Muskegon

Our month in Muskegon was not all work and no play.  There was plenty going on to keep us entertained – from the Irish Music Festival to the season launch party at Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts.

The Irish Music Festival, a four-day long party celebrating Irish heritage and music, took place at Muskegon’s Heritage Landing.  With six large stages throughout the park, there was plenty of foot-stomping, high energy entertainment everywhere on Friday evening.  And at the Dingle Peninsula there was a preview of the Highland Games that would take place all day Saturday.

Highland Games competitors, both male and female, take part in stone throw, hammer toss, sheaf toss, and the ever-popular caber toss.  The caber toss is said to have begun long ago as a friendly competition between lumberjacks tossing logs across narrow creeks.  The caber is a 19-foot long pole weighing about 175 pounds.  The tosser lifts the caber vertically, balances it on his shoulder, and attempts to toss the pole end-over-end so that it falls directly across from him in a straight line.  Distance is not important – the straightness of the caber’s fall is.  We watched many attempts at the toss but saw few straight tosses, although one of the slightly-built woman competitors (using a shorter and lighter caber) had some success.

Cyber toss

If the caber toss wasn’t tough enough, there was the sheaf toss where the competitor uses a pitchfork to hurl a heavy burlap bag over a horizontal bar above and slightly behind his head.  I would be concerned that the heavy sheaf would come right down and conk me on the head, so I refrained from that competition too!

 Meanwhile, back at Great Lakes Marina, one of the sailboaters was busy playing with his drone and posted this picture on the marina’s Facebook page.  It gives you a sense of just how big this place is – 280 slips big!

Great Lakes Marina

The Frauenthal Center, formerly known as the Michigan Theater, was built in 1929 as a theater for “100% all talking motion pictures” by Muskegon’s own movie mogul, Paul Shlossman.  On opening day, it received rave reviews touting it as the best Michigan theater outside of Detroit.  But unfortunately, like many of the theaters of this time period, it fell into disrepair and almost met the wrecking ball in the 1970’s.  Enter Mr. Frauenthal, a local industrialist, whose gift to the Community Foundation was used to purchase and revamp the entire block of West Western Avenue where the theater was located.  The Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts was born!

 

On Wednesday, September 20^th, the Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts threw open its doors for a big Season Launch party to which the entire community was invited.  We sampled the free appetizers provided by many local restaurants and the cash bar at Smash Bistro while enjoying a sneak preview of My Way (the Frank Sinatra musical tribute), a short performance by the a Capella group B Sharp, a behind the scenes tour of the theater complex and much more entertainment both inside and outside this gorgeous venue.

 

 

Outside the Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts is a life-size bronze sculpture of silent film comedian Buster Keaton. The sculpture which originally sat outside the Hollywood Entertainment Museum in Los Angeles was purchased and moved to its current location in 2010.  So what is the Buster Keaton – Muskegon connection?  Keaton’s father was a vaudeville entertainer who established a show biz enclave, The Actor’s Colony, in the Bluffton section of Muskegon in the early 1900’s and Buster spent many summers there as a child.

The calendar may say Fall, but the temperatures here in Muskegon are far from Fall-like.  In fact, we are experiencing the warmest weather of our cruise!?!?  Local meteorologists are saying that over the next few days, these temperatures will be 15⁰ above normal!  We have resorted to running the air conditioners – probably only the second or third time this summer that we have had to do so.

Another highlight of our stop in Muskegon was a road trip to Midland where we had the pleasure of living from January of 1981 through February of 1985.  We made contact with our old next-door neighbors, the Pecks, and met up with Bruce and Carol for delightful reminiscing about the good old days and our ‘little’ kids who are now between 35 and 50 years old!  Midland has changed a lot over the past 30+ years and we barely recognized much of it but the old neighborhood was still looking good.



The old homestead at 717 Columbia Road, Midland



And a short term stay here at 4402 Castle Drive, Midland
 

 

The morning of October 1^st generated a bit of excitement in the marina. Just down Lakeshore Drive from Great Lakes Marina is the 120-acre site of the abandoned Sappi Fine Paper Mill.  Opened in 1900 on the southern shore of Muskegon Lake, the paper mill ceased operations in 2009.  The factory itself was imploded in 2013 and the 200-foot ‘power stack number 1’ came down in July of this year. The recovery boiler chimney came down as scheduled at 9AM!  Now that the last vestiges of the paper mill have been demolished, the site will undergo sweeping redevelopment as Windward Pointe with, as you can probably guess, condos! restaurants! retail shops! and maybe another marina!

 

 

 

Rounding out our stay in Muskegon, we enjoyed dinner at Smash Bistro with John and Karen, friends from Great Loop 2002; we had a delicious lunch prepared by the students at the Culinary Institute of Michigan at Baker College; we spent a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon strolling through Grand Haven's ArtWalk. 

Grand Haven ArtWalk entertainment

 



But all good things must come to an end.  So on October 3^rd, Lazy W and crew ended another great cruising season.  Lazy W was pulled out of the water and trucked into her winter storage spot – this time with a FOR SALE sign on her bow.  Who knows what will happen next??



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Petoskey to Muskegon

We left Mackinaw City under less than ideal weather conditions but conditions on the Straits of Mackinac were beautifully calm.  We could not complain at all about the cruise to Petoskey on Little Traverse Bay.  Upon our arrival at the marina, the sun was shining making it a perfect day to explore downtown Petoskey.  The Crooked Tree Arts Center, housed in a former church originally constructed in 1890, was exhibiting a large collection of photographs by Ansel Adams.

 

 

Downtown Petoskey is a pretty vibrant town with lots of shopping, restaurants, coffee shops and pubs to choose from.  Frank chose Beards Brewery and enjoyed the beer sampling there but passed up the opportunity to buy some gnarly-looking yarn beards in the gift shop.

We originally planned to spend just one day in Petoskey but then we learned about Little Traverse Wheelway, a 26-mile paved trail that connects the towns of Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Charlevoix.  On day two we hopped on the bikes and pedaled ten miles to Harbor Springs where the big boats dock at the Municipal Marina.

 

It was hard to miss the 196-foot yacht Blue Moon available for charter at $395,000 a week (yes, a week) plus expenses!  She boasts six luxurious staterooms, two gyms, several dining areas and a glass elevator.  For playtime fun – two tenders (one classic 28-foot Riva and one 25-foot Chris Craft), three kayaks, two WaveRunners, paddleboards, fishing and snorkeling gear, water skis, etc.  And a crew of 15 to cater to your every need.

After ogling the boats and wandering through downtown Harbor Springs we headed back to Petoskey and our tiny 43-foot yacht.  As we neared the marina we spied this little waterfall along the Wheelway.

The NOAA forecasts for Lake Michigan over the Labor Day weekend were quite ominous with waves approaching eight feet!  It was time for us to make our move further south before the lake turned ugly. 

Approaching Charlevoix Bridge Street Bridge across the Pine River

 My all-time favorite stop on Lake Michigan is Charlevoix.  It is an easy 18-mile cruise west of Petoskey through Little Traverse Bay - especially when the weather cooperates!  We tried to plan our arrival for 11:30 in order to make the opening of the Bridge Street Bridge.  As we got closer to Charlevoix we realized that we might miss the opening by mere minutes and, if that was the case, we would be idling in the Pine River waiting for the noon time opening. That obviously did not appeal to the Captain - he really pushed Lazy W to her limits during the last ten minutes of the cruise and the bridge began to open just as we made our approach. Lucky us!

 

Early morning along Lake Charlevoix

Charlevoix is a popular destination for both boaters and tourists – its population increases from 2,500 to 30,000 in the summer.  The municipal marina was booked for Labor Day weekend and we could only stay Thursday night.  There would be time to browse the farmer’s market where I finally found the best tomatoes of the summer and to reprovision at the grocery store but no time for a walking tour of the unique hobbit-like homes that make Charlevoix so special to visit.  But since we have toured these homes on both our previous visits, I can’t complain too loudly.

Leaving Charlevoix

Early morning September 1^st we were back on the lake heading to Leland Harbor on the Leelanau Peninsula.   Our last visit here was fifteen years ago and while the marina has been revamped the town of Leland looks pretty much the same as I remember it. 

Leland River

Along the Leland River is historic Fishtown, one of the last working and thriving fishing districts on the Great Lakes. Some of the old ice and fish shanties have been converted into restaurants and specialty gift shops. We did the requisite browsing before finding the Verterra Winery Tasting Room.  In less than an hour in town we had, as Frank says, “used this place up.”  Luckily we had one more day of decent cruising weather ahead of us before the front moves through that will put the brakes on any cruising for up to four days.  Even the dockmaster at Leland Harbor said that Leland is not the place to have to spend four days weathering the coming wind storm!

Saturday morning we were on the move just as the sun was coming up in Leland.  The NOAA forecast wasn’t calling for a great day on Lake Michigan (late morning waves less than 2 feet) but these fair weather boaters decided it was nothing we couldn’t handle since we would be to Frankfort before the waves kicked up.  WRONG! 

As we rounded Sleeping Bear Point and the massive dunes of Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore came into view, the waves began to pummel Lazy W’s bow and continued to pummel us for the remainder of the cruise to Frankfort!  We looked at each other in disbelief as we bucked our way through wave after wave after wave.  We were relieved to finally espy the beacons marking the entrance to Frankfort but angst set in as we saw the waves crashing over the breakwall.  Things calmed down as we proceeded down Betsie Lake to our slip at the municipal marina.  September 2^nd gets the award for most unpleasant cruise of the season and the NOAA forecast gets the award for most misleading of the season!

 

Having weathered a storm in Frankfort years ago, we knew that the municipal marina is not the calmest port in windy conditions.  The waves come barreling off Lake Michigan and directly down Lake Betsie where the boats are docked with their bows perpendicular to the shore, perfectly positioned to rock side to side in even the slightest breeze. So we spent an inordinate amount of time securing Lazy W at the dock and hoped we would not have to make too many adjustments to lines and fenders over the next few days.  (The Captain really doesn’t like getting up in the dark to make those adjustments!)

By 3:30 we had calmed down enough to head over to Villa Marine, a sports bar on Main Street, to catch the kickoff of the University of Michigan opening football game of the season.  After a somewhat sloppy start, Michigan got its act together and beat Florida 33-17.  The day wasn’t a complete flop after all!

Rainbow over Betsie Lake - day four in Frankfort waiting for calmer conditions on Lake Michigan

 

Years ago when we embarked on the Great Loop aboard our Mainship Sea Venture, a common belief was that boaters should aim to be off Lake Michigan by Labor Day.  Many boaters attributed this to the “myth” that the lake was unpredictable and prone to wind storms for much of the months of September and October.  Well, we are here to tell you that the myth has become a reality!  We are tired of reading warnings such as this posted for the lake from Frankfort to Ludington, our next stop -Northwest winds of 10 to 20 knots will hold waves at 3 to 5 feet through late this evening.  This is not what fair weather boaters want to see!  (In fairness to the lake, much of this is due to the remnants of Hurricane Harvey.)

It looks so pretty out there on Lake Michigan...

...or maybe not!

 

While we were griping about the weather that kept us in Frankfort for the past six days, we received an email from John and Karen Siscoe.  It contained a link to a very recent news article concerning the Apostle Islands where we anchored off Rocky Island last month and it made us realize that we really had very little to complain about!  Here is a portion of the article from the Duluth News Tribune:

 

OUT OF NOWHERE:  Furious winds, waves ground several vessels in the Apostle Islands

By Brady Slater on September 6, 2017

Harrowing overnight waves and winds late Sunday into Monday left several boats beached, grounded and even partially sunk in the outer Apostle Islands, where storm conditions persisted into the next day and even thwarted some of the salvage effort.  

No one was injured, but Capt. Tucker Culberson of Black Warrior Marine / TowBoat U.S. in Bayfield said he was taking another 25-mile jaunt Wednesday to retrieve the last of eight boats marooned following a period of reported 6- to 8-foot Lake Superior waves that sprung up at the start of Monday’s Labor Day holiday.

Several boats had been anchored peacefully on the eastern sides of the islands’ outer rim of Sand, Rocky and Outer islands on Sunday. A westerly breeze was keeping them company, Culberson said, when conditions drastically changed.

“Two storms blew everyone apart,” Culberson said. “They came through as a really big windline and when it shifted north-northeast that was the problem.”

Chris Smith, chief ranger of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, said the intensity of the storms was sudden and unexpected.  “It’s the nature of the beast sometimes with Lake Superior,” he said. “These squalls seemingly came out of nowhere.”  

Boats dragged anchor as winds blew the private vessels onto beaches, rocks and into thickets of trees overhanging the waters of Lake Superior. Winds were reportedly up to 35 mph within the island chain and up to twice as fast out on the lake, enough to stir the waters into a boat-shoving frenzy.  

_______________________________________



After a full week at the dock in Frankfort, Lake Michigan finally settled down and we were on our way to Ludington.  The water was pleasantly calm for the entire 50-mile cruise – what a relief!

 

 

S.S. Badger arrives in Ludingon



 

The S.S. Badger is a passenger/car ferry that make 450 crossings of Lake Michigan per season between Ludington, Michigan and Manitowoc, Wisconsin.  Built in 1953 for the primary purpose of transporting railroad freight cars across the lake, the Badger is the only coal-fired steamship in operation in the United States.  In 1991, the Badger was repurposed and ever since she has been ferrying leisure passengers and their vehicles sixty miles across the lake in four hours (twice as fast as Lazy W).  She is 410 feet long and can carry 600 passengers and up to 180 vehicles; each of her two anchors weighs 7,000 pounds; her propulsion system has been designated a mechanical engineering landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.  In 2016, the Department of the Interior designated the ferry a National Historic Landmark.  It is always an awesome sight to watch the Badger enter the harbor in Ludington, noisily drop anchor and then pivot around to the dock.

 

I was anxious to make Muskegon before any other bad weather got Lake Michigan riled up again, so we left the dock the next morning.  The start of the cruise was smooth going but the waves picked up some as we passed Little Sable Point.  Luckily the waves were nothing like what we experienced heading to Frankfort and our final cruise of the season was quite comfortable.

 

A stoic Captain at the helm for the last cruise of the season

 

Approaching Muskegon

We are now safely docked at Great Lakes Marina.  Along with reminiscing about the great summer we had on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior, we are busy prepping Lazy W FOR SALE!  One of the crew is happier about this than the other and I am sure you can guess who is who…

 

Sunset over Lake Michigan at Frankfort
 

 

 

Sault Ste. Marie to Mackinaw City

Weather delays seem to be the name of the game as we continue on our way back to Muskegon.  Unrelenting winds lead to two full days of small craft advisories between Sault Ste. Marie and De Tour Village, our next stop.  Obviously these advisories do not deter the upbound and downbound freighter traffic transiting the Soo Locks – 17 vessels arrived on Monday, 16 on Tuesday.   Pearl Mist, a 210-passenger cruise ship and Lake Guardian, a Great Lakes monitoring and research vessel owned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, docked along the sea wall on Tuesday.




Boat traffic along the St. Marys River as seen from our slip in George Kemp Marina – the cruise ship Pearl Mist is docked along the sea wall forward of the stern of the museum ship Valley Camp  as a Canada Steamship Line freighter makes its way upbound to the nearby American Soo Lock.  In addition to Lazy W, there are two other boats in the marina flying the AGLCA burgee - Sandrobber and Act III.

 

We were relieved to wake up to gentle breezes rather than gusty winds and by 7:30 AM on a chilly August 24^th we were leaving Sault Ste. Marie behind.  As we left the marina we noticed that there was one upbound laker waiting to enter the American Soo Lock and one downbound waiting to exit the same lock.  For now, we would be comfortably ahead of that laker.  And as we traveled along the St. Marys River and through the rock cut at West Neebish Channel we were cruising at 10.9 knots!  Catch us if you can, downbound laker!

As we passed Paradise Point we noticed what appeared to be an abandoned freighter with a rusty wheelhouse close to the shore.  We both remembered seeing a freighter in this same spot as we transited this area last year and again last month.  We were curious as to what was going on over there at DeTour Dock Company and decided to investigate.

We arrived at DeTour Harbor Marina around lunch time.  After securing Lazy W in her slip we proceeded to the dock master’s office to register.  Frank inquired about the abandoned freighter and was told by the Michigan DNR personnel that while it may look like the same ship from our last visit it wasn’t!  It was a different freighter recently in for repairs at DeTour Dock Company.  I was not convinced and, after some online research, discovered that the Interlake Steamship Company’s John Sherwin has been out of service since 1981 and has been at DeTour for at least three years!!  So much for local knowledge…

The weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow night calls for patchy frost!?!?  This is summer in Upper Michigan!

Next stop - Cheboygan, the southern gateway to the Straits of Mackinac, was an important 19^th century lumber town on Lake Huron.  We docked at Walstrom Marine which was already operating under winter business hours!?!? 

Sculpture depicting Lake Huron at Cheboygan's Ottawa Park

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant - on Main Street In Cheboygan

 

A short fourteen-mile cruise northwest of Cheboygan brought us to Mackinaw City.  Its roots go back to the 1600’s when it was a French fur trading post and to the 1700’s when it was a British fortress.  Today it is a bustling summer resort serving as a gateway to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and the ever popular Mackinac Island.  We hadn’t seen this many people in one place since we were docked in Milwaukee over two months ago!

The 136 slips of the Straits State Harbor Marina were occupied by less than a dozen boats when we arrived on Saturday morning.  Billed as Michigan’s most eco-friendly harbor, it features eight power-producing windmills that supposedly generate all the power needs of the marina.  The windmills are a good visual for finding this harbor entrance since our charts seem to have omitted this marina’s location. 

The Conkling Heritage Waterfront Park was hosting the Premier Arts and Crafts Show.  In addition to all manner of crafts in the mitten-shape of the state of Michigan (Petoskey stone pendants, cribbage boards, cutting boards, pillows and mirrors), there were authors whose works were “Written in the Mitten.”  Frank was disappointed that Michael Carrier was sold out of copies of his thriller Murder at Whitefish Point only because we had been to Whitefish Point.

On Saturday hundreds of Corvette enthusiasts and their cars congregated at the Mackinaw Crossings Mall for the 28^th Annual Corvette Crossroads Auto Show.  It was a delight to mingle among the shiny sports cars that spanned the years from the mid-1950’s to 2017.  The grand finale of the show was the 7 PM parade of Corvettes down Huron Street as the cars made their way to a mass crossing of the Mackinac Bridge.

Not only do I now want a Corvette to take to next year’s parade, I also want to practice my princess wave with one of these hands!

 

A wine tasting at Michigan Trails Wine Store and another at Mackinaw Island Wine Store plus a concert in Conkling Heritage Waterfront Park topped off a great weekend in Mackinaw City.

Wine and beer tasting at Mackinaw Island Wine Store

Dan Fogelberg Tribute Band performs in Conkling Park.  It was a chilly night and many in the crowd were bundled in their heaviest fleece as well as blankets!

 

Intimidating wave action forecast along our projected route west kept us in Mackinaw City for a third day.  If you have to weather a delay, Mackinaw City is not a bad place to be.  Hoping that the sun would reappear after a long absence, we donned our rain gear and headed off down Huron Street to Michilimackinac State Park.  Along the way, we were awed by the landlubber perspective of the Mackinac Bridge spanning the Straits of Mackinac and connecting the two peninsulas of Michigan.  Millions of cars cross this bridge each year.  Pedestrians have an opportunity to walk across the five-mile bridge this Saturday during the 60^th Annual Labor Day Mackinac Bridge Walk.  Fifty-thousand people are expected to participate and preparations to deal with the crowd have already begun at Conkling Park as city workers erect what look like holding pens on the grassy lawn.

Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse was completed in 1892 to guide mariners through the treacherous Straits of Mackinac. Its flashing red light was visible for sixteen miles.  The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1957 when it was replaced by the navigation aids atop the newly built Mackinac Bridge.

Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse at Michilimackinac State Park

 And who could pass up lunch at Wienerlicious!?!

Wienerlicious boasts a 60-foot 7-ton hot dog with all the fixings on its roof