Driving to Silver Lake

Tuesday, August 23rd.  It was a windy, cloudy day as we packed up and moved to Silver lake...about a 3 hour drive.  When we got here the wind was blowing so hard that we didnt' go visit the sand dunes because it would have been like sand blasting.  A nice campground.  We played some rummy tiles and took a good walk around the park.  Hoping for better weather tomorrow.

Sunshine in Traverse City (Again)

Monday, August 22.  We woke up to another sunny morning.  We left Buster in the motorhome and went to town for some grocery shopping.  After lunch we went to the beach with Buster.  He's developing into a good swimmer...very comfortable swimming around...no splashing as he paddles.  There was a pretty good wind coming off the lake.  The water's warm.  Very comfortable swimming.  I'm sure it's in the 70's but just how warm I can't say.  I can say it's much warmer than lakes or the ocean in Washington!!!!  The views at the beach are spectacular.  As good as any in Mexico or the Carribean.  This would be a much cheaper place to vacation than Puerto Vallarta as far as airfare.

After the beach we prepared a great dinner and then had a campfire.  We had "S'mores ala Marty"...just chocolate...no marshmallows or graham crackers.  A great ending to the day.

The Leelanau Peninsula

Sunday, Aug.21.  We've met a very interesting couple from Oxford, Mississippi.  They have a beautiful motorhome and have been doing this for about 15 years.  Jerry and Charlie Bond.  Great folks.  Jerry has been giving me lots of pointers on driving and maintenance.  They've also shared with us many places to go and not to go.  It's been great getting to know them and hope we can meet up again.

Today we took the drive to the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula.  The peninsula forms the west side of Grand Traverse Bay.  There are several little towns and more than a dozen wineries.  We found a couple we really like so we'll probably go back and get an assorted case.  The first town we came to was Leland.  Cutesy old fishing village.  Fishing shanties have been converted to shops and food places.  Looks right out on Lake Michigan.  We had lunch there at the Blue Bird Cafe.  Had a nice piece of Walleye and watched the Tigers whup up on the Indians on TV (7-1 in the 4th when we left).  It's amazing the number of fields that have been converted to grapes.  It's quite a beautiful scene to see the grape fields with Lake Michigan deep, deep blue in the background.  The next town we came to was Northport, which is kind of the entrance to Leelanau Point State Park.  Again, cutesy town with lots of neat old houses and a marina.

The main feature of the State Park is the Grand Traverse lighthouse at the very tip of the peninsula.  It's quite distinctive and prominent.

Across Glen Lake & the Dunes to L. Mich.

Grand Traverse Lighthouse

Winery and Inn

The last town on the peninsula was Sutton's Bay.  This is actually off of Grand Traverse Bay.  It has a nice marina and the requisite cutesy shops.  From Sutton Bay it is more developed as we proceeded back to Traverse City.  All in all it was a beautiful sunny day, although we did flirt with an isolated T-shower cell that crossed the peninsula and on into Traverse Bay.

A Brastrom History Tour

Sign from store

Old 16 School

Old Mesick High School

Uncle John's Store

store interior/post office

Saturday, August 20th.  We woke up to a cloudy day and decided this would be a good day to travel to Mesick, Harrieta and Cadillac to seek out Brastrom history (Brastrom is my mother's family name). Our first stop was in Mesick, where we went to the Mesick Historical Museum.  We asked about Mesick High School and the Old 16 school.  It turns out the director of the museum was Deborah, who is a cousin of Joe Brastrom thru his mom, my Aunt Lois.  Joe is my cousin and the son on Uncle Lester, the only son in my mom's family with nine sisters.  She directed us to the old high school, which is now an elementary school. We then went cross country and found the old school (number 16).  This is where my my mom and all my aunts and uncle went to K-8.  It's not a school any longer, but is used as a township meeting hall.  Immediately adjacent to the school is the cemetary where my grandmother and grandfather are buried.  As we wandered around the cemetary, we found two other Brastrom family plots.  They are for the families of my grandfather's brothers, John and Joseph.  My grandfather died in 1938 and my grandmother is 1967.  It was pretty amazing to find their plots.  The family had planted small evergreen trees next to each of the plots.  In the last 40+ years they have grown so much that they covered the headstones and it was hard to find them.  But we finally did.

Grandma & Grandpa B.'s gravesite

Grandpa's head stone

Grandma's head stone

Grandma's house

Our next destination was Harietta, where Grandma lived when she remarried.  The house seemed bigger in our memories.  But it was still a great old house.  As we were taking pictures of the house, the current owner drove up.  We explained who we were.  She invited us in to see the house.  The parlor, living room and dining room were just the same.  The dining room even had the original furniture, light fixture and doors.  The stairs led upstairs to 4 bedrooms, which were quite small, but seemed big in my memory.  The big change was with the kitchen.  I remember a large wood fired cooking stove and a sink with a hand pump to draw the water.  Those are both replaced with now conventional fixtures.  The kitchen was made much larger and a sun room was added along the side.  It was amazing to see grandma's house again after so many years.

There used to be an old school behind the house.  I remember playing at the school and climbing the tubular fire escape to the second floor  of the school.  The building burned down a few years ago and the  only remaining item is the school bell as a monument.  The town is barely hanging on...no stores or services.  The general store/post office that was run by Uncle John (our grandpa's brother) and Aunt Wretha is closed.  But you could see where the sign hung and where the gas pumps were.  A pretty sad little town.

We had been trying to contact my cousin, David Stark all day.  He is the son of Aunt Ruth and lives in Cadillac.  But cell service out in the country is nil.  So when we finally got service we contacted him, he invited us to his home.  It was great to see him.  Of course we had all aged in 50 years.  But I could still see the David I remember in his face.  We went out to lunch and did some catching up.  It was very fun. After lunch, David took us to the Cadillac Historical Museum.  There they had on display the sales counter and post office boxes from Uncle John's store.  It looked as I remembered it.  There was a framed certificate on the wall from the U.S. postmaster authorizing Aunt Wretha to be postmaster of Harrieta.  Out in the garage at the museum is the sign that hung on Uncle John's store.  It was really  something to see how much of a presence the Brastrom family had in the Cadillac/Harrieta area.  

The Move to the #1 Shoreline in the U.S.

channel thru downtown Traverse City

White Mute Swans

west end of Glen Lake looking at dunes

Friday, August 19th.  We moved from Mancelona (terrible campground) to Empire (fantastic campground).  It is a beautiful facility located near the small town of Empire, located adjacent to the Lake Michigan coast and the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes.  After we got settled in we went to a deserted beach on a bay that looks across at the sand dunes.  We were surprised to see white swans swimming in Lake Michigan.  Besides them we virtually had it to ourselves and had a great time.  That evening we went into Traverse City to a downtown street fair.  There were several bands, food booths, street performers (mimes, fencers, artist, etc) and craft booths.  Lots of fun.  They do it every Friday night.  A great day.

Traverse City

Winery...typical of many homes on Peninsula

view from winery

Swans on in-town lake

Peninsula point lighthouse

'Stickin Together'

Thursday, August 18th.  We woke up early and not well rested.  Our campground is located in proximity to highway 131 and there was truck traffic all night.  Trucks were either accelerating as they left town or down-shifting as they entered town.  This was much worse than West Glacier!!!   But we got up and got going to Traverse City for our big shopping/sightseeing adventure.  We first found a Best Buy and got the exact replacement camera we lost (only with a few upgrades)  We couldn't use it that day because the battery had to be charged up.  But we have it...WE'RE BACK IN ACTION.  We shopped for a few other things at a WalMart and then found a nice City park adjacent to a lake to have a picnic lunch.  There were lots of white swans on the lake.  My pic doesn't do it justice.  We drove past the airport and it turns out Marty's plane is there.  His partner has it up here from Tallahassee for a vacation.  We then drove thru the downtown...very cool downtown.  Nicely redone with neat lights, street furniture, statuary, small fountains and lots of cool stores.  We didn't have time to stop, but we will go back!!!  On the main street thru town (US 31) it's resorts and businesses on one side and a big state park public beach (sandy and big) on the other.  Very pretty setting.

Just east of downtown is a thin peninsula that leads out to Old Mission Point and Lighthouse.  This peninsula separates the East Arm and West Arm of Grand Traverse Bay.  Unbelievable homes with stunning unbelievable views of the west arm along the road (Peninsula Drive).  It's hard to believe that these huge places are mostly summer homes.  At the very end of the road is the Peninsula Point Lighthouse, established in the 1850's and then built to what is  today in the later 1800's.  Again, beautiful views from that point.  But the water is so big, it's hard to focus on something for a pic.  As we drove down the east side of the peninsula we passed large cherry, peach and grape farms (vineyards).  There were a number of beautiful wineries with tasting rooms.   We went to Chateau Chantel, that had spectacular views of both arms of the bay.  The wineries are every bit as nice as the ones the cousins toured in Chelan.  Interesting enough, the staff there had never heard of the Wenatchee/Chelan/Yakima area for wine.  I guess they're just caught up in their own thing...and they're doing very well.  It was a beautiful day...85 and sunny.  We stopped at a couple of fruit stands along the way back to the motorhome.

Pictures for August 17th

'mushroom' house

Friday, August 19th.  Well, as you'll recall we lost a camera in the Charlevoix Channel.  But it was Diane's camera, if that makes it any better.  It was a nice Panasonic that had worked great for us.  We didn't post any pictures in that post to underscore the loss.  BUT...I did have my camera and I  will now post a few Charlevoix pictures.  We did lose everything from the Bridge thru Petosky because Diane was snapping those as we drove.  There are beautiful homes around Round Lake, which is the intermediary between Lake Charlevoix and Lake Michigan.  The pictured house is one of many by an architect named Young, who used a roof line that 'slumps' like the top of a mushroom.  Beautiful gardens around the home.   The second pic is of one of the Charlevoix beaches taken from across the Charlevoix Channel, where we lost the camera.  This could be taken in the Caribbean.

Counterweight Bridge on US 31

The third pic is of the Counterweight bridge over the Charlevoix Channel for US 31.  I was cautioned that this is not a draw bridge that is pulled up or lifted up.  Counterweights on either side of the bridge are released and the bridge goes up like a teeter totter.  This is the main road along the coast and the main artery for Charlevoix.  The bridge opens every half hour.