Day Four: Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Rain!  We'd planned on a ferry ride to South Manitou Island for four hours of hiking but the weather put the kibosh on that idea.  We were up early and on our way to Leland to catch the ferry when they called to say that the usual schedule had changed due to the weather forecast.  Usually you can catch a boat out of Leland at 10 a.m., dock at South Manitou around 11:30 and then catch a boat back at 4 p.m., but 4 p.m. was also the predicted arrival of a rather nasty looking storm, so they were only making one run to drop off campers and that was it.  We could have ridden along, but $32 was too much to pay for just a boat ride.

New plans!  We elected to continue on our way with a few modifications to the route.  We traveled up the east side of the peninsula to Northport and then down the west side to Leland.  In Leland we decided to check out Fishtown - dockside fish processing shacks that have been converted into gift shops a cheese shop. One building still sells fresh and smoked fish.  Then it was on to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore to hike the trail to Pyramid Point.  From the trail head it was .6 miles to the bluff overlooking North and South Manitou Islands.  Our next stop was Glen Arbor to visit the local farmer's market.  I had to have a few delicious strawberry shortbread cookies from one of the many bakers, and Lu picked up an oak bookmark from a guy that fashions interesting and quite beautiful furniture out of reclaimed wood from old barns.

Mission Point Lighthouse

We took a new route back to Traverse City and wandered around Front Street for a bit before settling on The Dish Cafe for lunch (see one of the earlier posts).  Since our schedule was a bit screwed up thanks to the weather we opted to move tomorrow morning's activity to today and drove out route 37 to visit the Mission Point Lighthouse.  It was getting cooler and the wind was picking up, but that didn't stop the swarms of bugs near the water's edge.  Then it was back to Traverse City and relaxing at the hotel before heading out for dinner.

We'd planned on dinner at Apache Trout Grill, but the place was mobbed!  Sure it might be good (it's Yelp reviews sounded somewhat promising), but good enough to wait in an overcrowded lobby with 20 other people?  Not likely.  I remembered that there was another place down the street that sounded interesting and we decided to give it a try.  Read my review of Harrington's by the Bay for the details.

Tomorrow it's on to Mackinaw City (and fudge!!) and biking around Mackinac Island.  I hope the weather cooperates!