Traverse City & Torch Lake

This is my final post of our vacation photos. It's hard to believe that it was almost one month ago that we left for Manistee. Even more difficult to swallow is that university classes begin in just a couple of weeks!

We drove from Manistee to Traverse City on the Saturday of our vacation. We were going to spend just a couple of hours in Traverse City, then drive on to Torch Lake, where we were attending a post-wedding party of Mike's friends who got married in Florida earlier in the year. Seeing as I had never heard of Traverse City before moving to Michigan, here's a map. It's a beautiful town on Grand Traverse Bay in northern Michigan. It's a major exporter of cherries, hosts a cool summer jazz festival as well as a film festival, and is a haven for tourists given its location on the water.

Like many of northern Michigan's cities, the early 20th century saw quite a bit of money and building of beautiful Victorian houses. Here is the largest home we saw, a 32-room house built by Traverse City founder Perry Hannah. It's now a funeral home.

We walked up and down a historic street, where there were several beautiful Victorian homes, built in the last decades of the 19th and early decades of the 20th centuries.

The house above also had these beautiful flowers in front. I really like the fact that many Michiganders plant flowers. It reminds me of northern Europe.

This house had an interesting look to it with its tower. The brochure we had said that another tower had been removed. We couldn't imagine what one would do with two towers on a house.

On our way to Torch Lake, we drove by the water in Traverse City.

On our drive from Traverse City to Torch Lake, we saw row after row of cherry trees.

Mike's friend, Rita, who works at Chrysler (where Mike used to work), got married to a guy named Jim back in the winter in Florida. His parents own a house on Torch Lake, which is where they had a party for their friends. It was a really beautiful site.

It was a sunny day, so I decided to wear the hat we found at the cottage for a while.

Rita and Jim even wore their wedding clothes when we sat down to eat. Notice how they're not wearing shoes. They got married on the beach and are duplicating that here.

There you have it -- these are the best photos from our vacation. It was a great vacation, and I'm sad that not only our vacation is over but that summer is almost over, too! I hope to be posting some fun photos in the next couple of weeks, as my friend, Robin, is coming to visit at the end of August. I'll also be going to visit my stepsister, Amanda, in Louisiana over Labor Day, which I'm also really looking forward to! Til then!