Following Advice in Petoskey, Michigan

After two days in Mackinaw City, we had an hour's drive to our new destination in Petoskey, Michigan. We got a great camping site near the woods with a large grass lawn at our front door. No, it's not a national forest campground--it's another casino. We have followed the advice from fellow RVers that this a great place to camp here in Petoskey. We don't have any hook-ups, but with our generator, large tanks, and cool weather, we are quite comfortable at our new "campground" here at Odawa Casino. Thanks for the advice, Ginny and Bob!

The city of Petoskey is situated on Little Traverse Bay on the west coast of Michigan--or as they like to say around here, the sunset side of the state. Denisa must be a sailor at heart, because she loves a good marina picture with the blue skies and clear water of Lake Michigan.

Of course, she also loves a good walk down the pier to stand beside the resident harbor light at the end. It's not one of those glamorous lighthouses, but it's fun to be surrounded by the waters of Lake Michigan on a beautiful day.

While walking down the pier, we watched as a fisherwoman hauled in something on her fishing line. She then smacked it against the concrete pier several times and fed it to the resident sea gulls. We just had to ask, and she was happy to explain. An invasive species of fish, gobies, are trying to take over Lake Michigan. They aren't good to eat, but if you catch one, it is illegal to throw it back into the water. If they aren't killed and disposed of, a hefty fine can be assessed. We didn't get a picture of the ugly goby she described.  So instead, the wildlife picture of the day is this crayfish, washed up on the rocky beach in our new home town.

We usually check the tripadvisor website for advice on things to see and do in a new community. According to this source, the #1 thing to experience here is the Little Traverse Wheelway. It's a 26-mile paved trail that connects Petoskey to its two neighboring towns. We are ambitious--but not crazy--so we didn't ride the entire wheelway. We did ride this section that started close to Charlevoix and took us through the woods . . .

across a mile-long boardwalk . . .

and right beside wide sections of Lake Michigan.

But we didn't care for the sections that were only a few feet from the heavy traffic of Highway 31. Even with the highway sections, it was a great way to spend a cloudy and cool morning.

We followed our bike ride with a tasty tour of the Kilwin's Candy Kitchen--another recommendation from the tripadvisor web site. Factory tours leave every thirty minutes, and take you behind the scenes to watch their candy makers in action. We saw a bubbling copper pot of liquid being poured onto a table . . .

and watched until it cooled, and was pulled into taffy a few minutes later.

We dawned our hair nets and shoe covers before we went deeper into the factory. Mark is modeling his attractive head gear beside a tray of vanilla creme centers ready to be dipped into chocolate. Notice that Denisa doesn't have any pictures in her "attractive head gear." Now you know who selects the pictures for the blog.

We also saw these caramel pecan tuttles (not to be confused with Hershey's trademarked turtles) as they were covered in chocolate on the assembly line. They are the same caramel, pecan, and chocolate candies as turtles, but must be given a different name because of copyright laws. No factory tour would be complete without samples, and we got milk chocolate and dark chocolate tuttles. Oops! Someone took a bite before we had a chance to take a picture.

The tour worked to bring new customers in, and we had to buy candy before we left. We took the advice of our tour guide. This is a chocolate, caramel, and pecan encrusted rice krispie treat. Yum!

Still following Tripadvisor's advice, we ate at the local Greek restaurant-Mim's Mediterrean Grill. Then we headed out to Petoskey State Park, just a few miles from town. A long white-sand beach was almost deserted as the sun was sinking. We're still using our Michigan State Park pass to visit parks, but the campgrounds have been so crowded that they aren't appealing. Almost every camp site contains an RV, cars, AND a boat, making the tight spaces seem even more congested. We much prefer our free site at the casino!

But there are no hiking trails or beach at the casino. So after our tour of the crowded campground, we headed up the sandy trail to Mount Baldy.

Because we are in new towns on a daily basis, we appreciate the advice we get from new and old friends along our way. We also like the advice from the visitors that report their opinions to web sites like Tripadvisor and RVParkreviews. We probably should do more reviewing ourselves, but that would be a full-time job for us since we get to experience so many new things. We have found that we're much too busy wandering His wonders to have a full-time job!