Geography 101

Traversing Traverse City (too corny - got to draw the line somewhere)


We've been exploring and came up with two treasures...Traverse City and Interlochen, Michigan.


If you look at a map and find Traverse City, it sits at the tips of two fingers of water, protruding in from Lake Michigan...the East and West Arms of Grand Traverse Bay.  The downtown area shops have kept the old charm of the architecture while many of the shops are quite modern and fun.

Front Street, the shopping place to be.

A marina up the coast from Traverse City (TC in the background)

We packed a lunch, not knowing where Miki de Leon (not to be confused with Ponce de Leon, Caribbean explorer) would want to travel.  Due to the location of the city on the water, they have a beach.  Sand, sun bathers, and boats...we could have been in Charleston...well that might be pushing it.  But for these poor people that stick out the winters here, this is there Charleston.

Some freedom from the doghouse and these boys were feeling their oats.

A good roll in the grass cures all cabin fever.

A quick pose for the camera...

...before a couple of bitches trotted by
(you know what I mean, clean it up).
You should have heard the cat calls that came out of these boys.

After a drive up the coast, we found our way back to our campground, Interlochen State Park.  Interlochen, the town, is small enough that it shares a Chamber of Commerce website with a few other small towns with names like Chums Corners.  If you Google it, you will see Interlochen Center for the Arts at the top of the list.  I would go into teacher mode here and give you a little history of this melting pot of fine art talent, but this website video is much more interesting.  

www.interlochen.org/media/video-interlochen-center-arts-overview

Miki's niece, Cait (who just graduated from Florida State University - Go Cait! - and just moved to San Fransico to pursue her dance career - Go Cait!) attended Interlochen for 3 years with her interest in dance.  Our campground is right across the street from Interlochen, the fine arts camp.  Kids come from all over the world, but initially it was a group of 200+ talented kids from across the US that came together to form the National High School Orchestra Camp.  The founders came across a struggling summer camp and turned their misfortune into the beginnings of Interlochen Center for the Arts began.


We donned our bicycle helmets and after riding for a little exercise, we cooled down by riding around the grounds of Interlochen.

One of the outdoor theaters "The Bowl."  

We found an orchestra practicing in The Bowl.  We sat and listened for awhile.  You could hear the talent from these kids all the way to the back row.  Even the kids on the upright bass with their two notes  da da da da... were making their parents proud...well, whatever.

Practice huts

Each of the practice huts (above) were a little bigger than a baby grand piano, which many of them had.  As we rode by each one, you could hear individual students practicing pieces of different music.  Stopping and starting, again and again.  Other small buildings had other instruments playing.  This went on and on and on, it was quite inspiring to think that these were some of the best of the best, all in one place.

This building and the one below are examples of halls
to see and hear student's talent on display.

This one is called the Writing House.

Here we watched a music director take his vocal students through
warm up exercises on another outdoor performance stage.

This was the largest of the performance venues.
Below is a panorama shot.  It is an open air theater that backs up to a lake.

Even though my talents were cultivated in other ways (like farting armpits and building PVC marshmallow shooters), it is nice to know there is such a place for those into fine arts (finer than burping the alphabet) can gather and be amongst others like themselves.  


They offer student and faculty recitals in the evenings (which is where we will be this evening) and they bring in big name musicians throughout the summer.  Last night we were distantly entertained by the Beach Boys as we sat by our campfire.  We could make out the songs and hear the applause, but couldn't make out the words.  But then they are the Beach Boys and who doesn't know all the words to all their songs.  A nice way to end the day, sitting by a fire, listening to the Beach Boys at our own private concert.


My Zen from the Road:  At different times you can see small groups of the kids from Interlochen walking up the road to get ice cream or some other treat worth the walk.  They all have uniforms of a sort to indicate what level or age group they are.  Different colored knee socks for some and different colored shirts for others.  Even the faculty have a uniform.  How nice for all of them to be on the same level playing field and not to worry about their clothes and if they are the right brand or style.  Its all about the talent and the heart.  Strip away the outside and all you have is the inside.