Month: August 2017

We were advised by some Loopers & friends that St Joseph was a boring/sleepy town, they said “don’t waste your time”.
Our plan was to use St Joseph as a stop-over from South Haven to Michigan City, In.
We planned to go to Michigan City because it would shorten the ride to Chicago, and because we wanted to visit with my cousin, Tony Chesney.

What we found in St Joe was ; a wonderfully quiet marina, a charming city with lots of street art, a beautiful downtown, a nice beach, nice restaurants, a historical area of an old amusement park from the 1950’s with indoor carousel, a huge water fountain park for kids.
The biggest drawback to St Joe was a pretty long bike ride (20min) from the marina on the north side of the St Joseph river, to the downtown & waterfront park on the south side.

We started our St Joe adventure with the 20min bike ride across the St Joseph River. On the ride we saw some very nice homes in the residential area. St Joseph is home to Whirlpool Corp.
We also got a good view of the river & railroad swing bridge from the main highway 63 which crosses the river.

Once across the river, we first went to the Lake Michigan waterfront. We discovered the following ;
1. A large waterpark fountain for kids, sponsored by Whirlpool
2. A nice beach
3. A Railroad (functional Amtrak RR with touristy gift shops & pizza station).
4. An area honoring a former waterfront amusement park from the 1950’s (Silver Beach)

The historic amusement park area had an indoor carousel, historic movies of days long passed, and many things for kids to do
Carousel Video = https://youtu.be/BqkGbcbKJRg
Historic Silver Beach Amusement Park Video = https://youtu.be/Rmoo-xx6jhI

The park originally opened in 1893, saw its hey day in the 60’s, and closed in the 1973. Do you think the kids in the video look like Brenda, Kenny, and Paula ?

After touring the Silver Beach waterfront area, we went to the downtown.
What we noticed initially was all the street art work shaped like Fish, similar to the Tigers street artwork located in Detroit. It was charity based, but we are not sure what the fundraiser was for.

We also saw the Clark Griswald mobile. If you are taking the family cross country, this ole family truckster is the vehicle for you !

We then strolled the downtown shops & looked for restaurants for dinner later that night

We noticed a nice rooftop area, so we went to the top and found an awesome bar combined with a relatively high class restaurant one floor lower. The restaurant/bar was named “RyeBelles”. It was about 3pm at that time so we went back to the boat to clean up for our fancy dinner, and tried to find an Uber or Cab with no success. The marina guys go home at 5pm so we could not pester them for a ride. So we took our second 20min ride into town (+ 20min back). Nellie’s (and my) legs/butts were very sore but it was worth it. RyeBelles was an awesome place. We had a nice rooftop drink, then went downstairs to the main restaurant and had an awesome dinner (NY Strip w/ mushrooms and apple pieces for Mike & Shrimp pasta for Jonell). Both meals were very very good, and the bill was only $58 bucks with two beers (I love a bargain).

We ended the night watching the Tigers on the marina TV in the courtesy room.
Tigers lost again, but it was a fun day in St Joseph.

 

Well, we are really starting to like these “Havens”.
Grand Haven was wonderful, and now South Haven is maybe even nicer.
Grand Haven is listed at a population of 11,000 and South Haven about 4,400.
Both have wonderful riverfronts & downtowns.

Upon arrival into South Haven on Friday afternoon, the ole AGLCA burgee brought in more new friends. Ken & Chris Smyth from Schwartz Creek Michigan noticed the flag. They are in the dreaming/planning phase for potential Looping. They had a lot of questions for us & we picked their brains about western Michigan coastal cities. We had dinner with them at Idler Riverboat Bar & Grill, an old moored boat being used as a waterfront restaurant. The area around the Idler Riverboat is called Old Harbor Village, loaded up with the usual restaurants, bars & gift shops. This was right on the waterfront, there is also a separate large downtown area.

We finished Friday night with a waterfront stroll past the many marinas, the South Haven Yacht Club was very finely manicured with lots of grass and paved patios at each set of slips.

On Saturday we began the day with a 3 mile bike trip to the grocery store to re-provision on supplies. We spent the afternoon at the beach, we ate dinner at the South Haven famous “Captain Lou’s”, and Mike ended the night with a last minute walk-in ticket to the Mayweather/McGregor fight at the Black River Tavern (Nellie did not want to go to the fight, she went clothes shopping and then watched Netflicks reruns of NCIS until Mike returned home at about 1am).

Sunday was a somewhat blasé’ day, with Mike suffering a slight headache, Jonell going shopping, and both of us going to the local movie theater. We saw the action movie Assassin’s Bodyguard with Ryan Reynolds & Samuel L. Jackson. Get this – two movie tickets, small popcorn, and medium diet coke = $10 (I love bargains).

Today/Monday was also a rainy/dreary day.
I went to the local marine store to replace the deck brush I dropped into the boat slip while washing the hull ($90 mistake).
We then worked on the boat; Mike buffed & waxed the bow pulpit (not done in Detroit) & Nellie cleaned the interior and washed clothes.

We ended the day at the South Haven famous “Clementines” restaurant. On the weekends, there was a 2 hour wait to get in. We were able to walk-in without wait tonight. Not sure about the fuss, the food was pretty good, not great, ambiance & prices were good.

Time for Gettin’ Loooped to go nite nite

Rainy day in Grand Haven today, good time for a blog update !
Grand Haven was an awesome city. Much larger than some of the previous smaller towns of Frankfort & Leland. Grand Haven proudly displays its “Coast Guard City USA” designation, an honorary designation by the CG intended to recognize civilian communities of special importance to the U.S. Coast Guard.

They also advertise their winter friendliness with heated sidewalks within a 3 block radius of the downtown .
So much to do, the city features many touristy things to do and see, here is the list of the 15 things Jonell and I saw & did  !

1. Bike rides along the very long Grand River boardwalk, the downtown, and the Beach at the Grand Haven State Park (& Beach).

2. Went on the Trolley Car

3. Ate Corndogs at the Grand Haven famous “Pronto Pups Corndog Stand”

4. Had dinner at famous “Snug Harbor” on the Grand River and watched a large freighter pass.

5. Went to the Eternal Flame Veterans Memorial.

6. Had Burritos at the Grand Haven famous “Butch’s Beach Burritos Stand”

7. Pierre Marquette Railroad Museum

8. Coffee & Awesome Cinnamon Rolls at the Grand Haven famous “Morning Star Café”

9. Went to the South Pier Lighthouse.

10. Rode bikes and looked at houses/churches, Parks, etc

11. Biked to Charter Boat Row (Trolley guy says -largest Fleet in one spot in Michigan ?)

12. Watched 2 outdoor bands, free waterfront entertainment – nice  !

Band #2 ; Waterfront entertainment on a Wednesday night, supposed to be another band tonight
Click on the link = https://youtu.be/P9n49qsSn8w

13. Nellie got her nails all prettied up at the Nail Haven (lots of shops here end in the word  “Haven”).

14. Ate dinner at the Grand Haven famous Kirby House (3 restaurants & a nightclub).

15. But the best touristy treat was watching the Grand Haven Musical Fountain/Light Show. The show is a mini Bellagio fountain display which happened across the river, up in the hills, DIRECTLY ACROSS FROM OUR BOAT SLIP !


Click on the video link = https://youtu.be/g4ERKssT0Og

 

 

Ludington was a great stop for us.
The city is beautiful, they have flower lined streets, a beautiful park surrounding the harbor, a couple beautiful marinas, a wide assortment of restaurants, bars, gift shops.
The city park on the water also had many Ludington history based bronze statues.
Overall a beautiful place with nice folks.

On Saturday, Ludington had a very large Craft Beer Festival in a large park a bike ride away from the marinas. We attended the beer fest with Loopers we had met in Mackinaw; Tom/Sue Rushing (Tag Team) & Dennis/Dana Hann (Pharm Life). Tag Team & Pharm Life also introduced us to more Looper friends ; Steve/Teresa Lasher (Sanctuary), Pat/Cathy Deadwiley (Southern Cross), and Scott/Mary Haws (JaycieLynn). It was a token based system with easily over 100 varieties of beer available. Six tokens for $30, 1 token = 4oz sample , Nellie shared her tokens with me & still got blasted.

On Sunday;  we did laundry, rode bikes to see the town, went to the beach, & ate subway at the harbor park while watching the car ferry Badger return to its Ludington port. The ferry docks by dropping its anchor and pivoting about the anchor to do a 180 turn before backing in to the pier. The process is pretty cool to watch.

Badger Car Ferry Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD5b6gkjT6A

We arrived from Leland on Monday, August 14.
Monday night we visited new friends Bill & Deborah, who we had originally met in Bay Harbor, then again in Leland.
Bill & Deborah are from Gross Pointe, but keep their sailboat at Bay Harbor.
They are a wonderful couple we hope to stay in touch with. We spent 2-3 hours on their boat.

We spent Tuesday getting chores done prepping for the visit of our daughter Ashley & 1st mate Dave Lyman. Mike also got a much needed haircut, turning his Round Mop back into a Flat Top (Pat – I told the guy #2 on the sides & blend in the top. He did an ok job). Had to bike 2 miles to the shop & 2 miles back.

Ashley & Dave arrived about 3pm on Tuesday.
OMG – They arrived in Ashley’s 2nd car, the ole 1988 Dodge Omni that they had driven to Michigan in December. They flew into metro AP, got the Omni out of storage in Waterford (it started right up after 8 months) drove the Omni from Waterford Michigan to Frankfort Michigan, and plan to drive the Omni back to Oakland later this week. The car is an eyesore, but you can’t argue about it’s dependability, it just won’t quit.

We went for a walk to the beach & then dinner.
Nice to see the exuberance of youth again in our playful daughter.

Wednesday was beach day, we unloaded the dinghy and took it out on to Lake Michigan to the nearby beach.

 

Thursday was travel by Omni day. We had planned to go Looping from Frankfort to Manistee then Ludington while Ashley & Dave were with us, but very high winds (25mph w/ gusts to 40mph) grounded us. So we drove the Omni to Manistee & Ludington. The Omni has no rear seats, so we had to improvise by using the Gettin’ Looped beach chairs, a going away gift from lifelong pal Dave Noffert (I apologize to my safety friends at FCA for this careless activity).

The day in Manistee & Ludington was rainy/windy. In Manistee we dropped Nellie off at the local Casino (no she did not win big, no bigger boat).
Ashley, Dave, and I had lunch in Manistee and walked the downtown. Jonell & I will now skip Manistee and go directly to Ludington hopefully on Saturday after Ashley & Dave depart, if the winds die down as predicted by Sailflow. Manistee was another nice northern Michigan town. It is along the Manistee river which is relatively narrow, but apparently still sees large freighter traffic (would have liked to seen that).

After Manistee, we took the Omni to Ludington, home of the Badger car ferry which travels from Ludington to Manitowoc Wisconsin. Ashley & Dave purchased ferry tickets for their return trip home. They wish to take the northern route from Michigan back to Oakland. The car ferry will take 10-12 hours off of their trip.

We then went for a walk on the VERY LONG Ludington breakwall, and climbed to the top of the North Breakwall Lighthouse.

Lighthouse Breakwall Slow Motion Video compliments of Ashley   https://youtu.be/7IfugMszHWs

We ended the night back in Frankfort with a nice dinner, strolled the downtown Frankfort, watched a BEAUTIFUL RAINBOW after dinner, checked out the courtesy room at our Jacobsen’s Marina, and got back to the boat on a  “calm before the storm” peaceful dock walk before the winds kicked up again at night.

 

The trip from Bay Harbor was a little bumpy (20mph winds) . The good news is that I am really getting to “feel” the Viking. It is starting to feel like a smaller boat finally. Riding the waves was starting to feel more like the ole 24ft Four Winns.

Leland is only Port #12, but it may now be our favorite port so far.
The marina is in great shape, the courtesy room is new/clean, everyone is super friendly.
Nothing really to speak of, it’s just a very nice small Lake Michigan town. It’s history is of a fishing village, and the town today is a combination of fishing work boats & tourism.

There is a small section of the town known as Fishtown, with fish stores, cheese shops, candy shops, hand crafted stores, restaurants, gift stores, etc.

There are a handful of restaurants & pubs. One of the places was recommended to us by blog followers, and FCA co-worker Andy & Lynn Hulway. They recommended a place called Rick’s Cafe.
Rick’s Cafe is located along the Leland River and has a Key West tiki-hut theme.

Andy & Lynn said you have to go there for the “Chubby Mary”.
We went for a late breakfast and ordered the Chubby Mary with some chips/salza, expecting a bloody Mary – but got a little surprise.
A bloody Mary with a fish !

Overall the Chubby Mary was in fact a fine drink/food sensation & experience.

We then went to the beach for the afternoon, came back and washed the boat, and ended the day meeting some new sailboat friends we had first met in Bay Harbor, and new Looper couple #9.

The western Michigan boating travel circuit is smaller than one would think. The next stop for Mike/Jonell, Bill/Deborah, and Tim/Alice is Frankfort.  Also our previous Looper friends from Mackinaw City, who we ran into in Charlevoix – Tag Team & Pharm Team will right behind us coming to Leland next , then Frankfort. We have stayed in touch by phone with Tag Team (Tom & Sue Ann from Texas).

The other big update – our daughter Ashley & 1st mate Dave will be joining us for a week, meeting us at our next stop in Frankfort Michigan on Tuesday.

Oh, by the way – my bride continues to take some darn nice photos with her fancy new smart phone, while I am not around.

In spite of the crappy/dreary weather & a wrenched back, the Harbor Springs stop turned out to be a great stop, thanks to our friends Shannon & Scott Knight. Shannon worked with me on the re-introduction of the Fiat brand to the USA via the Fiat 500.
Shannon’s folks own a cottage in Boyne City, Shannon actively follows the blog, and called with a surprise proposal of meeting us yesterday while they were up north on a long weekend visiting their folks.
Shannon & Scott gave us our 2nd Ferris Buehler’s day off by car (1st was Doug/Sharolyn on Beaver Isl).
In one afternoon/night we were able to; 1) Have drinks aboard Getting Looped, 2) visit downtown Charlevoix, 3) see the Four Winns estate from across the bay on Lake Charlevoix, 4) run into our new Looper friends from Mackinaw Tag Team & Pharm Team, 5) have dinner on the deck of the Landing Restaurant, 6) take the Ironton cable Ferry across the south arm of Lake Charlevoix, 7) have drinks in Boyne City at Stiggs, 7) meet up with co-worker Brian Agar, and 8) end the night by picking up and safely returning to home a very drunk young female who had gotten lost from the campgrounds she was staying at. She was on the side of the road attempting to flag down a good Samaritan (Shannon to the rescue).
What a night !

Sorry – No photos of the totally intoxicated girl on the side of the road !

Oh, by the way – there were some nice homes in Bay Harbor.

Oh, by the way #2, the 1st ever visit to the chiropractor worked pretty good. 50-60% improvement yesterday. Up to 70-80% today. Thx for all the well wishes.

Quick update from yesterday.
Good News, Bad News day.

Good News
We met an awesome new couple of friends, Oat & Rosemary Whitney.
Originally from Ohio, currently live in Denver, and boat on Lake Michigan every summer.
They were a wealth of knowledge for us on our upcoming plans for the west coast of Michigan.
Oat also is a big time sailor, having completed the Chicago to Mackinac Race 2 times.

Bad News & Good News
Thursday was a planned travel day from Harbor Springs to Bay Harbor.
Our departure from Harbor Springs was delayed due to an electrical issue with one of the 50A power cords. We lost line 2 with no power after going to the beach on Wednesday and returning to no Air Conditioning. We called the Irish Boat Shop (with name like Murphree, I figured they were ok) and scheduled service. They had to order a connector which did not arrive until noon Thursday, the tech Ryan arrived about 3pm, and we were under way at 5pm. Many thanks to Harbormaster Mike Johnson at Harbor Springs, who let us stay way past the 11am checkout, even with the next customer waiting for the slip on the courtesy wall.
Irish Boat Shop repair tech Ryan was great , explaining to us what he was doing, showing us the bad ground in the 50A cable & corroded wiring in the Y-splitter. I now know how to do this boat task too.

Back under way with a late 5pm start to Bay Harbor (thanks again Ryan, he is now following the blog).
The good news is that it was just across Little Traverse Bay, 6 miles away.

Bay Harbor claims via Motor Boating magazine, that they are one of the top 10 boating destinations in the USA. First impressions don’t support that, need to do more discovery in this bay & area. I expected grand homes & mega yachts, what we have seen so far is really nice homes & boats similar/smaller than Harbor Springs.
We were assigned a very nice slip next to the fishing charter boat – but it looks like the charter guy is good at his job.

Oh by the way it’s the only marina so far with cable TV, 30 stations (we have had several marinas with no air stations & only Netflicks or radio at night).

Bad News
During our tie up at Bay Harbor, I wrenched my back badly – heading off to my first chiropractor visit in my life this morning. Dock Consultant Jerry made the appointment and will be taking me to the Doc (1st marina with a “dock consultant”) .
Joe, Michael, Kurt, Rod, Nellie – I now feel your pain, don’t know how you deal with it.
Jake – get that degree right soon, I may need you !

The travel guides say this about Harbor Springs;
Harbor Springs is a city and resort community in Emmet County Michigan. Harbor Springs is in a sheltered bay on the north shore of the Little Traverse Bay on Lake Michigan. The Little Traverse Lighthouse is a historic lighthouse on the Harbor Point peninsula, which shelters the deepest natural harbor on the Great Lakes.

For Jonell & I , Harbor Springs means ; Nice Boats & Nice Homes with lots of flowers (not mansions, but pretty homes). There is also a nice shopping/restaurant district on “of course” the streets of Main & State streets.

Boats

Hey, how did that last one get in the marina ???

Homes
Not really mega-mansions, but darn nice houses.
Lots of flowers

Front Yard Waterfalls
Several of the houses on the bay had stone lined waterfalls in their front yards.
Water pulled from the bay with a pump & drains back to the bay via 1 ft round pipe which passes from the front yard under the sidewalk & street, back to the bay.

We went to Beaver Island to meet up with Doug Edgar & 1st mate Sharolyn.
Doug Edgar is the father of one of my former co-workers at FCA (Ashley Edgar).
Doug is also the Police Chief of Beaver Island.

Although Beaver Island is known today for its beaches, forests, recreational harbor, and seclusion, at one time it was the site of a unique Mormon kingdom. The kingdom led by the one of the founders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints James J. Strang, along with  the Latter Day Saint movement led by Brigham Young.

Doug & Sharolyn treated us to a Ferris Buehler’s day off tour of Beaver Island !
We saw the following ;
* The house & Tombstone of Protar, beloved acting doctor on Beaver Island in the 1800’s
* The Big Rock
* The Big Tree – Largest Birch tree in Michigan ??
* The new Airport
* Doug’s new 1970’s vintage Jeep J10 (fully operational, any bidders ? )
* The Marsh
* The Beach
* The 1800’s Jail
* A wonderful piece of property called the Boathouse, on a finely manicured garden piece of land with thousands of variety of Hosta plants. We also learned the owner of the property lives in Royal oak at 13-1/2 & Main, just south of Clawson. The house has been moved 2 times since it’s build in the 1800’s.
* The Circle-M restaurant, another 1800’s vintage house converted into a restaurant.
* There were more stops, I just did not take good enough notes

The night ended with Michael going to bed & Nellie seeing a beautiful Full Moon shining off of the water (how romantic) !