45th Anniversary (Part III) ...

Traverse City offers quite a spectrum of things to do and see and we managed to take in quite a few of them.  One particular evening, a Friday, we went to town and had dinner.  We had eaten in a microbrewery one evening so we decided to splurge and go to the expensive restaurant on the corner.  Well, other than being highly overpriced, the food wasn't all that great.  I've never been impressed with a big plate which has a tablespoon-sized portion of something called a main dish.  And the little squiggles of this and that on the top to dress up an obvious lack of portion size really left me wishing I were back at the microbrewery.  Even though the food wasn't cooked very well there, it was a much larger portion size (not BIG, just bigger).

When I ordered something I had never heard of before, I knew I was in trouble.  So much for trying to be spontaneous.  When it finally came to the table, I thought it was styrofoam  packaging and maybe the entree was inside, kinda like a fortune cookie or a lobster tail, and I had to break it open to see the meal.  Wrong!  Check this out and you tell me.

Needless to say, it went back to the kitchen just as you see it here.  And for that my arteries gave me a standing ovation.

So, after deciding to pass on most of the "dinner" we went over to the waterfront to walk around and look at the big sail boats anchored there.  There were quite a few there as part of a group who started in Maryland somewhere and were sailing through the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi and back up the inter-coastal waterway to their home port.  That would be a tremendous adventure for a summer cruise.  A couple we met said these usually take up most of the summer because they not only sail the lakes but explore towns and ports-of-call along the way.  They went on to tell us that most of the "crews" were pretty seasoned sailors, but they pointed out one boat, a new one with beautiful wood and a very tall mast, that was manned by a man and his wife who had just bought the boat and had never been sailing or really on the water before.  I can't imagine how dangerous this was.

We really enjoyed walking around the piers.  Sure is a lot of money sitting out there -- a whole other world.

It is really peaceful out there listening to the bells on the boats as they rock back and forth, and the waves slapping against the hulls and the piers.  It was a calm night and we could have stayed much longer, but the yacht club security guards were eying us -- it was after midnight and it was time to turn in.

 
The next day, we drove up the coast and headed for Petoskey.  We spent a few days there in a really nice hotel on our 40th anniversary and decided to go back there for dinner and to walk around the town and the waterfront.  A lot of the grounds around the hotel were pretty much the same and really gave us a nice afternoon, enjoying the breeze and sitting in the shade.

 







One thing I did notice and really liked was that as we drove around, we noticed lots of little communities had memorials to military personnel who had served in the various wars and conflicts in our country's history.  Petoskey was no exception.  They had a very nice little memorial in a park right in the center of town.

This was a very nice tribute to the service members who hailed from Petoskey and this particular county.

I knew we would run the risk of going back to a place we had been before, a place where we had a really good time, and not having such a good time on the return visit.  But that was not the case.  Pam and I both enjoyed our return visit, the meal we had at the hotel was super, the waiters were very nice, and maybe 45 years from now, we'll go back!!

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.  (J.M. Barrie)

Hooah