Charlevoix, Michigan, United StatesAmerica Inn by Wyndham Charlevoix, Charlevoix
I don't think I woke up until 7 am.
We had breakfast and packed up the wet tent pretty quickly - by 9 am. Since the dune climb was near the group campsite, we decided to do that first. At first Kara wasn't sure about this, but she was clearly a dune climber, urging me on. We were glad we did this first thing in the day because we realized it would get much hotter later and be less comfortable. I was daunted by dune after dune. I would think we reached the cliff viewpoint, only to be faced with another hill to climb. A tough sliding hill. But I was not the only one - there were lots of families with small kids being cajoled by their fathers usually, wittrh the "we're almost there" line. I would be trudging along with a 2 year old gaining on me. Finally after about 4 or 5 dunes climbed, we reached a crest only to see spread out before us a huge landscape of scraggly vegetation and the shoreline far, far away - so we turned back. One father said that they don't like quitters, but I overheard his wife saying she would stay back with the kids who didn't want to go any farther and then he shouted they were turning back. He also shouted a lot of other things. One mother yelled at her child not to run up the dune. Why? But there were some very pleasant people on the trail as well. Going back was much better but you couldn't really slide down the sand with long strides like in the Morocco High Atlas scree.
Then we went on the Pierre Stocking Scenic Drive on our way to the visitor center.
That was nice - through a beautiful cool forest with viewpoints along the way. Kara was driving and she skipped a few of the interpretive signs. I am still traumatized. Then we did the Empire Bluff walk. We met an older lady along the way who said she loved that trail and had seen bald-eagles there but when we got to the shore we didn't see any. There was a very nice shoreline view from the boardwalk at the end. It was a pleasant jaunt. I think then we made our way to the Visitor Center. In the parking lot, we tried to get reservations for the next few days. This is when Kara got dropped midway through the call while entering all our information. It was maddening. We went into the visitor center to see if they would help, but they said "we don't have anything to do with that, you need to go on-line or call." After what seemed ages, we ended up with two separate campsites for the Pictured Rocks National Park and an American Inn by Wyndham in Charlevoiz. It is so frustrating but I don't know that the alternative of doing everything in advance is better. You don't have flexibility and that makes you anxious to get places on time. We still have anxiety this way too, though. We checked out the visitor center exhbits and I learned something - but what was it? They showed different habitats - the maple/beech, the oak/pine, beach, and shrub with different plants and animals with huge claws.\\
From the visitor center we went to the marine museum which was small with a few buildings and a wonderful park docent at the boat house.
She told us more about the legendary DH Day for whom so many things are named. In Glen Haven where the museum is sited, he lived with his seven children. He was an entrepreneur and a man before his times. He was into logging but did not clear cut and replanted trees. When the need for wood fuel ended, he regrouped and started to buy up land. He planned a big resort with gold course and expensive homes - something like our florida gated communities I guess, but he died and the depression came and that ended the plans but the area is very cute. None of the buildings, including the coast guard station, were open - probably due to covid. Then we went in search of the Port Oneida Rural Historic Area. I got confused in my map reading - the GPS went crazy and instead of telling us to make a U-turn, it took us around the block - whose sides were almost 2 miles long - and one was a dirt road. We finally got to the area but found nothing organized but we did find tons of adolescent joggers - then they were loading a bus with them - Kara concluded that it must be a running camp.
From there we set the GPS for Charlevoix and got there without too much trouble, but did suspect the GPS had gone screwy again, but it turned out to be a closed road detour. Somehow I had put the hotel street number in wrong and we were led to the downtown Charlevoix wharf parking lot. Kara corrected the mistake and we were led out of the charming touristy downtown area to the boonies with nothing around when we spotted the hotel. The question was how to get there - it turned out the entrance was through the Lutheran church driveway. This hotel is a lot nicer - it is clean - there is light. There was only a slight mix-up when they were going to give me a key to the wrong room but that got cleared up. We had both gotten fixated on Mexican food and luckily the recommended Mexican restaurant was going to be open until 10 pm. When we got there, there was a wait of up to 45 minutes but the waitress said she would call the people waiting and give us a table if one of them didn't want it or couldn't be reached. She called, and I could hear the woman apologize that they ate elsewhere - we got our table and had a nice meal. They didn't have a lot of options - it was the patio - we had the sampler with chips ad salsas and tacos. I was underwhelmed with a sweet potato taco where the potatoes were crunchy and would have preferred a non-kale pesto, but all in all it was great.
We got back, organized a little, showered and were ready to sleep shortly after 11 pm. It had been a long day and I was really exhausted at this point.
2025-05-22