Escape to Beaver Island

This past weekend Kristal and I embarked upon our 3rd Annual Girl's Weekend adventure. In previous years we've gone hiking/camping through Hocking Hills, OH, and on a wine tour through the Leelanau Penninsula, MI. Both were extreme amounts of fun, but this year we planned to take it a bit more low key. We thought it would be fun to check out the Charlevoix apple festival, then head on over to Beaver Island by way of the ferry and spend a few days exploring the island and it's hidden gems. While the trip didn't turn out quite like I had imagined (my goodness there is not much to do on Beaver Island!), we did manage to have ourselves a nice relaxing weekend away and see some beautiful fall Michigan color.

Beaver Island Montage

Our trip schedule of events went a little something like this:

Day 1: Leave Ann Arbor around 2pm. Drive up to Beulah, MI to stay the night at my in-laws cottage for the night. Eat dinner at Dingy's (one of my local favorites) for the Friday night fish fry. Giggle like little girls at a slumber party into the late night.
Day 2: Depart Beulah, and drive 1.5 hours to Charlevoix. Drop off our luggage, park the car, hit the apple festival, and catch the ferry. Take the 2.5 hour ferry to Beaver Island. Arrive to BI completely sea sick from the terrible wind and waves! Catch our breathe and eat lunch in our cozy little hotel suite with full kitchen. Check out a few of the downtown shops. Rent a car (in our case, a ghetto purple 1994 Geo Tracker!) and drive about 1/2 the perimeter of the island. Make several stops along the way for hikes, scenic view, wildlife spottings, and fall color viewing. Head back to the suite around 7pm to make ourselves a lovely pasta dinner with wine. More giggling like little girls, some reading, lots of talking, and we're off to slumberland by 11pm.
Day 3: Sleep in late and take a lazy approach to the day. Complete the second half of the island tour, including visits to Protar's home and tomb (BI historical legend), view and climb a giant birch and rock, check out the Beaver Island lighthouse, and have a late lunch on beach at the south end of the island. Again, more hiking, beach walking, fall color viewing and marsh tromping were mixed in. We head back to the suite again to return our car around 3:30pm and take a late afternoon nap. We awake refreshed for some baked potato extraveganza dinner, watching Hide and Seek (my goodness Robert Deniro as a pyschopath is scary!), do our nails and perform hair experiments, read some more, and finally head to sleep around midnight.
Day 4: Wake up bright and early and head home on the 2.5 hour ferry. Thankfully this time there was much less wind and a bigger boat, so no motion sickness to be found. Make another fun stop in downtown Charlevoix shops, and to get a coffee warm-up for the ride home. The drive home winds us through the lovely Gaylord area and the prime fall color. We arrive home safely after the 5 hour trip, thankful for a lovely weekend spending time together. :-)