Summer tourists arrive

A walk down Front Street every day this week showed that tourist traffic has arrived in Traverse City for the summer.

Each day, the town's main downtown street is getting busier. The sun shines, school is out, and people are traveling. The beaches are very inviting on the hot days we've been having. Most of them have been sunny, but even partly cloudy days are still great for the beach as long as the air is warm. True, the waters of Lake Michigan are still a bit chilly for most, so you don't see many people actually swimming. But that will change in the next couple of weeks. By next weekend, the water near shore will reach temperatures fine for getting wet.

Next weekend also brings the Fourth of July holiday, followed soon after by the National Cherry Festival, Traverse City's biggest and most well known annual event. When that's in progress, downtown becomes clogged with a feast of visitors who come for the music, the food, the crafts, the special events, and maybe even the cherries.