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.

Manistee (with an "S") Michigan

We had a nice trip up from Pentwater to Manistee. It was a sunny day, and the lake was relatively calm as we pulled out of Pentwater. Not as flat as some of our earlier days, but very comfortable.

Bernie made up a great little lunch while underway – a fruit plate with cheese and crackers. She put so much into the visual aspect of it, that we had to document it.

The highlights of the trip were going around Big Sable Point and seeing our first real freighter of the trip. As we are rather inexperienced freighter spotters, we first thought it was two ships … then two ships that must be connected to each other … finally, it became clear that it was a very large freighter with two pilot houses or deck houses or whatever those things are called.

As we entered the Manistee River, we had to move aside for a cruise ship. Not quite as large some of the big ocean going ones, but an honest to goodness cruise ship nonetheless.

In Manistee we stayed at the Manistee Municipal Marina. It is not far from the channel entrance and has fairly roomy slips. The slips can be a little unnerving for the inexperienced as the front of the slips are very rocky, where the water gets shallow quickly. You can’t see that from the helm. Well, at least not from ours. But the marina sends out dockhands to assist with all boats coming in and the dockhands know how deep the slips are and position you according to how much you draw.

One of our cruising guides mentioned the river current as something to watch out for. But we found it to be very slow, almost unnoticeable at the marina, and since we were moving upriver, it actually helped with the turn into the slip.

When we pulled in, the dockhands that helped us were both females. It’s nice to see that there is equal opportunity employment out there in what you normally see as “man’s work”!

The marina has free wi-fi.

Manistee, itself, seems to be trying (rather successfully it appears) to transition from an industrial town to a more tourism-focused town. The Port of Call book that we use mentioned that the town was quaint without being a tourist trap. And that truly is what we found. The downtown area is well kept. It is full of independent shops (almost no vacant storefronts) with interesting architecture.

The notable feature of the town, we thought, is the Riverwalk. It runs the entire length of the Manistee River with easy access to the main street in town (River Street) at least every block. Portions of it are REALLY a river walk as it extends over pilings. It meanders out to the channel, past all the marinas and the public boat launch. Bernie ran her morning jog/run along the Riverwalk this morning and saw a beaver. It looked odd because it was on land but the characteristic big flat tail gave it away.

The Riverwalk also has markers that point out historic information about the town’s lumber and shipping history. And there is a lot of history here. The markers were so interesting that we stopped by the Manistee County Historical Museum. As it turns out, the Museum is worth a separate blog post – because we took so many pictures while at the museum.

There is enough to see and do in Manistee that we could have stayed another day.