Round Lake, Crooked Lake & Burt Lake, MI.

Saturday 9/7/2013

On one of our last days in Petoskey, we decided to check out a few more lake in the area. As we headed north through Petoskey, I took some pictures of 3 homes on the main road.

Such detail,

but this one takes the cake!

We took Hwy 31, and then turned on M-119 toward Harbor Springs. The little blue dot just east of Harbor Springs is Round Lake, which we were headed for.

Round Lake is rather small at 353 or 475 acres ( I get mixed information on the internet on the size) and 4 miles of shoreline.

It does sit at a higher elevation at 781 feet. I couldn't find out much about the lake except the Sturgeon River flows into Round Lake, or water flows out of Round Lake to Sturgeon River.

We left Round Lake and headed east on M-119 and made a stop at the Petoskey State Park. The sites in this campground are not really made for big rigs, though you might be able to find a few sites to squeeze into. The park is very heavily treed so getting a satellite signal could be tough.

The beach at Petoskey State Park is really nice though.

Looking toward Harbor Springs from the beach.

Next we drove around the south side of Crooked Lake to the end of the road. This part of the lake was a bit weedy.

The lake is 2300 acres and relatively shallow at a average depth of 20 feet. The water was clear but not as a pretty blue color as some area lakes, though I have to admit, it was a cloudy day and that make the difference in how the color of the lake looks.

After Crooked Lake we drove to Burt Lake State Park.

Burt Lake is a large lake at 17,120 acres with a maximum depth of 73 feet.

Burt Lake is 10 miles long and 5 miles wide, with rivers flowing in and out of the lake. Burt Lake is also connected to several lakes making it a chain lake.

We left Burt Lake and drove west on Hwy. 68 to the Hwy. 31 and drove along the north side of Crooked Lake. (My finger just points out Petoskey in reference to the lakes).

This map shows our route on Hwy. 31 along north Crooked Lake.

This side of the lake seemed less weedy, but it also has Hwy. 31 running right next to the lakefront homes. Ideally we would like a home not on a busy highway, and a bigger lake, but until I win the lottery, we will have to compromise on many issues when we start seriously looking for a summer home.

View of Crooked Lake from north shore.

 

The next day Joe and I drove past 2 homes that were priced at around $465,000. This is much more than we want to spend, but if we want a lake home it might be what we will have to spend. This home sits across the street from the lake. The house had 4 bedrooms with around 1300 square total feet.

It has a small back yard. ( We want a home where we can park the motor home next to the house to have more bedrooms available for company).

The property has a dock with a boat lift. The only real negatives is that we don't want a street between the house and the lake, and we want more space between  neighbors. But like I said before, until the lottery comes through, we will have to compromise on many things.

This is the other house we drove by. It also sits across the street from the lake without any blocking views to the lake. It is a few  thousand dollars less but only has 1100 sq feet and 2 bedrooms. It looks more updated inside.

It also has a dock and boat lift.

This home has a two car garage, so no place to park the motor home, unless we spent more money and enlarge the garage's height and width, which would then eliminate the yard where I want a garden. I definitely would not get to have goats here. We plan on checking out Tennessee lakes after we leave Michigan, and then North Carolina lakes next spring. Next summer we want to check Maine lakes again and then the summer of 2015, we want to spend the summer staying in the state that we decide to live in and look at properties until we find our home. If we find the perfect one before that, who knows, we might settle down for 6 months sooner.