Mallory calls them “shrooms”

Yesterday mostly was a travel day, but not aboard Misty Pearl.  Two-mile walk to Enterprise, three-hour drive to Grand Rapids, and three-hour return trip with Mallory in the back seat squealing about her brothers being cute.  Along the way we passed Big Rapids.  The people of Big Rapids probably thought they were all that, and then GRAND Rapids came along.  We also discovered that the people who name Michigan roads are about as uncreative as the people who name waterfalls.  We passed a zillion generically named ___ Mile Roads, as in 20 Mile Road or 12 Mile Road.  Nonsensical really, but at least it gave Eminem something to write about.

We also passed cherry orchards by the dozens.  Who knew?  Charlevoix claims to be home to the World’s Largest Cherry Pie.  We mostly are skeptical about any of the global claims we’ve found along the way, but this one takes the cake, er, the pie.  First, it’s not a real pie.  It’s metal.  That alone makes the claim demonstrably bogus.  It’d be like claiming the heaviest boxer of all time is the Rocky statue.  Second, it’s not even a sculpture of a whole pie.  Just a slice.  We could pull out any random cherry and boast that it’s a small piece of an 8 Mile wide pie.  Third, it’s not even that big.  It’s really just an Unremarkable Sculpture of a Slice of Cherry Pie and should be billed as such.  Also, what happened in 1987?  Did someone weld up a bigger fake pie slice?

The number one Charlevoix attraction actually is a series of attractions:  so-called Mushroom Houses.  Some college-dropout named Earl Young built a bunch of funky places that are scattered around town.  Gotta give him credit though.  They’ve stood the proverbial test of time.

This is a photo of Stafford’s Weathervane, a mushroom house restaurant recommended by our friend Erin Lewin.  (How’d we get all these friends from Michigan anyway?)

We trust she isn’t related to anybody named Stafford or Weathervane, although the dinner was delicious either way.

This Earl Young design can be yours for a cool $2.75 mil.  The best part is that it comes with a full four months of tolerable weather.

The folks at the marina loaned us five bikes so we could explore with Second Wave.  Actually it was four bikes and a trike, which Dana took because Mallory refused.  Which leads to what would be today’s poll if we did polls:  Is it worse parenting to raise a law-breaking child or an illiterate child?