Cheers to local craft breweries! Two of six breweries on the newly minted “Sleeping Bear Ale Trail” made the top five of MLive’s Best New Michigan Brewery search. Frankfort’s Stormcloud Brewing Company won the gold medal earlier this month, and Hop Lot in Suttons Bay came in fourth.
The 18 x 34 foot Ugly Tomato market and gift shop on the corner of M-22 and Lake Street seems almost lost in the madness of downtown Glen Arbor. Most summer afternoons it sits idle, both doors open, welcoming the summer breeze. But the place is anything but calm. The miniscule shop withstands frequent and intense rushes of customers. The rising sun brings a surge of people, eager to get their hands on still-warm pastries and confections. Afternoons attract a steady trickle of both locals, who rely on the shop for produce, and tourists who are often surprised to find such a concentration of local goods in one store. From the chipmunk named Alvin, who demands chopped pecans by the handful, to the witty t-shirts and signs, the Ugly Tomato might be small but it oozes character. It is this sort of quirkiness that draws in curious first-timers and seasoned locals over and over again.
Here’s your guide to Leelanau County golf courses, past and present, with a little inside info from a few avid local golfers. This installment expands to courses in Leland, Northport and Suttons Bay.
By foot or by paddle? With new kayaking tours by All About Water and hiking and biking options hosted by sbd Tours, anyone with a will to work for their wonderful view of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore can have their pick of adventures.
Leelanau County residents and those visiting our shores a year ago definitely know where they were when the storm hit. Where they took shelter, what they saw, and how they helped others in the minutes, hours and days after the megastorm pummeled Glen Arbor and the Sleeping Bear Dunes minutes after 4 p.m. last August 2 is now part of our personal narrative.
Here’s your guide to Leelanau County golf courses, past and present, with a little inside info from a few avid local golfers. Part one of our two-part series looks at the courses closest to Glen Arbor and Empire. In the next edition, we will expand to Leland, Northport and Suttons Bay.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore officials worry that the Platte River party scene has reached a pitch where, if left unchecked, could spell disaster: a child cutting their feet on a broken beer bottle; a drunken reveler passing out and drowning in the river, a pedestrian hit by a moving vehicle on Lake Michigan Road, where the speed limit remains 55 miles per hour—even near the mouth of the river where cars line the road for half a mile on hot summer weekends.
Beth Bricker and Cherrie Stege are sisters. They created an art gallery in Glen Arbor. And, their mother may have been a wood elf. What? Ananda Bricker, Cherrie and Beth’s late mother, lived in the woods here, in both the spiritual and literal senses of that verb. It was her natural habitat, and the flowers were her familiars.
On July 19, Glen Arbor will welcome “Gem Hunter” Gary Bowersox who will speak at a special Tea Talk in the garden of Becky Thatcher Designs.
The streets of downtown Glen Arbor are packed these days with tourists, beachgoers, and shoppers. The tills hum at apparel shops, rented bikes and kayaks roll off the assembly line at Crystal River Outfitters, and there’s a hungry line out the door at Art’s Tavern. But “help wanted” signs on storefronts, restaurant entrances and social media appeals, have become as ubiquitous in our tourism boomtowns — in Glen Arbor and up and down the Lake Michigan shoreline.