September 16


Today was our wine tasting day! We headed out onto the Old Mission Peninsula and drove north to the tip of the peninsula to the lighthouse. 


 






From there we stopped at the 2 Lads Winery and enjoyed a tasting of five of their wines. 


 




There is an extremely vibrant wine industry in this area. It sits on the 45th parallel as do other famous wine areas in the world, such as Burgundy in France. 
Our next stop was lunch in a small restaurant, followed by the Brys Estate Winery. This was a lovely place with very credible wines which we all felt are vastly overpriced.
We made a brief stop at a place called Bonobo Winery, but found they were not pouring anything of interest to us.

Our last stop was a new winery called Mari Vineyard. In a beautiful stone house, their wines were, once again, good quality but far too expensive.




Enjoyed a nice fish and chips dinner following which we walked home in the rain, fortunately with our umbrellas.

BTW, for those with so little to do that you have been following this blog, be aware that in the recent photo from my Interlochen cabin in 1958, I'm front row, third from left. Don't I look about the same now?



 September 17



73 years old today! So far, all appears to be well. Many friendly birthday wishes on Facebook and email.
We drove up to Charlevoix and parked in the lot of its extraordinarily iconic library. Then walked over to the Drawbridge Bistro and met Danny and Cheri for a most enjoyable lunch. Afterwards, we drove around and showed the Prices some of the beautiful neighborhoods. Finally, we went to the lovely Krause home and just chatted for a while.


 


After returning to Traverse City, we changed clothes and headed out to Trattoria Stella for my birthday dinner. It was fabulous!