Petoskey

Photo post!

The fiancé came to visit me this weekend after an eventful trip from Washington DC on Friday.  His original flight plan called for a flight from Baltimore to Detroit, to Chippewa County International Airport (south of Sault Ste. Marie).  Storms had apparently rolled through on Friday afternoon and disrupted air travel on the East Coast, causing his flight out of BWI to be delayed for over an hour.  Upon landing in Detroit, he found that his flight up north had been cancelled altogether which did nothing to improve Delta Airlines' image for either of us.  They put him on a late flight to Traverse City which very slightly improved their ratings, but the flight was scheduled to arrive at 11.40 PM and Traverse City is about two hours' drive from the Bio Station.  All told I spent a little over four hours in the car on US-31 late at night, trying to avoid deer in the road for my first visit (albeit brief) to Traverse City, but as you might imagine I have absolutely no regrets about it.

On Saturday we drove a little ways back down US-31 again and visited Petoskey.  I figured I could get another photo post for the blog!

We parked for free near the marina and checked out the boats before walking over to the downtown area.

I'm a fan of the flower photos.

I don't even know what any of these are called.

We got lunch at the American Spoon Cafe which has amazing everything.  I had breakfast for lunch, partly because I wanted to ensure that I got some of American Spoon's delicious sour cherry preserves with the meal.  Before I go home I intend to stop at the American Spoon shop next door to the cafe and make a huge purchase of delectable fruit preserves.  It was a sad, sad day when the American Spoon Cafe in Ann Arbor closed; I couldn't go the Beaner's Coffee (now Biggby) that replaced it for a long time!  (In much the same way I couldn't go to the terrible pizza place that replaced the Tim Hortons at the League on campus, ever.)

We walked around downtown Petoskey after lunch, and made a stop at a gazebo in what I have since learned is Pennsylvania Park.

American Spoon also has delicious gelato which we came back to after checking out various downtown shops.  All available tables and benches being occupied, I had the fiancé hold on to my cup of hazelnut-stracciatella and maple walnut so that I could get a photo.

Some foul fowl, mayhap?

This jetty is near the marina.  The sign says one thing, but the obviously recently-surfaced sidewalk says otherwise.  A short ways down the jetty (behind the sign from this perspective), the groomsmen of a wedding party were taking photos and generally looking classy.  At the far end of the jetty, high school kids were alternately jumping off the jetty (there are ladders built into the retaining walls to get out of the water), smoking cigarettes, and generally just doing things that stereotypical high schoolers are often wont to do.

A view of Little Traverse Bay, looking towards Bay Harbor and the rest of Lake Michigan.

A view of Petoskey from the end of the jetty.