Petoskey

After successfully driving over the Mackinac Bridge (winds had died down and we were able to drive 45 mph) we drove another 50 miles to Petoskey to stay at the Hearthside Grove Motorcoach Resort.

We had heard about the resort for years as one of the countries best. Beautiful sites with bunalows and mature landscaping. Here’s our site:

We met up with some Myakka friends, Ray and Cindy Flischel, who spend the summer months there. Their site was about a block away. After dropping in on them as they didn’t know we were coming they graciously invited us over for dinner the next evening. What great people!

We headed back to the Busse Bus to cook out on the nice grill that the site provided. It’s so nice not having to set up our Traeger and clean it up afterwards before packing it back into the coach. We had a wonderful dinner and had a chance to catch up on some shows.

The next day we met up with people that we had heard about through one of Katrina’s tennis partners who had been RV’ing for years. They, Alan and Janet Selbst, were Susie Selbst’s aunt and uncle and we had touched based with them when we first decided to take this adventure. We all met up at Smoke On The Water

in Charlevoix for breakfast.

What a cute town! After eating they took us over to see the ”mushroom” houses. Check these pictures out:

Thatched and shingled roofed houses built with local stones in all sorts of shapes. Here’s the placard for the ”Thatched House”:

The whole area reminded me of Hobbiton!

We strolled area Charlevoix for a while afterward after saying our goodbyes to the Selbsts. We drove back up to Hearthside Grove and since it was getting close to dinner time we cleaned up, packed some drinks and snacks and headed over to the Flischel’s to eat. They took us around in their golf cart to see the entire place and to explain the different features and the wonders of owning a site at Hearthside Grove. We headed back to their place for a grilled chicken dinner. As we were eating multiple friends of theirs stopped by and we all decided to meet up at Ken and Robin’s place for a fire and to listen to Ken strum the guitar.

What a fun evening! It was great meeting new people and getting to know them.

The following day Katrina and I headed out on our bikes to ride the nearby trail and to grab some lunch. Right at the entrance to the resort a nice lady pulled her car over and talk to us about the trail and where to have lunch – Turkey’s in Harbor Spring about ten miles away. Off we went until the fork in the road where we had to stop to check with Google Maps. As we were plotting our course two couples, Angela & Kurt and Judy & JJ, from Hearthside Grove rode up and asked where we wanted to go and when we stated Turkey’s they said that they were going there and to follow them.

Kat had meet Angela the prior day at a line dancing class at the resort with Cindy and we had also met them at an AIM Rally in Kanab, UT two years ago. Anyway, the six of us made it to Turkey’s only to find out that they were closed. Plan ”B” was Stafford’s Pier – also closed! We found Pierson’s Grille & Spirits to be open and went in to eat.

With full stomachs, we rode around the harbor town espying these beautiful houses:

What beauty!

We all stopped at Tom’s Mom’s Cookies for a delicious cookie before riding back to Hearthside Grove. Once we pulled into the resort we saw a ”Open” sign on a Millennium Prevost bus so Katrina and I stopped to see the coach. It was a beautiful 2017 coach for sale for a mere $1.475M. Needless to say we still have the good ole Busse Bus! The interesting part about stopping was meeting Randy who was the salesperson for the coach and his wife Dawn.

Last year Randy sold a Marathon Prevost bus to a friend of ours from Myakka, Kim Mulder, from this same site. We took the picture to send to Kim. We will also be stopping in Ohio to visit with Kim in a few weeks. It is a small world after all!

The next day Katrina found some pickleball while I washed the coach. When Katrina returned we both cleaned the inside of the truck. It was in dire need of a cleaning. We decided to ride our bikes into downtown Petoskey for a late lunch and to browse around the quaint town. We saw more stately houses like this one:

We parked the bikes and walked around the waterfront to see this little waterfall in the park:

The wharf:

And the waterfront and lighthouse:

Off to lunch in the downtown area. We decided to eat at The Back Lot Beer Garden that included food trucks:

Outstanding food! It was so much fun eating outside, tasting a few beers and watching the other people. The last picture was a complete mural on the side of a building that made it look like the street front and not the side.

We picked up the bikes and headed towards the resort but we decided on one more stop at the Petoskey Brewery:

Good beer and right on the bike path home, I mean it was calling us to stop!

Since it was our last night at Hearthside Grove area we wanted to check out the Petoskey Farms Vineyard & Winery because we had heard good things about their wines and they also had live music that night. We each got a flight of reds:

The view was spectacular, the pizza outstanding, the music soothing and the wine was ok. All-in-all a good stop!

We headed back to Hearthside Grove and said our goodbyes to our old and new friends alike. Great stop with a lot to do in the area, beautiful resort and really nice people. We would definitely come again, but for now we needed to pack up and travel to Northern Wisconsin to visit with some friends.