Harbor Springs — a stop on the Tunnel of Trees.
Harbor Springs behind you is one of the prettiest small harbors on the Great Lakes, and one of the deepest — which is exactly why it is here.
The bay is naturally sheltered and deep enough to take big vessels right up to shore, and in the steamship era that made it a destination. Wealthy families from Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit came up by boat to escape the summer heat, and they built the summer colonies you can still see: enormous shingled cottages on the bluff, old resort associations with gates, and a town that has been quietly moneyed for a very long time.
The downtown is genuinely lovely and worth an hour on the way back — a few blocks of brick storefronts, galleries, and a marina full of boats that cost more than houses.
But this was Odawa country long before it was any of that, and the bay had a name and a people before it had steamships. We'll come to that.
For now, get your fuel and your coffee HERE. There is very little between this town and Cross Village — a general store and not much else — and no reason to hurry through what's coming.