I took a walk on the state park beach after making camp, and took some snapshots. It’s nothing spectacular, just your usual lovely sandy Michigan beach with dune grass and trees and thistles and stones and gulls… one tends to take these things for granted. 🙂 Not so the German couple with their two toddlers, for whom it was an exotic vacation in a faraway land.
A well recommended restaurant very nearby was Mim’s Mediterranean Grill. The traffic on M119/US31 (the road between the park and Petoskey itself) is crazy fast and heavy, so the less of that the better. Expecting a standard sit-down restaurant it turns out to more like fast food… but good. I had chicken shawarma (like the Avengers had in the movie). It’s a brightly decorated converted house. I’d say “cozy” but the neon goldenrod walls don’t really fit that.
After supper I explored the Petoskey waterfront. The first time I came through here 10 years ago (by car) I thought it didn’t have one, or a proper downtown. US31 takes you right past the bay with scarcely a stoplight, and if you miss the unassuming turnoff for downtown, or the road that leads to the marina, you’ve passed it and there’s no obvious way to go back. I had the same experience three years ago when I came through on my way up the Lakeshore. This time I had the time, and was determined to find them, such as they are.
They are pretty nice, it turns out. Heading west from the park (the opposite direction from my previous visits) I pulled off at Sunset Park, which looked like a token “scenic lookout” plot of land with a wooden platform overlooking Little Traverse Bay. Except the platform was really a tall staircase leading down to Bayfront Park. And the marina. And the pier. Which are all worth a visit if you can find them. (There’s another entrance further into town. Near the turnoff for downtown, which is ironically on the hill above US31 and the marina.)
The rain has dissipated and drifted south, leaving cloudy skies but no rain. Tomorrow is forecast to be dry. And importantly: not much wind. Because I’ve got a bridge to cross.
