Category: Travel

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Greenville, 2024

Arriving late on a Monday, we spent 5 days in Greenville, SC on the final leg of our trip. As was the case in Jekyll, the “super” El Nino, dampened our weather a bit this year. However, we still managed two 20+ mile bike rides, some running, walking and a swim for exercise. The downtown Residence Inn had a very nice work out facilities and the hotel overall was extremely well maintained and managed.

Greenville, in my opinion, has one of the nicest downtowns that I’ve been to. It’s very well integrated with its natural surroundings, has paths throughout, is well maintained, is growing at a controlled pace (very well planned), and is a very walkable, new mid-size city with plenty of restaurants, breweries, and entertainment venues.

View of the new Marriott Grand Bohemian Lodge in downtown Greenville, SC
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Jekyll Island and Georgia – 2024

Jekyll Island has become a familiar second home for DAK as a peaceful and warm break from the grey and cold Michigan winters. This marks our fourth consecutive year enjoying the “splendid isolation” of this island.

Once again, we stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn. This year in the exact same ocean front suite as last year (Room 102). The weather was a little cooler than usual due to a “super” El Nino across the country this winter. But we still managed to get a couple of days in the ocean and/or heated pool. On the literal bright side, it was usually sunny and made for good running and biking conditions relative to Michigan winters (certainly no snow or ice to contend with).

We made it our goal this year to focus on a healthy lifestyle while here. This included “plant forward” eating, daily exercise (usually running, bicycling, weightlifting, and walking), daily mental stimulation (various games and reading).

One of many beautiful ocean sunrises - View from our patio
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Hilton Head – 2024

We managed to shorten another Michigan winter by driving to Hilton Head Island as the first stop on our journey to winter sunshine. Albeit this winter’s super El Nino dampened the temperatures a little bit. This marked our first time back to Hilton Head Island since 2014.

We stayed at Marriott’s Surf Watch (vacation club) in a 2,000 sq. ft., two bedrooms, two bath condo with an ocean view. The condo came with a fully equipped kitchen and laundry room. It really had everything you could need. This may have been the nicest Marriott property we have ever stayed in. 

The oceanfront property had 5 pools (one indoor) plenty of activities (exercise facility w/ sauna, bocci ball, corn hole, fuse ball, horseshoes, club houses, restaurants/bars, games/tournaments, live music, beer tastings, light dinners/snacks, etc). The grounds were excellently maintained.

Our 2 bedroom, 2 bath Oceanview Condo at Marriott's Surf Watch was incredible!
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London, Ontario (Not Calling)

The first few days of October brought beautiful weather to Michigan. So why not take advantage with an impromptu biking trip to London, Ontario? London is only an hour drive east of the Blue Water Bridge that connects Port Huron, MI to Sarnia, ON. We’ve read that London, Ontario is known as the “forest city” with many miles of forested bike paths in and around the city. That proved to be the case and we really enjoyed London’s extensive trail system. 

However, what we did not expect was the pervasive homelessness (and drug) problems in downtown London. We had to literally sidestep way too many homeless people sleeping on the city sidewalks during our morning runs. During the day it felt like we were in a zombie movie, with the homeless walking around zoned out on something. Unfortunately, that overshadowed most of the good aspects of downtown London.

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Montreal and Beyond

It’s been a while (2019) since we’ve been to the Montreal area of Canada. But we made it during the early part of September 2023. In addition to Montreal our adventures took us to Three Rivers (halfway between Montreal and Quebec City, Kingston, and Ganonoque (gateway to the 1000 Islands). We biked about 130 miles during our time in Canada, with a lot of running and walking too. Overall, a very active trip with the Montreal portion being very hot (near 90 and humid most days).

Map showing the Trans-Canadian Bicycle routes. We rode Route 5 in Montreal, Dorval, Lachine, Three Rivers, Kingston, and Ganonoque
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A mid-summer jaunt to Manistee

DaK decided to take a few days to explore the northern west coast of Michigan’s lower peninsula (including Ludington, Manistee, Frankfort, and Cadillac.) We haven’t spent much time in most of these towns, so off we went. We based our trip in Manistee in a brand new (opened the week we arrived) Hampton Inn right on Lake Michigan. 

Manistee is an old, small town that is hanging in there with a cute main street and river walk, but not a lot to do other than enjoy the beautiful beach on Lake Michigan. So, we split up our time spending one full day each in Manistee, Frankfort, Cadillac and Ludington. Each offered different advantages. Along the way we visited at least one brewery in each town as well as biking in Frankfort and Cadillac. Surprisingly, there was also a nearby concert every day of the week including a Gordon Lightfoot cover band in Onekoma (20 minutes north of Manistee) and a jazz band from Detroit that performed right on the grounds of our hotel.

We started and ended our trip by discovering a phenomenal new brewery in Manistee on the east end of Main Street. Third Life Brewing Company opened less than a year ago and serves fantastic beer (bring in your own food). We met the brewer who was very friendly, knowledgeable and dedicates his beers to local customers. Summers on the Beach (12.25% abv) was one of the best Imperial Stouts I’ve ever had! Karen experimented with mixing two of their beers (a Belgian peach and a blueberry wheat) and really enjoyed it too!)

View from our balcony at the Hampton Inn
Our room
Sunset from our balcony
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