Wine, Weed, Water, & Woods – a Car Story

The title sums up our weekend car trip to Traverse City, Michigan. If you’re not familiar with this resort town, it’s located at the top of your pinky or ring finger on the Michigan glove. It’s true, people from Michigan tell you where they live by pointing to a spot on their hand. This city sits on a bay that opens to Lake Michigan. It’s basically surrounded by water and the lakes and rivers are clear and cold!

Traverse City has spectacular scenery, excellent restaurants, bike trails, boating, fishing, and really smooth roads. This area is known as Michigan’s Wine Coast. There are over 40 wineries, many of which have great views overlooking the vineyards and the bay. It’s not Napa Valley, but we really enjoyed wine tasting on the Old Mission Peninsula wine trail and brought some nice bottles home with us. 2BukChuk says he’s done with Napa. At least here you can get a parking spot, have better views, and after a couple of glasses, all wine tastes great!

If you’re not into wine, there are 17 local breweries in the Traverse City area. Lucky for us, I met a car guy from Traverse City while on the beach in Cancun last March. He has quite a few car stories of his own but he mentioned one of his sons owns Loco Boys, a new brewery and restaurant in Traverse City. We met up on the first day we arrived and the owner, Mike Mohrhardt, Jr., served up great tacos and a variety of lagers, ales, and stout.

 

He pointed out the beautiful mural on the wall is one painted from an old black and white photo of his grandmother.

 

 

 

 

While I tried other local breweries over the weekend, this place was our favorite by far! Thx Mike…

 

 

 

As for the weed, there are 16 marijuana dispensaries in Traverse City, which has a population of less than 16,000 people. More dispensaries than gas stations. Compare that to Ann Arbor, which has 27 dispensaries and a population of 125,000, of which 50,000 are college students. You do the math. Having 16 seems like overkill but then I haven’t spent a winter up there. We didn’t tour any of the dispensaries but I’m sure they have a nice selection of smoke and edibles. There’s something for everyone here.

I’m not used to driving on smooth roads in Michigan, so it was a pleasure to drive there. How do they manage to have roads without potholes? In southeast Michigan you could lose a Smart Car in one and nobody would notice. Maybe they don’t salt roads in the winter. Or possibly everyone leaves town during their long, frozen winters so the roads don’t get any use. 2BukChuk says that every Michigan governor owns a get-away-place up there and makes funding for roads up north a high priority.

I couldn’t help noticing the cars along the way, much to my girlfriend’s dismay. She has to put up with me stopping to talk to an owner or taking a photo during our travels. Anyhow, due to the fine weather, convertibles and T-Tops ruled. The Corvette was by far the most common sports car around Traverse City and what better place to drive one. I was envious but the thought of driving my convertible 4 hours on the highway killed that idea. Besides, we couldn’t have brought along our bikes.

 

Once out of the Detroit metro area, most of Michigan consists of trees.  I read that Michigan has the largest amount of forest growth in the nation. Commonly seen in Michigan is the sugar maple, followed by red maple, northern white cedar, red pine, and quaking aspen. Take a trip up north during October, you’ll see more fall colors than a Florida Christmas parade!

The catalyst for this weekend trip was to celebrate my cousin Anne’s birthday, which we did in style. Like many others, she chose to leave southern Michigan for Traverse City and would never move back. Now I know why. Happy Birthday Anne!