55. LITTLE TRAVERSE BAY

Michigan

7/25/2010

Midway between Grayling and Little Traverse Bay is Gaylord – our stopping point for the night. We stayed in the Alpine Lodge Magnuson Hotel – a really nice hotel, practically giving away rooms on Priceline. It’s worth checking out these “off-brand” hotels sometimes.

Little Traverse Bay is speckled with a few small beach-front towns. We started the morning with Mass at St. Francis Xavier in Petoskey. When we walked in to the church we were shocked – it is an exact duplicate of St. Thomas Aquinas in Zanesville, Ohio (some 500 miles away) where Laura and I were married. The similarity was uncanny – from the stained glass windows, to the statuary, to the stations of the cross –everything was absolutely identical. Must have been the same architect. Hey, if something works…

After Mass we wandered through the town’s upscale Gaslight District (so-called because of the gas lamps lining the streets). Aimed at the super-rich, we poked our noses into a clothes boutique. A pair of ripped jeans: only $249.

We browsed through the Schultz-approved Symons General Store, chocked full of imported goodies. I shamelessly took a free sample of Swiss coffee I could never afford.

There’s no point in going to a bay and not seeing the bay. While Laura fed Philip I took Daniel on a stroll down the pier to look at the water splashing against rocks and all the different boats. Much excited pointed ensued from Daniel. (Translation: “I like this!”)

Next we drove a little further up the bay to Harbor Springs, which made Petoskey look like a shanty-town in comparison. It’s bad when we see a hotel and then you realize it’s not a hotel – it’s a house. Our main goal of visiting Harbor Springs was to eat at Juilleret’s Soda Fountain, the oldest restaurant in Michigan. I had called before going on this trip and discovered they were closing down for good on August 1st. In fact, the day we arrived was one of the only days until that closing date in which they would be open to the public at all. When we went in there were price tags on everything, bolted down or otherwise. There were pictures in the window of some of the soda fountain treats they had been serving up since 1895. There was none of that available now. The equipment was shut down and the unhappy-looking employees (probably the Juilleret family) could only offer some burgers and a few bottles of soda. Another timeless institution bites the dust. Sad.