Ludington, Michigan

What Ludington lacks in a downtown area, it makes up for tenfold with its municipal marina and its state park. Sadly, Ludington's downtown area has a lot of empty storefronts (and with two more stores having "going out of business" events, there seem to be more in the near future). We suspect a superstore on the fringe of town may be to blame but we didn't venture out that far to see.

At $41/night for our boat, Ludington Municipal is a huge bargain. It is a very well protected marina. The main boaters' building has a cozy reading room, a great deck that overlooks the marina, probably the nicest showers (overhead shower heads), irons, big washers and dryers (30 minute cycles for $1/load), beautiful grounds and two opportunities a day to see the Badger. (We didn't know they shipped semis over! You can see into the Badger's cargo area as it turns around before docking.) We can't say enough nice things about the marina.

It does seem like Ludington is going through a transition. As mentioned, the downtown is losing businesses. However, they are constructing some nice condo buildings by the waterfront. They are highlighting their waterfront area with an art walk and have quite a number of historical murals on buildings scattered throughout the town (Ludington is apparently known as the "town of murals"). There is a good grocery store - Best Choice Market - that is "walking distance" from the marina. We had a nice dinner at PM Steamers, named for the Pere Marquette River and the steamers that used to travel it, right across the street from the marina. Ludington also has its own microbrewery - Jamesport Brewing Company - which lets you order a flight of beers to do a tasting (5 5ounce portions for $6) - kinda neat! (We recommend the Nitro Stout - which is as smooth as cream - and the Hefeweizen - a great summer beer.) Chef John's Bakery has great cookies, cinnamon rolls, and cherry struedels. We also were lucky enough to be able to visit the original House of Flavors Ice Cream Shop -- right by its production facility.


We also took a historic house walk and found this prime architectural example of the McCaulian era in Ludington.



The Ludington State Park is about 6 miles from the marina along M-116. It is a very easy bike ride and the shoulder of M-116 is very wide (it's almost like a designated bike lane). On Friday, September 21, we biked over and visited Big Sable Point Lighthouse, (we'd passed it the day before on Meridian). The cool thing about the park is that its trails and roads run between some huge sand dunes. We've never had the opportunity to bike between open dunes before. And these are some pretty large, old, and fairly stabilized dunes. They also have an under-sand shipwreck. In 2004, the changing water level of Lake Michigan enabled some researchers to identify the dimensions of a 93 foot possible schooner wreck. It's under sand now but some of the wood is exposed.


The sand is an interesting consistency and, when washed by waves, forms shelves almost like wafer cookies. The park also includes Hamlin Lake. The Hamlin Lake area is an old lumber town area with an interesting history including dam breaks and moving (straightening) the river. The bike path around Hamlin Lake is a combination bike path and historical walk with signs that give the history of the region. An interesting piece of information that we got from the harbor master was that each year they release about 200,000 baby salmon by the present Hamlin Dam. Guess that explains why the dam is a popular fishing spot. But, its probably a little disappointing for the salmon -- they'll never get up that dam!

During our ride we came across this old guy. Guess he's tired of having to share the lake with all those salmon. They get all the attention.

We've taken advantage of a weather window (although the lake wasn't as calm as we expected). We're currently in Whitehall (on White Lake) and planning to move to Grand Haven or Holland or Saugatuck tomorrow -- depending on the weather of course.

Frankfort, Michigan - Another Windy Port

We're starting to think that we're causing all this wind. It seems like almost everywhere we go, there's an unusual stretch of windy weather. HMMM!?!

Anyway, we're in Frankfort with a few others who are heading south -- most further south than Chicago and with specific deadlines. A "looper" couple, who have been doing the Great Loop for six or eight months needs to get to Florida by November for a wedding; three sailboats are heading down the Mississippi to Florida but have a 9/26 date with Crowley's on the Calumet to have their masts removed and trucked down to Mobile, AL (as a side note -- we never had thought too much about what the sailboaters do with the masts on the river trip. Naively thought they just removed them and carried them down. But a 50 foot mast on a 35 foot boat makes dockage and gas dock visits rather difficult. Trucking those masts down is a great idea!)




It's still windy.





But that means "surfs up, dudes". It's funny how, even here in northern Michigan, the surfers have blond hair, are deeply tanned, and talk like they are from southern California.

So during these windy days we're exploring the bike trails in the area. Bernie bought a map while in Petoskey that outlined all the paths in the northern Michigan area. Phil's glad she didn't buy this earlier as there was a 60 mile route from Mackinaw City that Bernie thought looked fun. That'll be next year!

The Crystal Lake loop is a 21 mile route that takes you to Point Betsie Light House (this picture is much straighter than the ones from Sunday) and through the resort area of Crystal Lake and Beulah, Michigan. Crystal Lake and Beulah have an interesting history. Back in the 1800s, someone tried to build a channel that would connect Crystal Lake and Lake Michigan, allowing large boats to come in. Unfortunately (or fortunately for future home owners), the channel ended up draining Crystal Lake waters, lowering its level by about 20 feet. This did allow a little summer resort area to spring up around the lake as well as the town of Beulah.

The Betsie Valley Trail is a 23 mile route that connects Frankfort to Thompsonville. It starts right at the marina. It is an old railroad bed, so it is generally flat with some long but steep grades. Part of the route goes through the Marquette State Forest. When we crossed Betsie River, quite small and narrow at this point, we noticed several salmon swimming up it. Never really realized that it takes the salmon awhile to actually find the right direction. They do a bit of swimming in circles as they locate the right path upstream.

A little town called Elberta is right across the lake from Frankfort. The Ports of Call Guide mentioned that Elberta has been having water level problems. That is an understatement. The Elberta marina is closed. The picture of the gas docks tells a story about what's been happening with water levels of Lake Michigan in the last several years! It is sad to see a lost marina.

A couple of notable businesses in Frankport. The Crescent Bakery has fresh baked breads, cherry fritters, jams and jellies, and dried fruit. Dinghy's is a little restaurant bar with some cool stained glass windows. We were able to enjoy a couple nights of ice cream at the Cool Spot before it closed for the season (then we got to enjoy a 1/2 price fudge and ice cream sale). Bayview Party Store employees are nice enough to sell you a roll of quarters when you need it to finish the laundry (unlike the EZ Mart BP gas station people). Frankfort also has a couple very nice art galleries (like Les Sirena Galerie D'Art), a book store and several non T-shirt shops. Our internet works here, but the Library, right by the marina, has wi-fi as a back-up. There's also a grocery store (Glen's) which is in walking distance.

We took the dinghy out for a little cruise since the weather today was very nice (Weather was so summery on Tuesday, September 18 that Bernie slept up on the bridge last night - actually, she spent the whole night looking at the star constellations and did see a shooting star!) Typical for our dinghy rides, Bernie rowed Phil all over Betsie Lake. Several fishermen in boats came over to ask Phil where'd he get one that rowed and what horsepower does she get. The waterside view of this boat revealed that these cruisers are prepared for any kind of travel. Not really sure how they get it off the boat, though.


The weather forecast for Thursday, September 20 looks good. Most of us in Frankfort (the sailboat guys, the loopers, and us) are planning on heading out tomorrow. We're hoping to make it to Ludington.

We'll leave you with a few more pictures of Frankfort sights.



Check back to see our progress ;)

Petoskey, Michigan - The Salmon Are Running and We're Bicycling

The salmon have started their annual migration up the river of their youth to spawn. And people around here are quite excited about that. According to a local fisherman, the salmon just started running last week so it's not all that busy yet. They'll run until October. You're allowed three fish that must be longer than 12 inches (but he's never seen one that small). The picture on the right is a row of evenly spaced fishermen in the Petoskey Harbor area at the mouth of a river. They line the river overpass, too. We were watching by the falls just beyond this overpass the other night and actually saw one leap out of the water in its attempt to get up the waterfall. It is so cool! This particular fish did not make it up the falls on its first attempt it also escaped the fisherman's line. While it is tempting to watch all day for one to make it up the river, Phil suspects that the fishermen don't appreciate it when Bernie roots the salmon on with her exhortations of "Jump, little salmon, jump!".

OK ... enough about fish. Let's talk about our latest bicycle conquest. If you've been a dedicated blog reader, you recall a few blogs ago that we mentioned a bike route called Tunnel of Trees that runs north of Harbor Springs up the coast for 20 or so miles to a place called Cross Village. As we'd heard from the vintner at Pleasantview Winery and various chamber of commerce staff, the route runs along M119 up hills and provides gorgeous views of the lake and Little Traverse Bay. We couldn't fit it in when we were in Harbor Springs so we decided to do that ride "next time we were in this area". Well, here we are again! And, really, it'd been two whole days since our last bike ride - an easy 30 mile route through Wilderness Park - and we were starting to feel a little sluggish. So on Sunday September 9, we had an energizing breakfast of omelets and oatmeal and set off for Cross Village. Oh, for the record, Petoskey is about ten miles from Harbor Springs (by land), which makes Cross Village about 30 miles away - one way. But it was a beautiful day so off we went. The first ten miles or so are a breeze - it's the flat stretch between Petoskey and Harbor Springs. Right outside of Harbor Springs is the first of many steep hills that take you up to altitudes of 900 feet (according to our GPS). But, you know the motto: You got 24 gears, use 'em.

And the views are so worth it! We could see all the way to Charlevoix looking south and out over Beaver Island and South Fox Island to the north and west. Along the way we saw a few other bicyclists, a lot of motorcyclists and a respectable number of wild turkey and deer doing the route. There were some cars - but not many.

The only stopping/resting area between Harbor Springs and Cross Village is a tiny town called Good Hart. But it has the essentials - a general store with restrooms, baked goods (brownies), and a deli. They also have an art gallery and an antique shop, but those weren't open. (The General Store has a rather detailed and interactive website.) Initially, we had thought about using Good Hart as the turnaround point for the bike trip but it didn't seem right to go back when we only had about ten more miles to get to Cross Village (where we'd heard there was a good restaurant that specialized in Polish Cuisine).

Tunnel of Trees is a perfect name for this route. The view really does look like this most of the way. It just got prettier as we went further up (Literally "up". The hills were getting a little less steep each time but more frequent.)


When we got to Cross Village, we immediately pedaled over to Legs Inn, which is the restaurant we'd heard about. We'd heard that the view and the food was great. But we hadn't heard the decor was the result of years of collecting driftwood and carving/assembling it into artistic creations. The original owner, Stanley Smolak, was Polish. So, in addition to great, authentic Polish food, there is also some Polish influence to the decor.

Knowing that we had already biked 30 miles and that we had that many to get back, we were not too concerned about ordering hearty lunches. Bernie had something called the Old World Sampler, which included polish sausage, pierogies, and bigos (a stew). Phil had the Polish Hearty Lunch (pierogies and golabki). And of course we had to have dessert -- we did have another 30+ miles of up and down hills to go! This is a Szarlotka, which has strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and apples ... so it's healthy ;)

The views back were just as spectacular as the views on the way up. It seemed to be a little easier but there were still two huge hills that consumed all our lunch calories to get up!

Bernie marked a momentous occasion on the return trip ... hitting the "50 mile in one day" club (Phil's done 50 miles in a day previously -- but not all that recently). We stopped to officially document her achievement.

There was a beautiful sunset waiting for us on our return to Petoskey.

And we were too tired to do anything else except shower and toast the sunset with some Pyrat Rum!