Old Mission in October

The National Cherry Festival’s 100th year ran July 4 through 11, with the air show over West Bay on the first two days. Beds were the hard part then. The festival ended in July. October gets the peninsula without the parade.

Swimming weather on Grand Traverse Bay runs from late June into early September. By mid-October the bay is for walking: Clinch Park downtown, wind off the water, a shoreline the town uses as its park. This is Anishinaabe homeland, still home to the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. Markers from the Kchi Wiikwedong Anishinaabe History Project stand at Clinch Park. Read them, then drive. The tasting rooms will still be open after you do.

Cherry Capital Airport is a few minutes from downtown. Rent the car at the terminal. Old Mission is a driving peninsula. The TSA checkpoint here keeps shorter hours than a big-city airport, often roughly 4 a.m. to 6 p.m., so check the day you fly.

Old Mission Peninsula is about nineteen miles of cool-climate wine, with cherry country on the same road and the bay on both sides of Center Road. Ten tasting rooms sit close enough together to wreck the afternoon if you try to see all of them. Pick two or three. Chateau Grand Traverse and Chateau Chantal are the long-running names if you need a place to start. In October the hours shrink. Call the two rooms you want before you leave town.

Mission Point Light is the end of Center Road, a white building in the trees at the tip. Leelanau Peninsula is the longer loop, and it wants a second day with the car. For this weekend, one peninsula is enough.

Sleep in town. If the tasting is more than a careful flight, let someone else drive. Dinner back downtown can be lake fish or a farm plate. Cherry jam is on shelves all year. Buy a jar. Leave the suitcase for clothes.