Our Midwestern Adventure: Way Up Upon the Manistee River

We arrived in Manistee, MI on Tuesday and are camping in the Little River Casino & Resort RV Park.

It's a nice RV park, nothing fancy but has full hook-ups on some of its sites, cable and they are a good size.

Resting

We toured downtown Historic Manistee and strolled on the River Walk. When the town started growing after the Civil War, it was on both sides of the Manistee River...with no bridge. Since the town couldn't afford to build a bridge, a bunch of rich guys built a wooden draw bridge and then charged people to use it. Well that pissed off the townsfolk, so they wanted to build another bridge, but of course didn't want to pay for it.

Somethings never change!

Well there was a big fire and it burned down two thirds of the town and the bridge, so the town ended up building a bridge out of iron. After a few decades, that one rusted so bad it was unstable. So they built another bridge out of steel. After another 50 yrs, that bridge was collapsing so guess what? They built another bridge!

A second bridge was built as the city grew and the bridge tenders put it down before a coal barge was all the way through. The bridge was damaged and yes, it had to be replaced with another new bridge. Good grief!

The Manistee Riverwalk is a nice boardwalk along the river with docking for large yachts and smaller watercraft.

It's a pretty river, but looked like development in town and along the river has stalled. There was quite a bit of activity on the main street, painting and cleaning and remodeling. Hopefully businesses will be moving in the empty buildings.

The building architecture styles were beautiful and so well kept. It was a good looking street, just don't look to close or you'll see the empty shops. Also there were a lot of cars, but we didn't see many people.

Wouldn't you want to live up there?

Neat building

There were some nice shops and one clothing shop had some really nice things at really reasonable prices. Being the smart shopper that I am, I had to snap up a cute top before we left.

We stopped at a Farmer's Market on the way 'home' and picked up a rhubarb pie (yum), some caramel apples and fresh asparagus. Did you know that MI is the third largest producer of asparagus in the USA? Do you care?

Farmer's Market Finds

On Wednesday we decided it was about time we saw Lake Michigan. So we leaped into the truck and headed to the beach. The temperature was in the mid 60's and there was a stiff breeze coming off the lake, but it was awesome!

This is where the Manistee River meets Lake Michigan. I wonder what came first, the name of the lake or the name of the state....

There wasn't anyone at the beach much less in the water. Water temperature is probably in the 40's. Guess these Michiganites are not as tough as I thought.

Today we took a trip to a winery, Douglas Valley winery to be exact. They had free wine tasting, but only 2 different ones, otherwise you had to pay.
Besides a vineyard, they also had an apple orchard and produced hard cider and sparkling cider.

Tasting House...lovely.

Cary didn't want to try any and I tried the Red and the Cherry wine. The red was OK, and the Cherry, a sweet desert wine, was fabulous. Especially with the piece of dark chocolate she gave me with it :-)