Home is where the heart is...

Traverse City, Michigan is where I feel at home. This small town in Northern Michigan is located on Lake Michigan close to the infamous Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. This city brings cold, snowy, and chilling winters, but the summers are warm with a cool breeze from the lake, like an ocean breeze! There are sail boats in all the harbors located in the city, but before you get to the harbor there are small shops that are full of trinkets, ice cream, and fish. Nothing beats a smoked trout and double scoop of superman ice cream on a warm summer afternoon, but to figure our what superman ice cream is you will have to take a trip up north to figure it out for yourself.

However there is more to Traverse City than fish and ice cream.This small family oriented town means so much to me, because my dad is from Michigan and my mom moved there when they got engaged. Naturally after they moved away, this became a vacation spot for my family. In upstate Michigan nature is the entertainment, from searching for petoskey stones, which are limestone rocks that appear to be ugly, but have the pattern of coral due to a rare form of fossilization, but the fossil can only be seen when the stone is wet or carefully polished. Other activities are playing on the beach, making dancing girls out of flowers, fishing, swimming and so much more. My dad's Aunt Phia and Uncle Calen live on the lake which is why I feel so attached to the city. I have fond memories of being met in the driveway by their border-collie "Dr. Pepper" As well as sitting on there back porch in the backyard, which had a wooden stair case that led through the trees to Lake Michigan. The beauty of their back yard is that you can always hear the water, but you can only get a small glimpse of it, until you venture down the staircase. As a child we would race up and down the stairs, snagging homemade lemonade as we basked in the sunshine on the beach of the lake. I have never lived in Michigan, but have lived in Minnesota, yet Michigan and it's Great Lake feel more like home than anything. However, without the memories and the people that are associated with this small upstate city it would be nothing.