We saw major Michigan celebrities on the Heritage trail in Glen Haven, Mi today — big burley young men in Michigan Wolverines shirts who turned out to be U of M football team players. Other mere mortal tourists watched them and tried to avoid being seen gawking. This was perhaps the most unexpected sight on the trail, which we rode for 20-some miles (round trip) from Glen Arbor to Empire.
It’s a really nice wide paved trail that winds mostly through the deep green woods (with the occasional white birch) but offers a few glimpses of Lake Michigan (at Glen Haven, which has some old historic buildings with big old boats on view and a hotel in the making) and Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, past the Dune Climb, a wide steep mountain of sand that many tourists were huffing and puffing their way up and then running down, arms akimbo. The heritage trail is largely flat until just past the dune climb when it becomes hilly, often steeply so, much of the way to Empire.
Lunch was a sublime chocolate milkshake and Sour strawberry sorbet shared with dirck and newly available at the venerable Grocers Daughter chocolate shop. There’s also gelato and baked goods in a new building that opened last Saturday. Why bother with a mediocre sandwich when you can have a chocolate milkshake instead? It’s a little confusing figuring out where to get what. The gelato / bakery is in a separate new building, also including the milkshakes but the well-reviewed fudgesickles are sold at the original chocolate shop.
In Glen Arbor we rode about 10 miles north along another segment of the trail, this one on a road through the woods along Glen Lake but there were few cars. We got a few peeks through the woods to get a glimpse of big summer houses perched on the lake.
I should add too that in Glen arbor, Anderson IGA is now an upscale market with everything from local cherry jams to Dots pretzels. A branch of Lchaim deli, based in Beulah, just opened. The bagels are good. And there’s a new store with well-chosen charcuterie fixins called Inn and Trail Gourmet. Old standby Cherry republic is good for meals and snacking on free samples of dried cherry everything. And Esch beach is a sandy swath of beach that kindly welcomes dogs. Our lab Millie plunged in, waves be damned, twice in what looked like an attempt to rescue dirck who did not need rescuing. But she didn’t plunge in when I was swimming. Hmmm….
