Exploring Interlochen

In the past year or so, the way that @mrsbozz and I camp has changed quite a bit. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, we used to take our dog Jovi camping with us. She had some major separation anxiety issues which required us to spend most of our time at the campsite with her. It was pretty rare that we would leave the campground as she would sit in the trailer and whine the whole time we were gone. Likewise, if we took her with us and left her in the truck for even a split second, she would howl like she was in a horror movie.

We didn't mind it, it was a very relaxing time for us and if I could have her back, I would in a heartbeat. However, now that she is no longer with us, that gives us some more latitude to go out exploring when we go on our frequent camping trips in the summer.

This trip to Interlochen State Park was no exception. There was a Disc Golf course just south of the campground that I really wanted to check out, but due to the weather being cold and rainy, it really wasn't going to be comfortable to play a round, so I found a couple other stops for us to make.

The first stop was a cool little meat market and deli down in the town of Karlin, MI. Mikowski's Meat Market and Deli is just about a five minute drive down the road from the entrance to the state park. It took us literally no time to get there. I actually kind of felt like I should try to find someplace a bit further away for us to visit. As you will see though, it ended up turning out okay.

Mikowski's had a nice selection of cold and hot deli items and custom smoked meats. If you know me, you know I love hardware stores and meat markets. While many places like this have a load of specialty bratwurst that they sell, Mikowski's seemed leaned into the hot dog market with a huge variety of different flavored hot dogs.

They also had a quite nice selection of whiskey. I didn't end up buying a bottle, but I did spend a fair amount of time looking at what they had while my wife sat in the truck.

If you are ever in the area, I definitely think it is worth stopping in.

I ended up picking up a package of turkey jerky for @mrsbozz and for myself I got this package of BBQ snack sticks. They were both really good. I have been snacking on the snack sticks each day at work. I'm actually going to be a little bit sad when I finish up the last one later today. If you've never been there @cryptictruth, you should check this place out.

From Mikowski's we headed back towards the small (but slightly larger than Karlin) town of Interlochen to make a few more stops. I have been on a mission for the past couple of years to find the perfect chocolate malt in Michigan. Believe it or not, not all malts are created equal and I have had an interesting variety of attempts at this delicious treat.

That's what led us to Kate's Sweet Shop and Mini Golf.

It felt a bit weird to be buying a malt at 11 in the morning on a cold 48 degree day, but research is research and I had a mission to complete! As I said, not all malts are created equal. The biggest mistake many places make with chocolate malts is that they use chocolate ice cream. This often leaves the malt with a grainy texture. The proper (in my opinion) way to make a chocolate malt is with vanilla ice cream, malt mixture, and chocolate syrup. As pretentious as it may sound, I have learned to ask how they make it before I even order it lest I be disappointed.

Kate's actually uses soft serve swirl ice cream along with chocolate syrup for their chocolate malt. I didn't get a shot of it, but it turned out really good. Probably one of the better ones I have had in the state.

From Kate's, we headed up the road to get some gas at a local gas station. It's a Mobil oil gas station, but the company that owns it is "Blarney Castle" which I just thought was interesting.

As I was pumping gas, I noticed a large group of folks across the street in a strip mall protesting something. I tried to take a not too obvious shot of them, but you can't really tell in the photo above. It turns out they were protesting our current president. Many cars were honking, but then you also had guys with jacked up trucks and loud exhaust systems gunning their motors in a sign of protest against the protesters.

Back in Karlin I had called in a take out order to a local restaurant in Interlochen called Oaky's Tavern. Instead of eating inside, we decided to get the food to go and take it back to our campsite to eat it. Oaky's was really cute inside and I could definitely see us coming back to this place just for the atmosphere alone. It was packed inside and after we tried the food, we understood why.

@mrsbozz got a small flatbread pizza that instead of a traditional tomato sauce base had a layer of spinach artichoke dip directly on top of the dough. It was then covered with a variety of veggies and cheeses along with some grilled chicken. To share with me she also got an order of the beer battered onion rings and they were both absolutely delicious.

I got the chicken wings with the jalapeno honey sauce and they were quite fantastic. Probably some of the best ones I have had in a while and right on par with the ones I made myself at home. The real star of the meal though was the homemade ranch dressing they gave us with the wings and onion rings. I could have swam in a vat of that stuff!

Back when I was pumping gas I noticed that the strip mall across the street had a used book store in it. My wife has been looking for a good used book store for a while now, so I talked her into letting our food get a little cold and checking out Blue Vase Books.

She seriously could have spent all day in there. It was pretty impressive the selection they had available. They even had a section for records that actually had some good stuff in it. My wife found a couple books she wanted and I found a Bozz Skaggs and Atlanta Rhythm Section record that I wanted and $11 later we were out the door. That's right just over ten bucks for two books and two records. You can't really beat that!

Interlochen is a cool artsy town in the north west corner of Michigan's lower peninsula. If you ever get the chance to visit, I hope you take the time to explore some of the great places that we found while we were there!

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