Michigan - Day 23 - Pie Tins and Mackinaw City

Mackinaw Mill Creek Campground, Mackinaw City
Tuesday, 23 July 2019

today's route

On the road
I passed some fields with corn that looked 5' high.  Michigan's corn crop sure seems healthier than Indiana's though I saw some corn plants here that were just getting started.  I'm told Michigan hasn't gotten nearly the drenching that Indiana's gotten because those storms that have swept across the plains states seem to have included Indiana on their route.  Michigan gets plenty of storms, they say, but they aren't the same ones or they respond differently to the topography or something.

Coming down a hill I saw Lake Michigan with a sailboat on it - very picturesque.

Traverse City
Just south of Traverse City I found the World's Largest Cherry Pie.

to show the relative size of this thing

It's on the grounds of this Sara Lee plant, and I thought the sign was a bit odd - a frozen bakery?

Fact is, this is no longer the world's largest.  I think the current record-holder is in Japan.  But they enjoyed it while it lasted.

close-up of the sign

They had an actual pie in this tin that fed a bunch of people.

World's Largest Cherry Pie

 But mostly, they were just trying to unseat nearby Charlevoix from its title of World's Largest Cherry Pie.  After all, Charlevoix had used cherries from Traverse City orchards in the first place.  I went there next.

On the road
I started passing fruit stands, especially cherry stands, though not giving enough notice for me to stop in time.  I also passed several cherry orchards, proving Traverse City really does have cherries.

I went through the town of Elk Rapids, which has a major statue of a swan by the road.   www.roadsideamerica.com/tip  I looked at the various nearby waterways but saw no swans.

I crossed the 45th Parallel again.

Charlevoix

check out the ingredients

the first World's Largest Cherry Pie

Charlevoix came up with this stunt as part of the 1976 Bicentennial Festivities - and a pretty good stunt it was.

That oddball contraption this pie tin and the Traverse City pie tin are sitting in is the oven, as far as I can tell from the signs.

Even to my eyes, it's clear the Traverse City pie tin is bigger than this one, though here they've shown a piece of the pie (I think it's concrete).  Charlevoix, when they were supplanted by Traverse City, pointed out that Traverse City's pie didn't have a bottom crust and, therefore, wasn't really a pie.  Which didn't seem to bother the Guinness folks, though I think they have a point.

Charlevoix seemed like a very pleasant little town where, apparently, pedestrians are in charge.  They all step out fearlessly at crosswalks, sure that the traffic will stop.  Which it does.  And there were plenty of pedestrians, even on a Tuesday.  It looked like they were setting up tents and things for some kind of fair.

Back on the road
I saw several signs showing a pig with the letters LTCT.org.  I looked it up and learned that stands for Little Traverse Civic Theater.  Which leaves me none the wiser.  A pig?

$6 - and worth every penny

I finally saw a fruit stand that gave me enough notice to stop.  This one didn't just advertise cherries - it claimed to have washed, sweet cherries.  Who can resist?

I drove through Petoskey and saw houses that looked like transplants from the south - very large, long porches, some wrapping around the houses.

I drove through Pellston, which claims to be Ice Box of the Nation.  Not sure the Chamber of Commerce has thought through that one.

I saw some signs saying "2016 Tar Wars."  When I looked it up, I kept getting references to a 2016 version of Star Wars.  Sure that that's not right, I kept looking and found a 2017 movie titled Tar Wars, which purports to tell the true story of the 1983 Pine Tar incident during a Yankees/Royals game.  I don't remember hearing about this and, in case you don't either, here's what Wikipedia has to say about it.   wikipedia.org/Pine_Tar_Incident

I drove through Mackinaw City to the nearby campground where I had reservations.  Absolutely enormous campground, with roads labeled with letters of the alphabet (my site is on M street) and by numbers after they ran out of the alphabet.  But they offer a free shuttle service to one of the Mackinac Island ferries and discount ferry tickets, so I went for it.