"Madison Rob" Visits.......

Our former Madison neighbor, Rob, visited us last week.  He arrived on Thursday evening, so Friday was our first day of "touring"..........this year, we began with the east side of Leelanau Peninsula from Traverse City to the tip of the Peninsula, following M22, with a little bit of the west side of the Peninsula, too.

Our first stop was at the 45th Parallel Park.

Next on the tour was the Grand Traverse Lighthouse.  As you can see from these 2 photos, "Someone" is not able to smile on cue.  ;)

I went and sat on a bench facing the Bay while Don and Rob went up into the Lighthouse.

Then the two of them walked down to the shoreline, which, by the way, is quite closer to the Lighthouse than it has been in the past few years.  With the open Winter and drought of 2012, Lake Michigan's water level had dropped significantly, but these past 2 years we've had enough rain/snowfall to bring the level up.

After leaving Grand Traverse Lighthouse, we drove back down to Northport.  With Don and Rob such beer enthusiasts, we wanted to stop at "Northport Brewing", Northport's newly opened microbrewery (http://www.localbeerisbetter.com).  The facility was nice with an open air sitting area, but we were not impressed with their first brewing efforts.  Perhaps we'll return at a later date and see if their brews have improved.

We ate dinner in Northport at the Soggy Dollar (http://www.destinationnorthport.com/?p=2633), where Don and I have enjoyed eating before........in fact, it was on Don's birthday when he expressed a desire to drive up to Northport and try it.

After dinner, we still had a lot of daylight left, so we headed west so we could show Rob "Fishtown", in Leland.

We also walked the piers in the marina,  checking out the variety (AND SIZE) of the many sailboats, yachts, and cruisers.

I should mention that Leland is the port of several commercial and recreational fishing operations, as well.

More to come......