- 18.1 miles
- 2 hours 40 minutes
- 6.8 mph average speed
- 1-3 mph winds
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!
