Traverse City, Michigan

After our pitstop, we meandered up the mitten until we reached Lake Michigan and the lovely, lovely Traverse City. We spent the night in a motel (at Dawn's request), went driving, barring and wine tasting. I lived in TC for a summer of camp, and i'm still amazed that I know my way around relatively well. We did get lost a couple of times and almost ran out of petrol near Empire, in the middle of farmland, but hey, it all worked out in the end.

Since it was the offseason, we found accomodation for cheap. Unfortunately lots of shops and touristy bits were still closed for the season, and we had to do the Cliff's Notes tour.


behind all the shops in downtown TC


part of Grand Traverse Bay


Lake Michigan (bloody freezing)


Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore


Dawn and Natasha refused to get out of the car so this is my only photographic evidence


The one new thing we did in TC was head up to the Old Mission Peninsula and go wine tasting. There are seven vineyards on the peninsula, and we only had time to go to two of them. We, unknowingly, picked two very different vineyards, one a huge establishment and another, a small family-run business. Both were good, and I managed to find myself a bottle of vino distilled in a pepper cask. delight!


little family run vineyard where I had many small-world encounters


View from Bowers Harbor Vineyard Porch




mmmm wine



And then we headed back to Rochester...


our last pit stop on I75, Cracker Barrel! Natasha almost had a meltdown due to the amount of choice, and i found it startingly scary how every single seemingly vegetarian dish came decked in pork toppings, crunchy bits or layers of animal fat.

I forget how beautiful Michigan is in the summer. Road trip 2011?