Northern Michigan, Day 2 (continued): Glen Arbor, Fishtown, and More Great Food

After several hours of hiking, this pregnant girl was STARVING! We drove into Glen Arbor and grabbed a late lunch at the Cherry Republic: "World Headquarters of All Things Cherry." They weren't kidding. Lunch at the cafe was just "eh," but the retail store and the winery were quite interesting. Free samples abounded at both places--first the store, with everything from cherry salsa to cherry peanut butter to cherry coffee--and then the winery, where Steve enjoyed sampling cherry wines. The Traverse City area is apparently the cherry capital of America--unfortunately they aren't ripe until later in the summer, but we saw orchards everywhere.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the Cherry Republic other than a few in the garden courtyard. These purple flowers--I found out this week they are called allium (related to onions, of all things!)--reminded me of fireworks:

And then we saw what I think were pink lilacs--just beautiful:

Before heading home, we stopped in Fishtown, a historic fishing village:

...and then we headed back to the lake house for MUCH needed showers and naps.

The evening concluded with more excellent food. We found this local pizza place in Traverse City called Paesano's, where we ordered a deep-dish Chicago-style pizza. It wasn't what I expected, based on experiences in Chicago, but it was ah.mazing. Seriously on the top ten list of best pizzas I've ever eaten. And I am a pizza LOVER--so that is really saying something.

Then it was ice cream time. For me, ice cream is an integral part of vacation. It's not really vacation without several visits to a local ice cream shop for big waffle cones (you have to go several times, and get double scoops each time, to try all the different flavors that sound good).

As it turned out, the perfect place was right on the road between Traverse City and our lake house: Moomer's, which was voted best ice cream in America in a contest on Good Morning America. I wasn't a huge fan of their signature flavor, Cherries Moobilee (which our hosts so thoughtfully and generously had waiting in the freezer for us to try!), but I loved what I got in my cone. The Raspberry Chocolate Chip was excellent, and the Carrot Cake (cinnamon ice cream with actual chunks of carrot cake and cream cheese frosting swirl) was to DIE for.

Best part of Moomer's? It's right on the farm, so after you get your ice cream, you can go stand out on the deck and watch the cows. Steve and I found this endlessly amusing.

And that was our long, full day 2! On to day 3...