The Journey North: Our Annual Trip to Michigan

I find little more thrilling in life than getting a good deal on a hotel on Priceline.  Sadly the rule for Priceline seems to be that it is only really effective in large cities.  Ann Arbor and Traverse City do not qualify as large cities.  Finding someplace for our two pit stops on the way up north was a struggle at best.  We took two days to make our 8 hours drive up to Walloon Lake.  Stop number one was to visit friends in Ann Arbor and stop two was to check out what Traverse City had to offer.

On the list of most disgusting places to be with children, public restrooms and hotels, cheap nasty ones especially, are running a close tie in my book.  The first part of this trip was unfortunately full of both.  At least with the bathrooms you’re in and out in a matter of minutes, whereas in the hotels they have time to touch everything :(  Watching kids sit on the floor in a hotel room is enough to make me want to have a serious nervous breakdown.  I guess the upside is that there is not better motivation to get up and move in the morning that the thought that you and your children are sleeping in other people’s filth.  At the Red Roof Inn in Ann Arbor during my bed bug check I found a few stray hairs, a large stain that I made myself believe was coffee, and then there was the finger nail clipping that I think I dislodged when searching the bedding.  This hotel got two stars and cost about $50 and it probably deserved negative star.  Luckily we had a nice time visiting friends and finally got to see what all the hype was about at Zingerman’s deli. 

Blessedly the 2 1/2 star hotel in Traverse City was light years nicer and we were all actually able to sleep peacefully in a comfortable bed free of hairs, stains and finger nails.  I guess you get what you pay for since it cost three times as much.  Traverse is a lovely place to visit and I am shocked that in my 20 or more summer trips to Northern Michigan we have never been there before.  Unfortunately we had less than 24 hours to check it out before we headed to Walloon.