9-30 to 10-4-2013 Traverse City Ale Trail

We always like to visit Traverse City, MI after the Michigan Paddlers Rendezvous because it's a neat area with lots going on.  We stayed four nights and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  At one microbrewery we discovered that there is now a Traverse City Ale Trail.  If you go to all the breweries listed in the brochure and get stamps from them, then you could take the brochure back to The Filling Station (a nice microbrewery overlooking Boardman Lake) and receive a free silicone pint glass.  That was the first freebie we had seen that seemed bus-worthy and travel-worthy, so we went for it.

We enjoyed visiting the following breweries:
1. Mackinaw Brewing Company
2. The Filling Station Microbrewery
3. Brewery Ferment - cute little place, tried our first sour beer here
4. The Workshop Brewing Company - awesome place with good food and pinball
5. North Peak Brewing Company - a more mainstream restaurant and brewery
6. Right Brain Brewery
7. Jolly Pumpkin - a nice restaurant and brewery way up there on the Old Mission Peninsula, had sour beer here also

We got our silicone pints (you know, the flexible rubbery stuff that they now make potholders and stuff from), and they're really cute and neat:

Cara also had a birthday while we were there, so we did go around and collect any free drinks.  We enjoyed walking around downtown and eating several nice meals.  One funny thing we saw was this plant:

We generally like to camp at Sleeping Bear Dunes after our week in Traverse City, but the government shutdown thwarted our plans.  So, we just headed home early.