Traverse City State Park – June 25 to 29, 2014
We arrived at Traverse City State Park around noon after an easy hour drive from Leelanau State Park. Driving into Traverse City the first thing that you notice is how busy it is. We had not been up here in the summer in several years and we forgot how bad the traffic can be up here. It was quite a change from our previous two stops on this trip.
Traverse City State Park Campground:
In Traverse City State Park we stayed in campsite 37. It was a small outside site in the last loop that backed up to the Traverse Area Recreation Trail and train tracks. With the trail right on the other side of the fence we had a steady flow walkers and bikers right behind our site all hours of the day. It made for some interesting people watching, but not much privacy.
Looking down the road from our campsite. The first thing that you will notice about the campground at Traverse City is that it is huge, with almost 500 campsites that will fill up on nice weekends. If you are looking for a nice quiet place to camp, this is not the place for you. There is constant road noise for US 31 and then just to the south is the airport with a steady flow of planes taking off and landing. We had an idea of what we were getting into by staying here, but we decided that all the things to do in the area would make up for the crowds and noise.
In the southeast corner of the campground there is an openning in the fence to access the bike path. This gives you easy access to some restaurants, a camp store and Pirate’s Cove Adventure Golf. The Red Mesa Grill is right next to the park and Ruby Tuesday or Hooters are an easy 0.4 mile walk. If you continue on you will find Burger King and East Bay Pizza in about 1.25 miles.
To access the beach from the campground there is walkway over the busy road.
The beach on East Grand Traverse Bay.
The last loop on the campground has a nice new double sided bathhouse.
Right after we finished setting up camp we had a train go past right behind our campsite. This was one of the highlights of the trip for Reid.
Watching the rest of the train show.
In the last afternoon a rain shower moved in so we went out to Spaghetti Jim’s for dinner. We usually try to avoid place in strip malls, but after reading all the good reviews for this place we decided to try it. We definitely were not disappointed. The pasta was better than we have had a most “fine” Italian restaurants.
More reviews for Spaghetti Jim’s on Trip Advisor >>
Later in the evening things dried out so Reid and I went for a ride on the bike path.
Mountain Biking the Vasa Single Track:
The next morning was damp and cool so I drove over to ride the Vasa Single Track. In a lot of ways the Vasa Trail is classic Northern Michigan mountain bike ride. The packed sand track is pretty fast and smooth with just some roots making up the main obstacles. It runs through a mix of hardwood forest lined with ferns, pine plantations and a few aspen groves. There are no real big climbs making this a fairly easy ride. The video above highlights a few different sections.
Click here for the video of the entire trail >>
Directions to the Vasa Single Track trailhead >>
Traverse Area Recitation Trail (TART) to Downtown:
In the afternoon the skies cleared and it warmed up. We decided to ride the Traverse Area Recreation Trail (TART) into downtown. The ride to town is just over 4 miles one way. The TART is a nice path and well marked, however heading towards town there are several busy road crossings. Most of the crossings were at traffic lights, but there were a couple were we had to wait a long time for traffic to clear. All this made the ride less relaxing as some that we have been on.
We found a place to park the bikes in the alley across the street from Horizon Books.
After walking around town we stopped for an ice cream break before biking back.
The first part of the path near town runs through a nice neighborhood. It looks like someone in the back saw the over-the-shoulder shot coming .
Back at the campsite the kids setup the squirrel / chipmunk trap, but quickly lost interest because of the lack of activity.
The forecast for the next day was hot and sunny. After dinner we walked over to check out the beach on Grand Traverse Bay. We were disappointed to find gross green algae all along shore. This is becoming all to common in Lake Michigan in recent years.
Empire Beach – Paddle Boarding:
The next morning we were still planning on a beach day so we came up with a plan to drive over to the Good Harbor Bay beach in Sleeping Bear Dunes. This beach is at the end of county road 669 and is about a 40 minute drive from Traverse City. When we arrived we were excited to see that there were only a few other groups on the beach and the water was nice and clear. However, when we started sitting on the beach we noticed a few gnats buzzing around. About 15 minutes later a huge swarm moved in and forced us and everyone else back to the cars. They didn’t bite but they got in your eyes and hair and if you tried to brush them off you would just smash them on your skin.
We decided that we would not be denied our day at the beach so we continued driving on to the Empire City Beach. We were hoping that since this beach faced a different direction that maybe the bug situation would be better here. When we pulled in we saw that there were at least a few more people already on the beach, which was a good sign. By this time it was already afternoon so we ate a quick lunch under the picnic shelter before moving down to the beach.
It ended up being a nice afternoon at the beach. There were a few biting black flies, but it was tolerable. Lake Michigan was almost perfectly calm and without any breeze it was hot by mid afternoon.
We took turns taking advantage of the perfect paddle boarding conditions.
With the calm and clear water you could see down at least 30 feet to the bottom. I spent most of the time looking down at different under water rock formations and the ocasional fish swimming by. I also found an interesting row off pilings that must have been from long dock that once extended off end of the street at least a couple hundred yards out into the lake.
SUP out along the Empire Bluffs.
After a perfect afternoon at the beach we made one more stop at Moomers on the way back. Sorry hometown Hudsonville Ice Cream, but we think Moomers is the best ice cream made in Michigan.
Reesey really getting into her cone.
Later that night we went for our second round of desert and made campfire apple pies. If you have not done these they are easy and very good. All you need is a tube of crescent rolls, a can of apple pie filling and a little cinnamon.
Bellaire, Michigan Day Trip – Mountain Bike, Kayak and Brewery:
For our last day of the trip we decided to leave Traverse City again and do a day trip up to Bellaire, Michigan. Bellaire is about a 45 minute drive northeast of Traverse City State Park. Our first stop was the Eckhardt Road trailhead for the Glacial Hills Pathway.
We rode a few short loops with everyone and then I took off on a little longer ride while they ate lunch at the trailhead. Glacial Hills is a maze of over 28 miles of trails. The trails were a little hard for the kids, but with so many different loops you can make a ride of almost any length.
The Glacial Hills Trails were really fun to ride. I only did a short section because it was hot and everyone was back waiting for me in the parking lot. I can’t wait to get back up here and explore more of the trails.
After biking we drove over to the Fisherman’s Paradise boat launch on Lake Bellaire. We dropped our kayaks off at the launch and then all went for a swim to cool off.
The plan was to paddle back towards Bellaire up the Intermediate River, but after we started the wind really started blowing out of the south so at about half way we decided to turn around and paddle towards the Grass River instead. We always try to paddle into the wind first so getting back to the launch is easy. There were a few boats on the lake, but overall it was a nice paddle.
There was a little sandy spot near the mouth of the Grass River were we could pull up the kayaks and take a break. We probably only covered about 1.5 miles of water, but with the wind it took us a while to get here.
The other kayak arriving at the rest stop.
The water was nice and clear, however the next morning we all thought that we had been bitten up by mosquito’s at the campfire. After further inspection we realized that we must have picked up swimmers itch at this break spot. The adults in our group only had it up to the knees from standing in the water and the kids had it everywhere from swimming. We all itched for a few days before it went away.
I was not sure how much current the there was heading down stream in the grass river and the kids were getting restless so after the break we decided to head back. The return trip back to the launch was easy with the wind. We rafted up and just let the wind push us for part of the way.
We finished our “Bellaire Triathlon,” as Kim called it, with a stop at Short’s Brewing Company for dinner.
The brewery menu was on the lighter side with appetizers, salads, sandwiches and pizzas. Everything we had was excellent. Many of their beers are interesting…in a good sort of way. We only tried a couple different ones, which were very good.
Back at the campsite we went for a walk to drop the trash at the dumpster and then across to the beach to see the sunset.
We saw a pretty nice cloudy sunset over the bay for the last night of our trip. On a side note the water looked like it cleared up over the past two days and looked good for swimming with no algae in sight.
The forecast was for rain on Sunday so we got everything packed up for an early escape. We were glad that we did, because just after we hit the road we drove through a big down pour as we headed out of town. Overall it was a good trip. The weather could have been a little better, but we got to visit some new places and several others that we had not been to in a long time.
-The End-
If you didn’t start at the beginning of our trip you can click here to go all the way back to our fist night at the Betsie River Campsite.
Our Favorites:
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Our girls are still using the 2 large size towels that we bought over 10 years ago and they seem to just be getting better every time you wash them. On our recent trip when there was a lot of cloudy and damp weather our Packtowls were always ready for our next shower, when normal beach towels would have stayed wet for days.
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