If you've ever been to Petoskey, MI, this post will be old news, BUT, if you love Ernest Hemingway stories, you owe it to yourself to get up there and see what Hemingway saw. The great thing is - most everything in Petoskey is just like Hemingway left it in the early 1920s. And somebody from the New York Times just did a great article about Hemingway's time in northern Michigan. As a big fan of both, I'm going to try to add my two cents.

This will be the first year that I haven't been to Petoskey in a long time. We took our daughters up there every summer, before they "flew the coop". When we were up there, we always stopped at the Mclean and Eakin bookstore on Lake Street, which has a whole section devoted to Hemingway stuff - and it's just a cool, old bookstore. (And, I don't know if it's somehow related to Hemingway hanging out there, but Petoskey has an INCREDIBLE public library, for a town of that size)

From the bookstore you can walk down to the Little Traverse History Museum, which used to be the old train station and has a lot of "Hemingway related stuff". Then, for lunch, head up to the City Park Grill that they talk about in this NYT article. I never sat at the bar where Hemingway drank, but the restaurant has good food and, when the kids were younger, they had paper "tablecloths" that the kids could draw on, so - good times.

As for Horton Bay, where Hemingway and his first wife were married, one 4th of July, we went to the parade in "downtown Horton Bay". I had the feeling this parade had been organized after several drinks on somebody's boat. I remember thinking "these are my kind of people" after seeing a guy, dressed like Saddam Hussein, riding in the back of a police car and throwing out candy.

So, go, explore. It inspired Hemingway to write some of the greatest stories ever written. And it's practically in our backyard.

 

Banana Don and Stephanie McCoy amuse and thrill you every weekday morning from 5:30 – 10AM on the radio at 100.7 WITL.

Banana Don can be reached via email at don.jefferson@townsquaremedia.com and on Twitter at @WITLBananaDon and @WITLFM. Also, Facebook friend Banana Don and Stephanie at Facebook.com/BananaStephanie and Facebook.com/WITLFM.

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