The Traverse City area is the largest producer of tart cherries in the United States.  Near the time of harvest, the city hosts the annual week-long National Cherry Festival that attracts around 500,000 visitors.  We missed the cherry festival by a few weeks…but our trip to – and stay at – Traverse City was fun!  We had choppy water from Charlevoix to Traverse City with 2-3 foot swells.

    

After our arrival in Traverse City Joe earned his “First Mate” stripes helping to dock and secure the boat.

    

The busy downtown included water gardens and a canal that was active with canoeing and paddle boarders.  After our walk around town we had dinner on the boat.  Karen made shrimp jambalaya in the crock pot and a side salad.

    

    

Reba gave Santa some love – he had been ignored lately since we have had company.  We enjoyed another beautiful sunset with friends.

    

After daybreak we had breakfast burritos before venturing out into the city.

    

Our favorite stopping place was the Cherry Republic!  It had nothing to do with the free samples – but – it was kind of like being at Costco after church on a Sunday morning.  We sampled cherry jellies, cherry flavored nuts, cherry salsa, chocolate covered cherry flavored “everything”, even the cherry wine…..ALL WAS GREAT!  Karen picked up some cherry coffee beans.  We enjoy fresh ground coffee while sitting on the back of Kara Mia on our quiet mornings on the water.

    

Our last dinner in Traverse City was at The Mackinaw Brew and Pub where we reminisced about our time spent together and discussed Joe and Reba’s travel options for the next morning.

    

RANDOM STUFF:

You fill in the blanks…..

    

….but I do feel a Jimmy Buffett song coming on!