August 30 (continued)

Friday:  We left Charlevoix and drove a little bit north to Bay Harbor. Ruthanne and I were here years ago (2004?) and ate lunch at a little cafe' overlooking the Bay. We were still a little tired from our walking in Charlevoix, but David and I explored the marina for a little bit. I took only a few pictures:

Both David and I LOVE marinas and just about everything about them! We enjoy looking at all the beautiful and unusual boats, what they are named, etc.

Bay Harbor is quite a ritzy place with multi-million dollar homes (with build-in under-the-house boat parking) that surround the Bay. Some of these people only live here for a very brief period of time each year ... which is difficult for me to fathom.

Here is a "small" home--it reminds me very much of the Point Betsie light (which we will see tomorrow).

There are also condos and apartments and resorts all over the place. This resort was getting ready to host a wedding. We missed out on seeing the wedding party, because we had to drive further up the coast to have our dinner ...

We drove to Mackinac City and ate our dinner at "The Hook Lakeside Grill" that has a very nice view of the marina from where ferries depart to go to Mackinac Island. Since it was Labor Day weekend, we didn't even consider going to the Island--too many people!

This was our lovely view out the window as we ate. Note to self: If ever at this restaurant again, DO NOT order the shrimp--it was "hot" and "spicy" and ... rather a disappointment! I should have ordered fish.

From Mackinac City, we took the I-75 south 28 miles to Indian River, Michigan where we had a reservation at an Air-BNB called "Hunny's Place." As we were parking our vehicle, there were THREE beautiful deer in the back yard just standing quietly and eating ... I got out of the car and took just a few tiny steps towards them (in order to get a nice photo of deers out in "the wild") and they took off running like 60mph and I missed them (except you can see a faint brownish animal in the picture below--that was the last deer to escape my camera).

"Hunny's Place" was quite a comfortable and beautiful place! David had instructions as to how to get inside (since it was all locked up), but for some reason, the key code wasn't working; so he made a phone call to the owner of the place to seek help. In the meantime, I walked around the entire house and checked each and every door to see if perhaps one was NOT locked. Wouldn't you know it? All the doors were locked EXCEPT for ... I spotted what looked like a covered entrance that would lead to a downstairs cellar. It didn't have any signs that prohibited me going down those stairs and trying the door at the bottom; so I did, it opened, and I heard a voice saying: "I'll be right there!" I had no idea anyone would be down in the cellar, so I made a very quick exit and went back to give word to the others who were still waiting outside, unable to get inside. 

The lady from the cellar (the owner of this house) came upstairs and let us inside--YAY! Isn't it pretty? And cozy?

I wandered around outside and took a bunch of pictures ... it's very woodsy behind the house ... which suited me just fine.

You can only walk so far back in these woods and then ... quite suddenly actually ... there is about a 100' drop off to a wooded gully below. Thankfully, I did NOT attempt to go down there.

We enjoyed our stay at "Hunny's Place", played some games Friday evening, ate some yummy snacks (way TOO many), slept well, and departed at about 9AM the next morning.