Wednesday, May 20, 2015--Sault Ste. Marie to Traverse City in Michigan
The sun was shining, but the air was still cold today. It got below freezing last night. We traveled southward heading back to lower Michigan for the rest of our trip.
Just after passing the Mackinac Bridge again, we headed westward for the shoreline roads going through tiny villages such as Bliss and Cross Village. From the latter, we took M-119, a state roadway called the Tunnel of Trees Scenic Route. It is a beautiful coastal road not even wide enough for a center stripe. It is lined with tall trees on either side and with huge, expensive homes backing up to Lake Michigan for about 25 miles (about 40 km).
At the end of that roadway is Harbor Springs which is a very beautiful and exclusive little town on the water. It is so clean and has such nice shops in well-kept buildings downtown that it reminded me somewhat of exclusive little towns in California. We walked the streets and down to the waterfront. Then we drove through a very nice enclave filled with homes valued in the $2-3 million range.
From there, we explored Petoskey, a similarly fancy town with expensive homes and shops, except it is on a hillside with views toward the water. We entered several of the shops there--a nice toy store; Cutlers, a very nice kitchen gadget store; a fancy pie shop; etc.
Continuing onward, we drove through another nice town named Charevoix and through countryside filled with blooming cherry orchards and with vineyards. Unfortunately, it is too early for fresh cherries, or we probably would have been able to buy boxes of them along the highway. This area is the home of most of the vineyards in Michigan, and most of the wines produced are sweet ones.
Our destination was Traverse City. We arrived here at 17:00 and checked into our hotel. We will spend two nights here, because there are more nice places to explore to the north, northwest, and west of here tomorrow.
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