Joel Dinda's photos with the keyword: hotel

It's lonely on the beach....

While we've stayed at Traverse City's Pointes North Inn many times, we'd never before had a room overlooking the pool. I'm not sure we realized such a thing existed.

Sugar Beach Resort Hotel, on the East Arm of Traverse Bay in Traverse City, has this open space between the wings. In-season, you get a nice glimpse of the beach and the bay as you move the luggage from the car to your room. With Friday's strong north wind, things weren't so pleasant, as the tunnel took the opportunity to sand-blast us. The hotel has put up this nice windbreak for the winter. It doesn't work.

Those of you who've been paying attention know that Glen Haven's my favorite place. Period. The Park Service website tells me that this waterfront hotel dates from about 1865 (it says 1857 on the building), with an addition "a few years later" and the porch enclosed in the 1920s. I sometimes wish it was still a functioning hostelry. The Park's done a lot of work on the Glen Haven shoreline since we last visited--fences, mostly, but some other work as well. Probably it's a good thing.

Pointes North's peculiar bathrooms have this central hall. To the left, through the open door, is the combination toilet & linen closet. At the end of the hall, the shower. Close on the right, the bathroom sink. Farther down to the right, a window. It opens into the main room, over the Jacuzzi. (I seem not to take pictures of Jacuzzis. Not sure why.) The window has a blind, but if you leave it down, the maid raises it. Privacy, evidently, is not an issue. Navigating this setup in the dark is an issue.... Pointes North Inn, Traverse City.

Once you get past the oddly-arranged bath, the rooms are quite attractive. The comfy sofa by the window is far better than most affordable hotels offer; a nice touch. And the lighting's great. Reason enough, for us, to keep coming back. The sink in the foreground is in the "kitchen"--a tiny microwave, a coffee maker, and a small fridge complete that feature. Beyond the kitchen, and out of sight here, is the Jacuzzi. And yes, the room really comes to a point . Pointes North Inn, Traverse City. Joan on the sofa, of course.

Joan claims she parked the car and I disappeared. I was taking this photo.... We've stayed at this lakefront hotel a dozen or so times. The building used to be a bluish grey, with pink awnings; differently gaudy, actually. Both of us preferred the old paint job, but our vote probably doesn't count. Pointes North is by no means a fancy hotel, but it's comfortable. It's family-friendly, but the oddly-configured rooms are plainly intended for couples. Above all else, it has a great location.

South Haven's Old Harbor Inn probably dates from the 1980s, but it's designed to look older. The hotel lives in four separate buildings, arranged around this little alleyway of commercial storefronts. 40 or so very different rooms are scattered around the place. Those that face a boardwalk or the street have outside doors, while the upper-level rooms are up stairways. (Wheelchair accommodations are not a strength, here, though I expect some of the rooms are accessible.) All the guest rooms in the buildings to the right in this photo overlook South Haven's harbor, which is the hotel's best feature. Downtown South Haven's excellent restaurant selection is a couple blocks away, and it's about a half-mile to the beach. A great location. It's quaint, but there's a catch. There are two nightclubs in the complex. The one at the end of this road, named York's Landing, runs year-round. The other, a seasonal operation called Magnolia Grille, lives on a riverboat and is just a few feet off the alley. This nightclub density is, obviously, not a problem for everyone. And since our stays have been off-season we've not had to deal with the riverboat partiers. But the place does have a reputation for rowdiness during the summer. In fact, the hotel's invoice warned us about it. Our room--straight up from where I shot the picture--is probably far enough from the action that we'd not have been bothered. The rooms that directly face the riverboat, on the other hand, can only be attractive to folks who've come for the party. That said: The Inn's a fine hotel, and we've been pleased with the rooms and the service. The location cannot be beat. A similar view , seven years ago.

One of the best features of Pointes North in Traverse City. They've repainted the place since our earlier stays.

Fayette State Park, at the north end of Lake Michigan, is a preserved ghost town. It was built by the Jackson Mining Company in the 1870s to run a blast furnace. Those ruins still dominate the view, though they've been improved since I first visited the place around 1980. The townsite's a spectacular setting, and has been a tourist attraction for over a century--far longer than it was a functioning village. Fayette was a company town, with all the structures owned by the mining company. This was the hotel/boarding house. The main reason the blown-out background has no details whatever is that Lake Michigan's close behind the hotel. ===================================== Photo taken in 1998, I think, using a Minolta point-n-shoot. I've heard Tom Friggens of the Michigan Historical Center insist that Fayette's never been a ghost town, as the place has always been occupied by someone. I regard that as a mere technicality.

Or so I've always heard.... Also famous, at least locally, for requiring the guests to dress up in the evening, and for charging passers-by a fee just to walk in front of the place. Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan.

St. Ignace, Michigan, car show.

It's just a hallway at a Traverse City hotel, though it doubles as sort of a balcony. Surprisingly attractive, though; most hotels in my price range have truly boring, utilitarian, and generally ugly, hallways.

Our hotel in Traverse City.

At Pointes North, Traverse City. The hotel asks that the guests not feed the "very cute" ducks. We found this guy outside the office a couple times over the weekend. Perhaps he was protesting the "don't feed" policy.

With his trusty Cybershot in hand. Photo by Joan .

Fayette State Park, Michigan, 1998. The grey building was the Sheldon House when Fayette was an active town, and the limestone and brick building in the foreground was the machine shop. The Garden Peninsula's residents include a number of commercial fishermen, and Escanaba's Bishop comes by early in the summer to bless the fishing fleet. That's the event we're watching develop in this photograph. This picture works quite well in black and white, by the way; along with the horse-drawn carriages, it has an apparent authenticity which seems quite impressive. Perhaps I'll post that version, too.... Scanned from a negative; taken with my Nikon N90s