Charlevoix is charming!

Looking toward Round Lake from Charlevoix Marina

We've had a great day in Charlevoix.  We slept in til 7:00 am and called the marina office at 8:00 to say that we want to stay another day.  They can only take reservations on the day that you arrive.  After breakfast I did a bit of house cleaning, and George started on some engineering work.  

I went for a walk with Sue and Dan (our next door neighbors on Tranquility) to look at the mushroom houses.  This is an interesting architectural phenomenon in Charlevoix.  In the early 20th century Earl Young designed and built several of these houses using local stone. He wanted the houses to fit the land. Mr. Young only had one year of architecture school and began by building a house for his family.  Then he bought land on a high point here and built several of the houses.  A new mushroom house is being built in this neighborhood on Park Avenue.  It has a thatch roof, which I have never seen on a house in the 21st century. 

This is a half house. The roof is cedar shingles.

The houses have unusual curves.  When I visited, I felt as though I was looking into a fairy tale.

After our walk I had lunch and a short nap before going to the movies with George.  The cinema is right downtown and has three movies with matinees.  We saw The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  Did you watch the TV show when you were a kid?  I was in love with Illya Kuryakin.  The movie was fun because of the ancient (1960s era) technology, the clothes, and the Cold War mentality.

We had a large crowd of loopers for docktails tonight.  We met loopers from Texas, California and New Orleans.  Also Penny Pinchin' and Tranquility came.  Lots of jokes were made about the wind and putting the boat up for sale or winter storage.  We are all in the same boat here, stuck by the wind. But this is a great town in which to be stuck. 

This morning Corsair, a 42 foot Grand Banks, left the dock at 8:00 am.  We thought, oh well, they are so much bigger than we, they will be ok with this weather.  At 10:00 am they came back.  They said it was just too rough.  They were being tossed all around the boat.  The south wind coming up Grand Traverse Bay was terrible.  We will all stay put tomorrow.  We hope we can move on Friday.  

We had a big group for docktails at Charlevoix.