After the Meijer Gardens, it was time to head to Cedar. The route the GPS took me on went up to Traverse City, then west to Cedar. I got an unexpected glimpse (and sniff) of Grand Traverse Bay. So beautiful! I was excited to see a lot of walking paths and a lot of people out and about.
This isn’t the best photo because, of course, I was driving (though stopped at a red light) and didn’t get my phone unlocked and camera open quick enough to get a better shot of this little ice cream place, but here it is anyway – it’s on Route 31 in Traverse City, just south of the bay:
So, I texted my ETA to River and Adam and got more excited by the minute to finally meet them in person! I arrived at their address, but couldn’t find their house number! Tried calling them, no answer. I knew they had a Subaru but didn’t know what color it was. Tried texting, no answer. Argh!
Finally Adam called me. I told him I was in a black SUV sitting out on their street, and he directed me to their house. They live on a circle – had I driven around the circle counter-clockwise rather than clockwise, I would have seen the house number, but from the direction I came, a bush was blocking it. Go figure!
So, we met, we hugged, we talked, we marvelled, and then I went to my VRBO to unpack and settle in. I decided to take a quick walk around the area. Here’s the living room of the VRBO, which was much nicer than I expected. The owner even left a nice note and a bottle of local wine!
The VRBO is a townhouse next to an old ski resort – Sugarloaf. You can see the wheel of the old chair lift.
There’s the ski slope
Previously I found a restaurant I had wanted to try – The Farm Club – and I told them I wanted to take them to dinner. So, after unpacking and cleaning up, I changed and headed back over so we could go out. Here’s a link: https://www.farmclubtc.com/. We had a nice dinner sitting outside, but it was a little cold so we didn’t linger for too long.
Then back to their house and a quick trip to a local beach with the dogs:
And that was the end of Day 1 in Cedar! Stay tuned for more – I stayed in Cedar for 8 nights and covered a lot of ground during that time!