Traverse City Michigan

We only made a quick stop in Traverse City Michigan for lunch. We took  quick tour but can’t say much about the city.

But  can talk about our lunch at Harrington’s By the Bay.

The meal was fast and very good . We had meal sautéed perch and a blue cheese burger made from filet mignon, ribeye and New York cuts. We were also impressed by the crisp truffle fries. And good enough for a special stop but a place to stop if you are going through town.

Baldwin Michigan

Baldwin Michigan is a tiny town known primarily for its catch-and-release sport fishing (especially brown and rainbow trout). The town owes much of this status to a particularly hot day in April 1884. The Michigan Fish Commission was transporting a load of almost 5,000 German brown trout fry (recently hatched babies) through Lake Country on the way to a destination in the west. When the weather turned unexpectedly warm, the Commission was afraid that the fry would die. They decided to release them into a branch of the Pere Marquette River. By the time these and other river trout matured and reproduced, the rivers had become a popular fishing destination.

In 2018, the town of Baldwin erected a monument to the event, and to the trout. This monument, a 25-foot tall steel and aluminum sculpture of a leaping brown trout.

Shrine of the Pines

We, however, were there not for trout, but to see the life’s work of a man dedicated to honoring Michigan’s state tree, the white pine. R.W. Overholzer spent much of his life using hand-made tools to carve pine roots and stumps into a house, and finely-crafted furniture and accessories including tables, chairs, beds and chandeliers without use of meal fashioners.

That, at least, was the plan. But while the museum was supposed to be open on the day we visited, it wasn’t. We ended up spending our extra time in Baldwin in our Inn’s hot tub and searching for a restaurant. We ended up at Club 37 where we had king crab legs and a couple giant, lightly fried Walleye fillets with salad and baked potatoes. Overall, somewhat better than we expected. Our drinks were a glass of house chardonnay and an IPA.

Baldwin Hotel

We stayed at the Red Moose Lodge. The place is very clean and the owners are very responsive. Baldwin is a place for fishing and little else. As we don’t fish, we headed for the hot tub. The property also has swing and was nicely landscaped. Breakfast was do-it -yourself and consisted of a large assortment of muffins, breads, toast, cereal, coffee, tea, etc.