TART trail Archives - Cruisin with the Colemans

The first time we visited Traverse City we came for the wine but we have kept coming back for the fun! There is so much to do here in the summer (which is the only time of the year we have been here so far). From the Traverse City Cherry Festival, the Traverse City Film Festival, the TART and Leelanau bike trails, lake activities in Traverse Bay, the wineries, breweries, and distilleries, and all of your other normal tourist activities. This is our third time visiting the area and we always find something new to do.
Every time we visit we stay at Traverse City State Park. We have camped in our tent the first two times and the third time has been with our new rig. Check out our blog post about parking the rig if you are looking for a laugh.
The first time we came we stumbled in during the cherry festival – what fun it was to taste everything cherry flavored! The second time we researched a bit better and learned we were coming during the film festival. Fortunately we researched early and scored tickets to two different films! This time we are too late for the cherry fest and too early for the film fest but that is fine with us because there was still plenty to do!
I (Michelle) wasn’t feeling too good at the beginning of the week, I was thoroughly exhausted from our son’s wedding festivities that were the week before. But that’s ok because we meandered around the state park, walked across the street to the beach, and walked two-tenths of a mile to play mini golf at Pirates Cove Adventure Golf (where you can also zip-line, climb the challenge course, ride go-carts, and play bumper boats). We visited a few wineries on Old Mission Peninsula. We have a few favorites on Old Mission including Chateau Grand Traverse and Brys Estate Vineyard. But seriously, they have wine for every palette.
After I was feeling better we decided it was time to get some real exercise in; what you will learn about us is that we are very active. We love to walk, hike, and bike anywhere! It was Saturday morning and the farmers market was going on in downtown Traverse City so we decided to lace up our shoes and head out. It’s 4 miles just to get downtown and we love a day that involves a long walk for exercise and fun things to see and do when we get there. We ended up walking 10 miles on Saturday! We could have spent the entire day there between the farmers market, downtown shops, food trucks, wine/spirits tasting, and the beach.
On Sunday we were itching to bike because it had been two weeks since we had gotten any real cycling in. From our campground Suttons Bay on the Leelanau peninsula is 21 miles. The Leelanau trail is 17 miles so you are on the TART trail for the 4 miles. We weren’t too confident in our abilities to ride there and back because we haven’t been biking a lot lately and it was going to be a hot day. Therefore, we opted to use their bike-n-ride program. We parked our truck at a bus stop, rode 17 miles to Suttons Bay, wandered around, and when we were ready to leave we put our bikes on the bus and we rode back to our truck. This made for a gorgeous day of riding and enjoying the quaint little town of Suttons Bay!
One of the new activities we have learned about on this trip is that you can “Kabrew” – don’t know what that is? Neither did we! It’s kayaking from brewery to brewery! Check out The River Outfitters to see more about this activity. Of course you can always do a bike and wine tour – check out Grand Traverse Bike Tours for information. The last time we were here we did our own bike and wine tour on the Old Mission Peninsula. Unfortunately it was about 90 degrees that day so we only hit 3 wineries and we drank a lot more water than wine. But it is still an amazing day when you are biking on Old Mission Peninsula because you spend most of the day with the water on in view.
If you want to just play in the water, there are many water activities on Traverse Bay. However, be mindful of your expectations. This is Michigan. This water is a part of Lake Michigan. It is not Florida. The water will be chilly and sometimes downright cold even when the air temperature is 90 degrees. On Monday, we rented jet skis and parasailed from TC Watersports. We have kayaked in the past and you can rent a boat, go out on a sailboat cruise, rent a stand up paddleboard, or just hang out on their beautiful Michigan beaches. The water is so clean and clear. It will certainly cool you off on a hot summer day!
I would be remise if I didn’t mention one more place we love to visit when we are here and that is the Grand Traverse Village. On the grounds of this “village,” you can hike, bike, shop, visit the arboretum, taste wine, get a great meal, or are you ready for this? You can take a guided historic tour of as this village used to be the Traverse City State Hospital. Check out their website for cool photos of the old hospital! One more thing, before you leave leave the village, go to Left Foot Charley and enjoy a glass of Reisling. Left Foot Charley has great wine, good stories, and a very cool building!
When you go to Traverse City, you can use this as your hub to visit so many other cool places. For example, Sleeping Dunes National Lakeshore is a short 40 minute drive west. You can head north to the quant towns of Charlevoix, Petoskey, and Harbor Springs. We are heading to Petoskey to camp for a few days. So until next time Traverse City – we love this town! Have you done something else in the area? Leave us a comment and tell us about it!

This space looks roomy enough, and seriously once you are in the site it is very roomy! But do you see those trees on the right side of the image? We almost had the small one permanently imprinted on the bumper of CC. If you don’t know, the name of our rig is Casa del Camino or CC which means “Road House” or “House of the Journey” and a perfect name for our rig. We will blog about how CC got her name later this fall.
This week we have been at Traverse City State Park. We love this park! The location is wonderful if you want to walk across the street and play in Traverse Bay. If you want to bike, the TART Trail is right behind the campground. If you want to take a long walk, there is plenty to walk to including mini golf and zip-lining. But that is another blog post, look for it later this week.
Back to parking CC. We are not experts by any means. We purchased CC in August 2017 and have backed her in to a site at least 25 times plus every time we park her in the storage lot. We are newbies. But we have back up assist on the truck and Brian is pretty darned talented. However, we have plenty to blog about over the next year about our biggest mishaps like the time we almost dumped CC in to the lake and the time we almost let her roll down the hill. We are experts at mishaps that is for sure.
We do have a system for the process of backing up. It begins with me (Michelle) getting out of the truck with my cell phone and calling Brian on the phone. We have learned calling on the phone is better than hand signals that he may or may not see or yelling at each other so the whole campground can hear us. Then there are the cats who love to lurk out of the windows while we tried giving directions while yelling, “watch out for Lola” or “Pepe is going to jump out of the window!”
I assess the site situation and if it looks complicated I have Brian join me for the assessment. Sometimes I look at the site and have no clue how we will get in to it so the brainstorm helps us both. The complicated part of my job is watching both sides of the trailer and in a sharp turn watching both sides of the truck. Here is a case in point as we watched another couple back in!

What you need to notice is how narrow the road is at this park. It is literally no wider than our 8 foot trailer. Our trailer is only 30′ long but with the truck and the fact that we are new at this, sometimes it is overwhelming. On days like this one, I can’t believe that we both want a bigger rig. For our retirement RV we want a class A and will tow a car. That will be interesting. 🙂
We have watched a lot of people get very creative as they parked their rigs in this state park. We have also watched a lot of bystanders help and in here it was welcomed by the driver. What’s deceptive is that the sites are large enough but the road is narrow, the sites are close together, and trees are plentiful.
On this particular day my biggest problems were: (1) We had been driving for 7 hours and we were both crabby and hungry which is never a good combination when you need to calmly communicate with your partner. (2) I was behind the rig and there was a small tree that neither one of us could see behind the truck and when Brian made the sharp turn I told him to make, that small tree almost took out our back truck bumper. Thankfully he saw it at the last minute. (3) When I felt things were good in the back I walked around to the front to watch Brian brush the front bumper with another tree. Thankfully it was a small brush and didn’t leave a mark. (4) Finally, there were the bystander helpers. Yes, we needed them. Yes, they empathized because they both had the same troubles. But when you don’t know who to listen to, sometimes helpers can be stressful.
I talked to two other wives after this backing up ordeal and the consensus among us was that backing up is always hard and there is always an argument. The Communication professional in me hates that idea so we will continue to improve our communication and our system. It is all about learning and growing – and not denting the rig. Thankfully we did not end up with a dent this time around.

Tag: TART trail

Why We Love Traverse City, Michigan

Parking the RV (sometimes it isn't easy)