Charlevoix and M-119

Ever since we moved to Michigan, Scottie and I have talked about taking a trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula (U.P); however, we managed to hit up just about every other part of the state (except "the Thumb") before we finally put the U.P. trip on the books.  This year, it was an easy decision to pick the U.P.  And financially, we picked one of the best weeks to go up there.  Not only was school back in session (thus, we avoided all the family vacationers) but it was after Labor Day so we avoided a lot of the traffic driving to/from the U.P.  Plus, we conveniently planned our trip to end in Marquette coinciding with the Michigan Brewers Guild U.P. Beer Festival.

To ease the pain of driving 5+ hours in the car to get near the U.P., we decided to spend our first evening of vacation on Tuesday in Charlevoix, which was about a 4-hour drive from Birmingham.  We spent the night at the Macdougall House Bed & Breakfast in room #4, which the owner, Steve, upgraded us into!  With the bit of cold front passing through Michigan, Steve, had the fireplace going for us in the morning, so between the chirping sounds of fire burning and the wonderful aroma of coffee, I couldn't think of a better way to kick off our 5 days of activity!  Not to mention, Steve served us a fantastic breakfast of champions for our first long day of sightseeing and biking, which included a spread included his homemade granola, yogurt, and berries along with light cream cheese and berry stuffed french toast with some sausages on the side for protein!

We started the day with a one block drive to downtown Charlevoix to find the lighthouse.  We've actually seen quite a few of the lighthouses of Michigan, so when we hit up a new city, this is one of my top activities on our list (if I'm planning).  First on the list would be the local brewery or winery but Charlevoix didn't seem to have much to offer in that department plus it was still coffee hours for us as we left around 10am.

The Charlevoix South Pier Lighthouse was used to "facilitate boat traffic between Lake Michigan and Round Lake" (Lighthousefriends.com).  According to this lighhousefriends.com website, this lighthouse was traditionally painted red, but today it is white.  I am not sure if we just found a new lighthouse or what but this guy was clearly red.  We also took note of the exceptionally clear and blue water up here.  While we noticed this during our trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes and Manitou Island, it's always amazing to see it again and again.

We drove by the Earl Young "Mushroom" Homes in Charlevoix constructed starting in 1938.  This is the house on 302 Park Avenue.  More information about the homes can be found here.  Each home has unusual stone fireplaces, unique chimneys, cedar shake roofs, and some have his signature rooflines.  Various types of stone were used in all of Earl's buildings - local limestone, fieldstone, Ice Age glacial boulders found in Lake Michigan and farmers' fields, and Onaway stone.

From the homes, we decided to take a quick stroll along the shops of Main Street as well as a nice view of Round Lake from the Bridge St.  Round Lake dumps into Lake Charlevoix to the south and Lake Michigan to the North.  The downtown bridge over Round Lake opens only on the hour and half hour; however, we actually witnessed it open for a ferry that was going out to Beaver Island.  The drawbridge was built jointly by the Federal Government and the Michigan State Highway Department.

That was about all the fun we could muster in Charlevoix plus we had a busy day ahead of us.  Route 31 took us on a scenic road along Lake Michigan from Charlevoix to Petoskey.  As we drove through this quaint, beach town, we decided to press on towards Mackinaw City so we could catch a ferry over to Mackinac Island.

We decided to take a longer route over to Mackinaw City via M-119 which hugged Lake Michigan's coast line along the Little Traverse Bay.  This drive was featured in the Detroit Free Press in their column "You haven't lived in Michigan until..."  This route took us through a 20-mile stretch known as the Tunnel of Trees, a state-designated Scenic Heritage Route.  It was a narrow winding road through literally a tunnel of trees.  We noted that it probably would have been much better a week or two from now when the foliage was in really out.  More about this scenic route here.

More photos can be found in my photo album and here's a link to the map we used to guide us throughout the trip.