Back in Michigan: Day One

Yep, that's right. Back in Michigan, for a week. I hopped the red-eye on Friday evening and ended up in Traverse City this morning. My mom picked me up at the airport, and we decided to swing through downtown TC for some coffee, which we found at a place called Morsels, which presumably takes its name from the house specialty, little two-bite cookies with clever names:

They carry the insanely hyped Intelligentsia coffee from Chicago, which I was glad to finally get to taste. No Stumptown, but damn good stuff nonetheless.

From TC we headed to Crystal Lake, near Frankfort. I grew up spending summers at my grandparents' cottage (which, sadly, is no longer in the family) on Crystal, and it's been about ten years since I've been around. I spent a couple hours strolling through Frankfort, seeing some old landmarks, along with a few new ones. Here we have the historic Garden Theater:

This is the Cool Spot, my old childhood ice cream connection:

Frankfort is full of these crazy four-wheeled bike things nowadays, just like Seaside:

Some charter fishing boats in the harbor:

This is the Lake Michigan beach at the end of town (you should know, my friends, that that there is some of the finest sand on the planet), along with the breakwater pier leading out to the Frankfort light house (note the difference in the water on either side):


And here we see the Lake Michigan bluffs, which further north become Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore:

Of course, you can never go home again, as they say, and Frankfort offered up a couple of minor disappointments: First, Community Drug no longer carries Doug Murdick's fudge. This sent me into a blind rage and they nearly had to call the sheriff to drag me out of there. As if that weren't bad enough, neither the Car Frary Restaurant nor the Frankfort Golf Course exist anymore (nor does Baker's bar, but that's another story; on the upside, the golf course property was purchased by a group of wealthy cottage folk to protect it from being condoed to death).

My dad drove up from Saginaw and we all went out for dinner this evening with my aunt and uncle at the Cherry Hut in Beulah:

The Cherry Hut, which has garnered attention from none other than Jane and Michael Stern, of Road Food fame, specializes in everything cherry related, as you might have guessed from the name: pie, jam, salsa, cherry themed sundries such as keychains and dish towels, a truly awesome cherry-ade, you name it. The Hut's non-cherry offerings are generally pretty unremarkable, but hey, if you go to the Cherry Hut for a hot turkey sandwich, you pretty much deserve the gelatinous gravy smothered wonder bread monstrosity that eventually winds up in front of you. This is why they don't call it the Turkey Hut...

After dinner I headed out around sundown to get some final shots in the fading light. Having failed to get a satisfactory sunset shot, I came across a developing bonfire party on the dunes:

Then I hoofed it over to Crystal Lake, about a mile away, to capture the "blue hour" image up top, as well as this shot of some moored sailboats:

Most of my week in Michigan is still ahead of me, so stay tuned for more of my zany Wolverine State escapades...