Miles: 331
Bayside Restaurant was the best looking around, but not very close to our hotel, so we rode a few miles along the route before reaching it. We started out on US31 and rode through Charlevoix which looked like a very nice town. Maybe a little on the high end but very nice. I made a mental note of this town and may look for a reason to come back. Riding south on US 31 we were riding on the eastern shore of the East Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay. The road doesn't get all that close to the water and most of the views are obstructed. Next we were in Traverse City and traffic got a little heavy and while the I'm sure the city has a nice downtown area we just rode through on the four lane highway so there wasn't much to see. Once through the area we picked up MI 22 and now we were riding right along the water. The western shore of the West Arm of the Grand Traverse Bay is sparsely populated but the view along the water were really good. It was almost exactly 100 miles to the Grand Traverse Lighthouse and we arrived around 9:45. We were here in 2014 and felt it was worth re-visit. I believe this is one of the most popular MI Lighthouses. It was built in 1858, and has been well maintained over the years. We walked around and took more than our normal round of pics before moving on. We stayed on MI 22 as we began the journey down the East coast of Lake Michigan. We blasted by Sleeping Bear Dunes deciding not to stop for pics as we did that in 2014, and after a short 60 miles we were at Point Betsie Lighthouse, another re-visit from 2014. This time however it was closed, but we were able to get close enough for some good pics. There was a surprising number of people on the beach. We didn't hang around long. Back on MI 22 we continued south before leaving MI 22 behind as we circumvented Portage Lake and connected with MI 100 to run closer to Lake Michigan. We arrived to Manistee just before 1:00 and stopped at North Channel Brewing Co for a beer and some lunch. The beer was better than their lunch, but that was ok as we were just looking for a quick bite. We were only 100 miles from our hotel so we decided to stop in Ludington for a cold one on the way in. The Ludington Bay Brewing Co was really nice, and the food looked far better than Channel Brewing but it didn't matter. We made one last stop before Muskegon and that was at the Little Sable Lighthouse. This lighthouse was built in 1874 and does not have a house attached as it is more of stand alone. The nice thing about this lighthouse is that it is surround by a very nice beach area and there were plenty of people enjoying the sand on a late Monday afternoon. As we got to Muskegon we stopped in downtown to grab a bite to eat for dinner stopping at Unruly Brewing Co and then moving down the street to Pigeon Hill Brewing Co where we grabbed food. We were able to stop near the hotel to wash the bugs off our bikes and I still had some time to get a little work done in the hotel lobby.