Day 88 Enjoying Charlevoix the Beautiful

      Yes Sports Fans! We have found Charlevoix to be a beautiful and very boater friendly city. The post for today will concentrate on the beauty and not so much on the quality of the eating and shopping. We did see two movies over two days, including "Independence Day: Resurgence", and we also saw "Central Intelligence" for a second time. The photo at the right is taken from the pedestrian walkway just on the lake side of the bascule bridge. There are two condo complexes along the left side of the photo, and from here you can walk all of the way out to the end of the breakwater where we saw the kids jumping into the lake yesterday.

       We mixed up the walking with shopping and eating. The photo at the right was taken from near where the one above was shot, but it is looking back at the bridge and the condo/hotel just on the other side. In the upper left is one of the few actual waterfront restaurants, and it has a great view of the channel. The Admiral found 3 fun tops in the same store. It was one of those magical happenings where most everything in this one store would have fit her, and I kept encouraging her to keep buying. Those of you who know her also know that she does not take orders well, but for once, she did keep buying. I also purchased some t-shirts more to use as undershirts than for the "wonderful" sayings on them.  Now that we are finally experiencing warmer weather I am wearing fewer layers of clothing so the shirts will get used a lot. 

      We only ate out once even though there were many places to choose from. The photo at the right shows the Admiral (Terry) in front of her namesake restaurant, but this is not the restaurant that we chose to eat at.

      We also had a successful trip to Walgreens Pharmacy, which was about 0.9 miles from the marina. We got a ride out there with one of the marina staff, but we walked home to get a chance to see some of the local architecture. The photo at the left shows both some of the beautiful gardens at private homes as well as some of the interesting architecture. The roof ot the house in the right center is typical of Earl Young house as is the irregular stone chimney.  Young built houses from stones, boulders and the creativity in his mind.  He was a local architect, insurance, and real estate agent.  He is credited as the architect of several dozen homes, but he was never really a licensed architect.  The homes are creatively known as Gnome Homes, Mushroom Homes, or Hobbit Houses.  The roofs contain no straight lines, and the chimneys were a focal point of each themed house.

      There is a very nice looking band shell adjacent to the marina. Once again, we lucked out with a Wednesday evening band concert. The band director was the band director at the local high school, but all but a few of the band members were local adults. They played a nice selection of marches, but none of the marches were really exciting like the "1812 Overture", which is one of my real favorites for the 4th of July, which will be here shortly. Lucky came along and had plenty of dog company. It was also fun to watch little kids playing on the grassy slope while their parents enjoyed the concert.

      The final picture (at the right) is of the sign along the entrance channel that welcomes boaters to "Charlevoix the Beautiful". I think that it is fair to say that we both really fell in love with Charlevoix. We have stopped in many different cities and towns in our adventures on the Great Loop, but this is the first one that has totally captured our hearts...

      Sadly, we will be off in the morning for our next destination, which is Mackinac Island. What's not to love about Mackinac Island? However, it would not be the kind of place where we would not want to spend more than a few days. Yes, visit often for a few days, but not to live there for an extended period of time...