Welcome back, blog viewers! Just a quick blurb to tell you about our fun week of vacation in the northwestern corner of the Lower Peninsula! Frankfort is a gem we discovered a couple of years ago through a co-worker at Chrysler, Paula Draper. It is located right on Lake Michigan, about halfway between Manistee and Traverse City. It's very easy to get to - drive M-115 northwest until it ends, and you're there! (See green arrow on map.)Paula and her husband Andy own property in Frankfort which is located only a few hundred yards from Lake Michigan. The property has three buildings on it - a hotel they are in process of renovating, a garage, and a carriage house which they completely gutted and transformed into a lovely guest house. Click on the link to the photo album to get a better idea of what the property, buildings and surrounding homes look like. We fell in love with this place from the moment we saw it. The downtown is charming, with a great marina and park on Betsie Bay, many nice shops and restaurants and an old fashioned movie theater, to name just a few attractions. But the greatest draw is the wonderful white sand public beach, and the picturesque breakwater and Frankfort Lighthouse which is right next to it. The beach is peaceful and uncrowded, and has plenty of room for things like frisbee throwing or kite flying (which Preston and I did a lot of!).
Here's a link to the photo album of the trip:
http://picasaweb.google.com/michiganalice/FrankfortMIAugust2007
Aside from the obligatory suntan / swimming time we enjoyed on the beach, and time simply relaxing and reading, we also took advantage of these fun things:
- Dune climbing (Preston only - John & Becky passed on this one!)
- Watching the shooting stars at night in a cloudless sky
- Fishing on Betsie Bay and the Lake Michigan breakwater (caught some small bass)
- Window shopping in the stores downtown
- Eating awesome Thai / Asian food at The Fusion restaurant
- Homemade ice cream at the Cool Spot
- Driving up M-22 to Empire to photograph the sunset
- Taking in a double feature at the Cherry Bowl Drive-In in Honor, MI (continuously operating for over 50 years)
- Hiking about 7.5 miles on beautiful trails in the Platte Plains area of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore
In the evenings we were able to enjoy DVDs, music, TV and wireless Internet on the great Media Center PC system Andy Draper set up here.
As with all vacations, the week went by far too quickly, but we had an awesome time, and look forward to coming back next year!
