Tim and Jen Live Here

Canoeing

We canoed the Platte River with Riverside Canoe Trips. We felt super lucky just to avoid rain for the couple hours we were on the river, but if you had a nice day and you canoed with your family, you could spend the afternoon on the beach since the trip ends right at Lake Michigan. We walked the beach for a little while then moved on. There was shopping to do.

At the start of the canoe trip and the hiking, there were signs warning that this is cougar territory and black bears have been spotted. We saw neither, but I’m pretty sure the cougar was behind us the whole way, just ducking out of the way any time we looked back. We did see fish, mostly trout, swimming upstream in pretty large schools. Salmon had started to run upstream to spawn, but we didn’t see many of them. Photographing fish from a canoe doesn’t work too well, so you’ll have to take my word for it. We did see - and photograph - plenty of birds. Aren’t they pretty?

Taking pictures from the back of the canoe means lots of pictures of the back of the person in front. Unless they turn around. Hi, Mom! And there’s Mom again, testing the water’s depth at the mouth of the river. This time of year the water is actually pretty warm, so if you get a sunny day, it can be great to spend it on the beach.

Nature

Sleeping Bear Dunes is a truly gorgeous area. Even from these grey, rainy pictures, I think you’ll get a feel for the natural beauty. We took advantage of another short break in the rain to hike Saturday morning. Dunes hiking isn’t easy, but this was a nice, 3-mile loop that went through dunes and forest. We saw the deer in the top picture early on in the hike. After that there were lots of wild tracks, but no other animals to be found.

Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive is part of the national park and exists purely as a scenic drive. It goes nowhere. You’re driving up the dunes that you see in the second picture. Stunning views abound. You’ve got here the Glen Lakes in the fog, a view of one big dune and Lake Michigan, and a very cute sign warning you of the dangers of venturing too far out on said dune. There are areas to hike from the scenic drive, but we skipped those hikes and the big dune climb since the rain was really coming down hard by late morning.

Glen Arbor

We visited Leland and Suttons Bay during the trip, but stayed in Glen Arbor, which turned out to be a great choice. It might be the cutest little town I’ve ever seen, really. Walking from one end to the other takes not even ten minutes (not accounting for shopping, eating, and drinking time), but there are a handful of restaurants to choose from and a nice, full-service grocery store. We spent Saturday late morning and early afternoon shopping before settling in at Boonedock’s outside bar to watch the Michigan football game. We won’t be discussing the game.

Glen Arbor is full of cute shops. Let me share. One winery has tasting rooms here. Cherry Republic does much more than wine, but several cherry wines and a cherry hard cider are available for tasting. If your kids are with you they can taste various cherry sodas. The next building houses the tasting space for their foods - yum. Cherry salsas, barbecue sauces, malted milk balls, etc. And finally there’s a cafe serving sweet treats and meal foods such as cherry chicken salad. They don’t do other fruits here. A sign on the wall lets you know that would simply be too complicated. Our table indicator in the cafe was this rock with a “no bananas” sign painted on it. Very fun. Outside they’ve got a rather excellent pit-spitting arena.

Just down the street is Cottage Books. Is that the cutest book shop you’ve ever seen? And there are two options for tea. Great Lakes tea was closed while we were in town, which was disappointing. The Grocer’s Daughter chocolate shop has a garden out back where you can have “tea in the garden”. It’s a great garden, but we didn’t have tea in it because, you guessed it, it was raining.

Wine

I don’t have any photos of the wineries, but we visited three. I would have liked to do more on Sunday, but I was exhausted by early afternoon and just needed to head out for my 4+ hour drive home. In addition to Cherry Republic we visited Good Harbor so that I could get a case of one of my favorite whites. They’re Fishtown white is a mix containing mostly chardonnay. It’s nicely dry and tasty, and cheap, always a bonus. We tasted several other wines there, and I bought some of their Chardonnay, sparkling white, hard cider, and riesling. Michigan’s soil and climate is apparently best for grapes that make sweeter wines, but most of the area wineries have a few dry choices as well. Our final visit was spur-of-the-moment. We were driving back to Glen Arbor and spotted Longview Winery. We stopped in just a few minutes before they closed and tasted several wines. I ended up with a bottle of the Rustic White.

I’m definitely looking forward to a return visit and hope to try many more of the Leelanau wineries in the future.