After hanging on the hook and just relaxing in Sutton’s Bay for a few days, Sunday we headed to Traverse City, MI. At the very bottom of the West arm of Grand Traverse Bay. As we were pulling in to the marina Uncle Bernie and Aunt Barb were there to meet us 😁. After getting set up we went and got lunch at Pangea Pizza. Lot’s of choices and very yummy! We then drove up to the tip of Mission Peninsula to Mission Point Lighthouse, which sits on the 45th parallel. Exactly half way between the equator and the North Pole.

The 45th parallel also travels through Italy’s Piedmont region and Bordeaux France. Wine anyone? 😉🍷

So it’s no surprise that amongst this stretch in Michigan, along the two Peninsulas there were 22 wineries. Naturally we had to stop at a few on the way back, luckily we found the perfect one!

The wine was quite good! I mean with it’s name being what it is how could it be bad? 😆

We also went to Mari Vineyard. Their wine wasn’t as good but they were seated high on a hill overlooking the lake, so the view was nice.

Came back to “downtown” we walked around checking out the cute shops before landing at 7 Monks Taproom for dinner. The waiter was…. interesting. Very attentive and nice but…. quirky personality we couldn’t quite figure out.

Monday morning we met at The Omelette Shoppe for breakfast. Strawberry shortcake and blueberry lemon ricotta pancakes 😋! We then picked up the fluff and went for a walk around Boardman Lake. After we came back to the boat and said our goodbyes, Don and I took Skia to the beach for a swim to cool down. Later that night it was docktails with co-loopers on the boat Buena Vida, who had a lot of good info to share about the up coming part of our journey.

Tuesday was a prep day. We cleaned the boat and got ready for our second visitor, Don’s brother Pete. When we were done we took the scooters to Buchan’s West ice cream. All homemade with some unique flavors. The blueberry was particularly good, loaded with whole blueberries. Don really liked their cookies and cream that had huge chunks of Oreos. We ended the evening with another round of docktails on Fhil-N-Wild, another looper boat.

Wednesday Pete, our personal mailman arrived with all the packages we had sent to Don’s mom’s house. We took Skia for a swim and then walked to Bubba’s Burgers for lunch. Mine was HUGE! I mean, I read what came on it and that’s why I picked it but I was not prepared for how tall it would be. So scrumptious though!

Stopped at the popcorn shop for some fun flavored popcorn and then drove out to Sleeping Bear Dunes visitor center to get maps and plan our excursions. We ended up taking a short hike to an overlook of the cliffs. Short as it was it was all uphill and I was in flip flops 🫤. Still, the views were pretty impressive.

From there we went up to Glen Arbor to check out the Cherry Republic store. Super cute, lots of products…if only I liked cherries. 🥴

Thursday was kind of dreary with a high chance of rain so we went to Peace Love & Little Donuts. So many fun flavors in mini so you could try a bunch!

Meanwhile, Skia decided the couch bed was just as comfy as the big bed.

We headed over to The Commons. An old asylum turned into a shopping center. There were a bunch of cute shops, an event center, a winery and a brewery. The brewery had a really good beer cheese dip with pretzels.

From there we went out to Lakeshore to the old Coast Guard station. We got to see the Lyle gun demonstration on the beach. Which was used to send a rescue line out to stranded ships.

We went and got lunch at this restaurant which reminded us of Mississippi Muds in NT for those familiar. A nice waterside patio restaurant. We walked the shops along the main street and I found a Petoskey stone polishing kit!

Friday we took Pete to The Omelette Shoppe for a hearty breakfast in preparation for the days hikes at Sleeping Bear Dunes. We first did another short hike to a different overlook (me wearing appropriate footwear this time) and from there you could see the Manitou Islands.

Next came the Dune climb and it was a CLIMB!

And just when you think you’ve made it to the top…there’s more!

But once again the views were pretty spectacular. And the way down was super easy! 😄

This was the guys second visit to Sleeping Bear Dunes. The first being when they were kids. Jean sent us some photos from the first trip that we were able to recreate. They boys might object but I think it’s cute and they don’t read this so 🤫🤪😆.

We then drove the scenic view road which takes you to the top of the 450ft dune. It is highly discouraged that you go down to climb back up. Given how exhausting it was climbing the one half this tall, I did not need talking out of trying it. All good thanks.

There were rescue crew standing by making sure all who did go down make it back up. They said the record slowest time back up was almost 7 hours (a bachelor party endeavor, so you can just imagine). And the record fastest was 7 minutes! 🤯

We got back to the marina and let the fluff go swimming before we headed to dinner at a local BBQ joint.

Saturday it was Grand Traverse Pie Co. for breakfast. It had Panera vibes but in a good way and the breakfast sandwich was really good. The farmers market was happening just down the street so we strolled through and got some corn on the cob. Took a trip to the grocery store before taking the boat out into the bay to enjoy the beautiful day. It was Agave Mexican Grill for dinner, which was not only delicious but had the most comfortable bench seats of any restaurant I’ve been to. The marina had lawn games along the beach, so a few rounds of corn hole made room for more ice cream. This time I got salted caramel crack 😄. It had chucks of chocolate covered candied Ritz crackers in it. Good times.

This morning we got up early, Pete headed back home and we took advantage of a short weather window. Leaving Traverse City and coming up out of the bay and down Lake Michigan a bit to Leland. And here me might be for a few days as the weather is supposed to be windy and wavy for next bit. So we’ll see how and when it goes.