National Cherry Festival - Day 1

We had a rare holiday weekend without any dogs so we took the occasion to drive up to Traverse City, Michigan to attend the National Cherry Festival.

Traverse City is up in northern part of the lower peninsula of Michigan, about a six hour drive for us from the Chicago area. We arrived there about mid afternoon on Saturday, and after we checked into our motel, we walked downtown.

We saw a fun art gallery. Among the pieces I enjoyed the most were a few fish made made from the tops of aluminum cans, including the one on display here above the doorway.

A little further down, we came to a store that sold all sorts of things made with cherries - salad dressings, salsa, chocolate-covered cherries, cherry pies, cherry ice cream, among others. We enjoyed three different flavors of cherry soda.

We went back to our motel and then went to the beach for a little while as that is something Kai always looks forward to. (We forgot to take a camera so no pictures, but Kai enjoyed the cold water).

After getting cleaned up, we went out to dinner and found a modern Asian restaurant. I had Vietnamese Shaking Beef, Kai had Indian curry, and my wife had seared Tuna Chirashi.

After dinner, we walked around downtown some more. Traverse City has a river flowing through it.

We came upon a carnival that was going on in conjunction with the festival. Kai enjoyed playing a few different games. Here he is hauling up a fish.

While the games themselves were fun, Kai really loved that he could win some new plushes.

We wrapped up our day by walking along the waters of Grand Traverse Bay. While we missed the exact sunset, the sky was still lit up as we headed back to our motel.

It was a very nice first day, and we hadn't even seen any fresh cherries yet.