Seven strong swimmers. Five kayakers, one in a borrowed orange plastic open water kayak paddled by my husband, David Early. Me, resident geek and novice on my stand-up paddle board (not a paddleboat, a paddle board), my ATX dubbed “Yellow Belle.” Our brave leaders are Kati Rooney and spouse, Jim Hennessey. We are the proverbial motley crew — except we have a purpose. This is the sixth annual Esch to Empire swim.
This summer, the National Park Service (NPS) unveiled its options for the Historic Landscape Management Plan of the Port Oneida Rural Historic District. Some four miles east of Glen Arbor, the shoreline settlement was founded as a logging community, with subsistence (family) farming and fishing, in the early 1860s by immigrant pioneers from Prussia and Hanover (now parts of modern Germany), and lived in continuously until the 1970s. It is defined as a “historic vernacular landscape … that has evolved through use by ordinary people” over a “period of significance of 1870-1945,” in the Plan’s Executive Summary, and it is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Homestead will host the seventh annual Charity Golf Outing on Thursday, August 18. All proceeds will benefit ShareCare of Leelanau, Inc. Mountain Flowers, The Homestead’s private Par 3, nine-hole golf course will be open to the public for this special event.
It’s almost 10 p.m. and the hottest July 20th on record here since 1977. Undaunted, humans are thicker than mosquitoes on the deck above the beach at The Leelanau School’s C.H. Lanphier Observatory.
On Thursday, July 28, the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society (GTAS) will hold a meeting and viewing night at the Lanphier Observatory on the beach at The Leelanau School, north of Glen Arbor. Viewing starts at 10 p.m., if there are clear skies.
The Homestead’s ski hill overlooking Lake Michigan will provide the perfect venue for the music of Blackthorn, a Celtic quartet, on Thursday, July 28. What a night it will be with magnificent music at a spectacular venue. This event is part of the Manitou Music Festival summer concert series. It is hosted by The Homestead Resort and presented by the Glen Arbor Art Association.
Glen Arbor artist Kristin Hurlin’s illustrations appear in the new children’s book Michigan Fruit: An Artful Coloring & Activity Book (Artful Educators, 2011). Hurlin co-authored the book with Susan Briggs. Michigan Fruit is filled with history, lore, recipes and beautiful pictures to color, including thematic farmscapes of strawberries, cherries, blueberries, apricots, peaches, plums, pears, apples, grapes, favorite fruit recipes, and a map and list of Michigan fruit festivals.
Guests and club members at The Homestead will be treated to a series of free nature-based programs this summer with “The Wonders of Raptors” by Rebecca Lessard of Wings of Wonder. The programs will be offered in the Camp Tamarack amphitheatre.
When Frank and Beryl Skrocki packed up their three tiny kids to start an unknown life up north, they never imagined their family would own and operate one of the only surf shops in Michigan just a few years later.
Visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (the local branch of the National Park Service) on Saturday, June 18, at 9 p.m. for an evening with the stars. Join a Park Ranger and the Grand Traverse Astronomical Society at the mouth of the Platte River on Lake Michigan Drive in Benzie County to learn about and celebrate the night sky. Watch the sun set into Lake Michigan, view the starry constellations, and spot the rings of Saturn through huge telescopes. If you are lucky, you may even get to see the elusive green flash as the sun sinks below the horizon.