of course our little friends, the black flies, followed us on our journey. At times we were almost walking IN Lake Huron because the space between the woods and the water was so small, but we finally made it to the end. We then basically turned around and walked back about 50 feet inside the woods (although the first 1/2 mile was through thick sand which was very difficult to walk in). The bugs remained with us the whole walk.
After getting back to the car, Tammy was really in the mood for a winery. We found one that (shall remain nameless) that had a tasting room in Mackinaw City, or you could visit their vineyard and tasting room in Alverno, MI. The vineyard sounded much more fun — and of course they would be open on Memorial Day — right? Well, we made it the address of the vineyard … and …. it was a … house. Most likely just their business address and that’s what you get for Googling things ;-). So, off to Mackinaw City it was!!! Of course it had been threatening rain all day long and we could see on the radar that it was staying just to the north of us. Mackinaw City was just north enough to be in that rain. So — this cute, little, touristy town was EMPTY on Memorial Day. No one around at all!! We made it to a winery tasting room (and of course bought a bottle of wine) and to a spirit tasting room — Mike had some bourbons and Tammy had (and bought) some Cherry vodka and Chocolate vodka — to make (low carb)chocolate covered cherries. Oh boy…
Both of us starving, and a little tipsy, we needed food. We drove a block back down the main drag to The Hook Lakeside Grill. Being that the weather kind of sucked with the rain, we about had the entire place to ourselves. We had a great view of the lake. If you look at the website, we sat at those tables right up against the windows — when it is nice weather they are surely open, but fortunately for us they were closed or we may have gotten a little wet.
We had a very nice meal — we ate food, it was good. (that’s the problem with writing this 56 days, 4 hours, and 18 minutes after the fact — OK Carrie, it was two months). On leaving the restaurant we battled the black bugs to get into the car — the bugs won a portion of this battle as we got about 50 of the flies in the car with us. We also found out that when you squish these bugs on the headliner, the trim and the seats — THEY STAIN!!!
The rest of the day was spent in the rain — we drove almost straight home from Mackinaw City. Up across the Mackinaw Bridge — quite the drive.
We made a stop for dinner in Marinette, WI at Hometown Family Restaurant. We’d been looking for some place to have a nice dinner and we didn’t find it, so we stopped here instead. It was OK — of course within the next 10 miles we saw about 15 places that looked a lot better; they will wait for another splorin’ day we decided.
Did we mention it was raining the whole drive home? Well, the combination of the rain and Google’s “fancy” routing sent us across a backwater country road (County Highway E near Abrams, WI). The problem? It was a very old road, so it was heavily rutted — and those ruts had about 2 inches of water. It made for some fun hydroplaning. Thankfully for the entire 20 mile stretch that we were on that road, we only met 9 other vehicles, so we were able to ride in between the ruts most of the time. Around Stanley, WI we **FINALLY** broke free of the rain. So, in the 8 hour drive home from Mackinaw City, we spent about 25 minutes not in the rain — yuck!!!
All-in-all a GREAT trip and would love to do something very similar in two years when Odyssey of the Mind returns to Michigan State.
Splorin' Saturday 