Day 7: September 2, 2011
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In my motel room Thursday night, I read the full story of big pie country over at RoadsideAmerica.com. Charlevoix got thing started with their 17,420 pound pie in 1976. It reigned as the World's Largest Cherry Pie until 1987. That's the year Traverse City baked their 28,350 pound pie and got Guinness to certify it as the largest. At this point, even though the Charlevoix pie was now just second largest, it had been the largest first and could call itself the first World's Largest Cherry Pie. In 1992, both Michigan pies were bested by a 39,683 pound monster created in Oliver, British Columbia, Canada. By my thinking, once you're first chronologically no one can take that from you and the Charlevoix pie is "The First World's Largest Cherry Pie in the World" now and forever. I think they ought to white-out the "...in the USA" qualifier on their sign but I guess that would mess up the spacing.

Although it is a great loss to history, at the moment I'm kind of happy the Oliver pie pan isn't on display. Destroying it might have saved me a 2000 mile -- each way -- detour.

I wish I could say that I snapped each of these photographs as I drove by their subjects for the first time but that's not what happened. In truth, I kept driving by cool things in Honor, Michigan, until the pressure built up and I had to turn back. Yes, it was the Cherry Bowl that pushed me over the edge.

First it was the Cedar Ridge Cabins on the left side of the road then the Honor Motel on the right. Platte River Pines was on the left and the only one of the pictured places I found no website for. Of course the cherry on top of the sundae is the Cherry Bowl Drive-In Theater at the west edge of town. It's showing first run movies seven nights a week. It's decorated with giant chairs and chickens and hotdogs and several old cars. It even has a small minature (Is that superficially redundant?) golf course in a narrow strip beside a drive way. And if that's not enough, there's a Spitfire sitting in the used car lot directly across the street. I think I'd like to watch a movie and spend a night or two in Honor.

The skies were getting darker as I left Honor and it wasn't too long until the rain started. This was probably an OK time for rain since I was soon on divided four-lane with a real shortage of roadside attractions. If I hadn't turned back at Honor, the page would be even shorter.
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