Saturday, September 23, 2017- Travel Day 50
So while our mountains in the Reno area are being hit with blizzard conditions we, in lovely Lake Leelanau Michigan are sweltering. Record highs have created us the last two days. Temperatures in the mid 90’s with 90 percent humidity tapering to 40 percent by sundown makes for some pretty uncomfortable weather. Thank goodness our new air conditioner is keeping up with the heat.
We drove a helter skelter course from our first stop of the morning, Friday September 22nd, the Riverside Tire Company. I visually check our tires, all eight of ‘um, at every stop. I check tire pressures frequently also. Well, one trailer tire looked a little peculiar, no, a lot peculiar as half the tread was worn flat down to the nubb on just half the circumference of the tire. Uh oh. Anyway, The others weren’t in the best condition so Riverside tire ordered four new tires for us and had them the next morning. By 0900 we had packed our bags, gone to the tire store, the new tires were mounted and balanced and back on the coach. Great service and a decent price for the tires at that. Thanks guys!
Back to the craziness of getting back to highway 31. I looked up our route on Google Maps the night before we left and wrote down the directions. I set the destination in the truck’s onboard navigation system. Jil sets our destination on her phone. We can’t go out the easy way because we would have to take the Ironton Ferry across an arm of Charlevoix Lake. Length limit for trailers on the ferry= 16 feet, our trailer is 34 feet. Do you see the same problem here that I see? Anyhow, my hand written directions, the truck’s navigator and Jil’s “smarty” phone do not agree on the route! They don’t agree on any of the roads on our way back to highway 31. Crap! Anyhow I’m trying to ignore all the cyber chatter “When Possible, Make A U-Turn“, or “Turn Left In Three Hundred Feet”. One machine says make a u-turn while simultaneously the other says turn left. Good Grief!
Anyhow, we somehow make it back on to highway 31 and turn south towards Traverse City. And what’s the first thing of interest we see? A big ol’ farm store, that’s what.
We pull in and have a friendly chat with the proprietor who also lives on this family farm. We buy fresh apples and, wait for it,…….. farm fresh pasties! They are precooked by the farmer lady and fresh frozen. We purchased two, one traditional meat, veggies with the traditional rutabaga included, and a breakfast pasty, sort of like a breakfast burrito.
We travel through rolling farm country until we get to the end of Traverse Bay, then swing west through the busier that it ought to be Traverse City for a city of 14,000 souls. She is the seat of Grand Traverse County and the largest of the 21 county northern Michigan region. FYI- the area is the largest producer of tart cherries in the U.S.
Suttons Bay
The route we are taking will lead us around the east and west arms of Traverse Bay and up the west side of the west arm to Suttons Bay where we head inland a few miles to our camp for two nights, the Wild Cherry RV Resort. Confusing I know, but think of it as two fingers sticking up into Lake Michigan.
A Big Wind Event Followed This Cloud Formation
We manage to get through town with nary a scratch but I’ll tell you these Michiganders are crazy fast drivers! The are oblivious to red alert situations- like pedestrians who are already halfway across the street which are totally ignored by oncoming drivers. On the other hand I’ve seen pedestrians walk right out in front of quick moving traffic. We emerge from the city. Luckily for us we find that highway 22 has multiple areas of road construction delaying our arrival by about 30 minutes. No big deal……….
Wild Cherry Resort is absolutely beautiful. The park has two tiers and we have been assigned a site in the lower with a big pond right behind our coach. The sites are wide with grass between them. There’s a treed area across a grassy field where we can run Megan. In other words, a perfect park for us and our Muttzo!
Wild Cherry RV Resort
While here we’ve done some exploring. We’ve gone to Lake Leelanau and its namesake township and to Leland. Lake Leelanau is a large lake on the peninsula that separates the main body of Lake Michigan from Traverse Bay.
Lake Leelanau- St. Mary’s Church & Auditorium
Leland is on the eastern seaboard (lake board?) of Lake Michigan. Leyland on the eastern shore of Michigan and Suttons Bay on the west bank of the West Arm of Traverse Bay are real touristy places- but nice.
Historic Fish Town, Leland Mi
Neither one of their business districts are more than two blocks long. The merchants obviously are catering to the tourist crowd but each are fun to visit.
Downtown Leland, MI
Next we are heading southeast towards Dearborn and Detroit. See you there!
Travel With Jil and Mike 