Day two in Traverse city was a lot of fun. The weather was a little chilly, but tolerable. We had a great breakfast at the Green House Cafe where we met a fellow world traveler and diver as our server, Courtney. She has been living in Australia up until recently and moved back home to Michigan for the summer due to her visa expiring. Her boyfriend from Australia will also be joining her here in Michigan for the summer before they go back in the fall. She is apparently attending Queensland University for her graduate studies in wildlife conservation and management. We got to listen to a number of her travel stories as well as pick up some valuable information about diving/diving gear. Awesome 🙂
After breakfast I decided that it was time to update the blog. I’ve been behind due to limited (really nonexistent) wifi connectivity here at the marina. Nevertheless, I ended up spending about 5 hours at a local cafe uploading photos/videos on an incredibly slow internet connection. Not happy about that!
Eventually I said enough was enough, met my dad for a slice of pizza, and made my way back to the boat. We had a few things that we needed from West Marine and the grocery store, so we decided to explore a little out of town. The West Marine was about 5 miles out of town. Fortunately, there was the BATA (Bay Area Transit Authority) bus that runs all over town. Unfortunately, no one at the BATA transit station could tell us which bus would take us where we needed to go. Apparently no one actually lives around here and most of the workers are transplants that migrate up here for summer work. After multiple people trying to assist us with our route planning, we just decided to pick a bus that headed in somewhat of the right direction and go for it.
We ended up getting fairly close to where we needed to be. It was about a half mile (maybe a little more) walk from where we got dropped off to the West Marine store. It had gotten sunny by this time and there was sort of a path beaten into the grass along the highway. When we arrived at the store, we were one for three in the items that we sought (shower bilge pump, marine toilet paper, and spider spray). Oh well, we’ll be close to another West Marine when we dock in Charlevoix in a few days time.
Dinner was at Amical again. It was just so good the first night that we had to return! After a great meal we decided to check out a local brewery that we had passed on our walk back to the marina from the transit station. There was a band playing tonight from 8-11pm. No cover! Plus, it looked like they had a great selection of brews!!
We arrived at the Workshop Brewery a little before 8pm and chit chatted with a few locals and the bartenders. The band, “The Cookies,” was fairly well known to the locals. They do mostly cover songs from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and some of the more recent stuff. You could tell that they were having a good time and so was the audience. About a half hour in, most of the place was up and dancing along to the music.
After a few great beers, we decided to call it a night shortly after their first set ended at around 9:45pm EST. Walking back to the boat, the sun was just about to finish setting and I was able to snap this great shot of the last glimmer of light over Grand Traverse Bay. Very pretty!
