Traverse City is about three quarters of the way north on the West Coast of Michigan. When we were perusing the Good Sam campground web site we found a campground just south of Traverse City that sounded really nice and it sounded even nicer when we realized that it had off season rates that started on September 2nd.

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Our site at Holiday Park Campground. Ed was told that this campground was originally an Airstream only membership park. I believe the park is still a membership park though they do rent to us non-members and they allow other brands of trailers into the park.

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There are still a lot of Airstream trailers in the park.

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The park is situated at the bottom of Silver Lake with many of the sites backing onto the lake.

The Traverse City area is the largest producer of tart cherries in the United States. The surrounding countryside also produces grapes, and is one of the centers of wine production in the Midwest. In 2009, TripAdvisor named Traverse City the number two small town travel destination in the United States. In 2012, the city was listed among the 10 best places to retire in the U.S. by U.S. News.

After setting up camp we drove into town to explore the downtown area.

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Zaph was impressed with the downtown area as a number of shops put water bowls on the sidewalk. This movie theater covered all the bases with small, medium and large bowls. The ticket seller also gave Zaph a cookie.

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The downtown area had lots of interesting shops but this building in old town caught our attention.

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There were some beautiful old houses and lots of interesting restaurants.

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The harbor is block north of the main shopping area and a lot of people were out enjoying the good weather.