We left Frankfort at sunrise:
We had lunch and walked around the town and the riverwalk before ending the day with ice cream.
More photos of the dunes along the coastline:
Frankfort is yet another charming little town. We have really fallen in love with the Michigan coastline!
We biked a little over 10 miles along the Betsie Valley Trail to Beulah, MI with Misty and Darrel and stopped for lunch before biking the 10 miles back to Frankfort. It was such a beautiful ride around Betsie Lake where the marina is located and then along Crystal Lake to Beulah.
Once we were back in Frankfort, the boys opted for a nap while Misty and Ellen biked another 5 miles out to the Point Betsie Lighthouse.
The Point Betsie Lighthouse is considered to be one of the most photographed lighthouses in the country. The lighthouse is situated on the banks of Sleeping Bear Dunes and has been continuously operating since 1858 when it was built. It was automated in 1983 and was the last manned lighthouse on Lake Michigan. The Keeper’s Quarters (not part of the tour) is a two-bedroom apartment available for daily or weekly rental.
Views from the top of the lighthouse:
Views from the grounds of the lighthouse:
We spotted this little family on the way back from the lighthouse:
Finally, Misty and Ellen stopped at the Frankfort Art Fair before ending their 30+ mile bike journey!
Another boat, Blue Moon, left Leland behind us and sent this picture of Star Dust and Perfect Match:
Leland is a cute little beach town with several nice shops. The Leland Historic District, known as Fishtown, is adjacent to the town and has been a commercial fishing district for over a century. Fishtown is comprised of small fishing shanties and related buildings such as ice and smoke houses built in the early 1900’s. It is now a working fishery and home to several fishing charters.
The Leland Champion Cottonwood Tree, planted in 1901, watched over the entrance to Fishtown for more than a century. It has a 20 foot circumference, 76 inch diameter and stood 100 feet tall before it was taken down in 2011. Champion Tree Project International created sixty clones of the tree in 2008 by snipping off newly grown buds and using them to make genetically identical copies.
We chartered a fishing boat with Misty and Darrel and caught some trout. We had the fish cleaned and took four of the fillets to The Cove restaurant which they later cooked for our dinner and we took the rest of the fillets to our boats to freeze. We selected four different preparations and the restaurant brought the fish on a platter so we could all share the different preparations. They were all delicious!
There are a lot of sand dunes along the coast:
We saw this amphibious car parked in front of the restaurant and then saw it cruising in the canal as we were eating dinner.
View of Fishtown above the Leland Dam which was built in 1854 and raises the water 12 feet.
In contrast to our rough trip to Charlevoix, our trip from Charlevoix could not have been any smoother!
After a lunch with Misty and Darrel, we enjoyed walking around downtown Traverse City and sitting at one of the beaches.
Misty took a picture of the magnificent sunrise before we left Petoskey and a couple of pictures of Perfect Match as we were leaving the marina.
It was a short but very rough trip to Charlevoix. There wasn’t a lot of wind and the waves were showing 0-1 feet but they were easily 2-4 feet. We bounced up and down pretty much the whole trip!
The Charlevoix Waterfront Art Fair was directly behind where we were docked and we perused each and every booth!
Charlevoix is yet another charming town!
We ran into Susie and Mark from Rose Cottage, whom we had traveled with on the Eastern Erie and met the couple they traveled with through Canada, Elizabeth and Gary from No Agenda.
We rode our bikes to Castle Farms and toured the buildings and grounds. The president of Sears, Roebuck & Company, Albert Loeb, built the castle in 1918 as a model dairy farm featuring items found in the Sears Catalogue. It was later used as a concert venue from the early 1970’s through 1993 and hosted many of the popular rock bands of that era. It was purchased by Linda Mueller in 2001 who then did an extensive renovation of the property using the original blueprints and added several beautiful gardens. No detail was spared in the renovation. It addition to the tours of the property, Castle Farms is also a popular wedding venue. There are at least a half a dozen areas on the property that are used for weddings and each one is breathtaking. We visited on a Sunday and there were two weddings that day, four on Saturday and three on Friday. They can host as many as five weddings in one day!
There is a museum on site that showcases items from the 1918-1919 Sears Catalogue.
There is also a wonderful model railroad, the largest outdoor model railroad in Michigan, built by Linda Mueller’s husband and brother-in-law which features Charlevoix’s railway history from the 1890’s through the 1950’s.
This is not a great picture but it shows all of the bands that “Rocked the Castle” from the 1970’s to the 1990’s:
There is a hallway dedicated to memorabilia from the concert days.
After our tour of Castle Farms, we biked to see the “Mushroom Houses”. These houses were built by self-taught architect Earl Young who was influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The last night we were in Charlevoix, there was a gathering of other Loopers, including a couple who had just completed their Loop that day who live in Charlevoix!
A few shots of Perfect Match taken by Misty as we were leaving Mackinaw City:
Our dear friends, Darci and Steve, who joined us on Perfect Match as we started our Loop in January, finally found their perfect boat which they named “Balclutha, Too”. The boat was in Michigan and they are traveling up the coast to spend a little time in the North Channel before heading back down the Michigan coast. They met us in Petoskey and arrived shortly after we had docked. It was a wonderful reunion with them!
We introduced Darci and Steve to Misty, Darrel and Susie and had a delicious lunch at Chandler’s restaurant. Later, we all got together on our flybridge for docktails.
Darci cooked brunch for us the next day and Ellen and Misty prepared a dinner of salad and Rigatoni Bolognese that evening and took it over to Balclutha, Too.
Petoskey is a charming town off of Little Traverse Bay.
Misty, Darrel, Susie and us hit the nearby casino and contributed our money to some slot machines. Susie was the big winner – the rest of us had a dollar or less remaining when we left but we had a good time.
There are several other Loopers staying at the marina and several of us gathered for docktails before the six of us headed to the food truck court for dinner.
Darci and Steve headed out the day before we were to leave and Susie also flew home to Texas. We rode with Misty and Darrel to take Susie to the airport and stopped in Harbor Springs, which is across the bay from Petoskey, for lunch. We will all miss being with Darci, Steve and Susie!
We left Presque Isle just as the sun was rising and passed the Old Presque Isle Lighthouse on our way out of the marina.
We passed another lighthouse along the way:
We took the ferry from Mackinaw City to Mackinac Island (they are spelled differently but pronounced the same) with Susie and Misty and had a fabulous time touring the island together!
The Mackinac Bridge, “The Mighty Mac”, is longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere and the fifth longest suspension bridge in the world at about 5 miles long. The bridge connects the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan and opened in 1957. It takes seven years to paint the bridge and, once completed, the painting starts over again.
The Grand Hotel was completed in 1887 and has the longest porch in the world. The hotel was built by three railroad companies and a steamship company. In the 1930’s, it was purchased by the Musser family who maintained ownership for nearly nine decades until it was sold to a private equity fund in 2019.
There are no cars allowed on Mackinac Island, only horse-drawn carriages and bicycles. The first car was brought to the island in 1898 but it was so loud that it scared all of the horses so a ban on automobiles was enacted and remains to this day.
Fort Mackinac was built in 1780 by the British during the American Revolutionary War and they held it until thirteen years after the war when it was turned over to the U.S. It was later re-captured by the British during the War of 1812 during the first land action on U.S. territory of the war and was returned to the U.S. after the war and remained active until 1895. There are currently 14 original buildings, including the Officer’s Stone Quarters, the oldest building in Michigan. Fort Mackinac was the second national park in the country second only to Yellowstone.
Fort Mackinac
The McGulpin House is one of the oldest private residences in Michigan.
There is an abundance of fudge shops on Mackinac Island. The first fudge store on the island was opened by the Murdick family in 1887, the same year that the Grand Hotel opened. We stopped in and stocked up on fudge and peanut brittle!
We had a wonderful private horse-drawn carriage tour of the island.
It was impossible to get full pictures of the Grand Hotel other than the one we took from the ferry.
The Grand Hotel Stable houses a magnificent collection of working carriages, most from 1890, as well as the horses used by the Grand Hotel carriages.
The Ransom Carriage was used to deliver the ransom for the first prominent kidnapping in the U.S. in 1900.
We picked up a hitch-hiker on our trip today:
We checked out loaner bikes with Misty and Susie and rode to the “old” and “new” lighthouses. The Old Presque Isle Lighthouse was completed in 1840 and is one of the oldest surviving lighthouses on the Great Lakes. It is also the shortest at 38 feet tall.The New Presque Isle Lighthouse was built in 1870! It is the tallest lighthouse on the Great Lakes that is open to the public and stands 110 feet tall.
The last keeper of the old lighthouse was Pat Garrity who was appointed by President Lincoln. Garrity’s wife, three sons and daughter all served as lighthouse keepers in the area making them the second longest keeper family in U.S. history.
New Presque Isle Lighthouse
We climbed the 138 steps to the top of the lighthouse for a spectacular view.
It was so calm and peaceful in the marina, especially since we did not have good cell or wifi service. Misty and Darrel had us over for a delicious steak dinner our last night there.
While we were here for three days due to weather, we only have one picture! We did go to the Great Lakes Maritime Heritage Center which has a lot of exhibits about the Great Lakes and about the many shipwrecks around the area. The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system in the world and hold more than 20% of the world’s freshwater. There are about 6,000 ships that were lost on the Great Lakes and about 1,500 of them are in Michigan waters.
We enjoyed meeting and spending time with Misty’s mother, Susie, who flew in to Alpena to travel with Misty and Darrel for a week.
There was rain most of the day and not much nearby to explore. We had Misty and Darrel over for a Low Country Boil on our flybridge.
As we were getting ready to pull into the marina, we noticed the Coast Guard following us with their lights on. As we’d heard nothing from them on the radio, Ellen went to the stern to try to find out if they were stopping us to board for a random safety inspection. Still no word from them and the lights went off so we thought we were “good to go”. We pulled into the marina to get fuel and a pump out and two Coast Guardsmen approached and asked us when the last time was that we had been boarded by the Coast Guard to which we replied, “never”. They come on board and checked all of our safety equipment and registrations for the boat and the dinghy and we passed with no violations! All credit for that goes to our distinguished Captain!
We enjoyed walking around the town and having lunch and ice cream with Misty and Darrel. That evening we went to see the movie Where the Crawdads Sing and ran into Caroline and Todd from Sunset Dreams in the theatre.
Harbor Beach has the world’s largest man-made freshwater harbor which was completed in 1883 and is one mile by three miles long.
This was to be our first night at anchor! It’s hard to believe that we have not yet anchored though there will be a couple of spots on the rivers where there will be no option but to anchor so we were happy to get some practice in before then. We successfully set the anchor (and the anchor alarm!) and stayed put for several hours. Misty and Darrel on Star Dust were anchored as well but their generator was not running properly and they decided to move to the marina around the bend so we opted to pull up the anchor and join them at the marina. While we did not gain the experience of an overnight at anchor, we were anchored for several hours!
Besides being home to the largest man-made freshwater harbor, Harbor Beach is also the birthplace and town where Frank Murphy lived. Frank Murphy was born in 1890 and was an attorney, a judge, Mayor of Detroit, US Governor General in the Philippines, Governor of Michigan, US Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice from 1940 until his death in 1949.
Birthplace of Frank Murphy on the right with his father’s law office added on to the left.
The “Big House” completed in 1873 and where the Murphy family later moved.
The Port Sanilac Lighthouse was built in 1886 and the home has been privately owned since the automation of the lighthouse in 1928. While there are occasional tours of the lighthouse in the summer months, unfortunately, there was no tour when we were there.
Misty and Ellen toured the Sanilac County Historic Village. The village is a collection of historic buildings on the grounds of the Loop-Harrison Mansion. The village features a one-room schoolhouse, church, general store, barn and several other structures from the surrounding county which were donated to the Sanilac County Historical Society and moved to the site. The original 1880’s barn is now a theatre.
The Loop-Harrison Mansion was built in 1872 by Dr. Joseph Loop and is furnished with many original pieces of the Loop family.
The Huckins Schoolhouse was built in 1847 and housed eight grades of students for 100 years until 1947.
The church building was originally a general store and later a saloon before the addition of the steeple in 1911 when it was converted to a church.
The two bartenders in the photo below from when the building was a saloon in 1901 are the great-uncle’s of the charming docent who led our tour.
