The East Coast of Lake Michigan

Mackinac Bridge

On August 3, we began our month-long journey down the east side of Lake Michigan by passing under the Mackinac bridge which spans The Straits of Mackinac (connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan).

Deep Lake

The lake is truly a fresh water ocean. You can  not see the opposite coast, it's extremely deep in many places and it looks just like it does when we are out in the Atlantic. The east coast, in particular, looks like you are cruising along the Rhode Island and Massachusetts shorelines because the whole shore is lined with white, sandy beaches and dunes.

Beautiful Beaches and Sand Dunes

We chose to travel down the east coast of the lake rather than the west coast, because the east coast has harbors of refuge about every twenty miles.Most of these harbors are in-land lakes that have been connected to the large lake by man. In these harbors, are beautiful, old beach resort towns each with its own unique personality. Harbor Springs looked a lot like Edgartown - lots of large, white, old-money summer homes; Petoskey looked like Oak Bluffs - tiny, brightly painted, gingerbread houses close together each with a  charming name; Charlelevoix had cool, quirky "mushroom" houses; Leland had an historic section of old fisherman shanties; Pentwater was having it's home coming weekend complete with parade, fireworks and fireman's breakfast; Grand Haven provided us with front row seats on our upper deck, to their nightly, 20-minute musical water fountain show; Saugatuck was diverse, artistic and fun with an 1837, hand-operated chain ferry, and wild dune buggy rides; and South Haven had incredible sunsets.

Mushroom house

Mushroom house

Me in Fishtown

Peaceful Manistee

A lot of these towns are connected by wonderful, paved bike trails, so we rode our bikes a lot this past month, sometimes 20 miles or more a day.  We were lucky to have our friends, Jan and Ralph Elwart, who live on the other side of the lake in Lake Forrest, IL, join us in Grand Haven and cruise with us for a week  to South Port. Other friends, Nancy and Dave Gorzka, sailed all n ight long from Kenosha, WI to join us and the Elwarts for a long weekend in Saugatauck where we enjoyed a lovely evening at the Clearbrook Country Cllub with the Gorzka's local friends, Kathy and Bob Kubasiak, who transported us to the club in their snazzy, red,1964 Ford Fairlane convertible, top down.

Cake I Made For Ralph's Birthday

Gorzkas & Elwarts

Elwarts & Us

Frankfort light

Couple of Beers in the dunes

Dune buggy ride was JUST like riding a roller coaster - WILD

Dune Buggy Trails

Lake Michigan Sunset

While in Saugatuck, we were stern-to in our slip, right in front of a gazebo in a lovely little park.  One afternoon, while were were lounging on our upper deck, much activity started happening at the gazebo. Turned out, a wedding was happening thirty feet off our stern, effectively making us "wedding crashers." When they print their wedding photos, they'll see us sitting in deck chairs, wearing t-shirts and the word, "HUMBUG" in 8-inch red letters. I'm sure Photoshop will be employed!

Angelina's and Susan's Wedding