Every year in October, I make my way up North like many education technology professionals in the state.

I am a member of MAEDS(Michigan Association for Educational Data Systems and each year they old their annual conference at Shanty Creek Resort in Bellaire, MI.

I am going to warn you right now, this post is going to have a lot of photos so hold on to your seats! The drive up is always one of my favorite parts. Being it is fall, you can see the leaves changing color and it is just beautiful!

I took the photo above near Grayling, MI. Several years ago, a large forest fire ran through this area. It jumped the expressway and continued on the other side. They had to divert traffic for a time because of the fire.

I thought it was a really cool photo because even the new growth has started to change color and it creates a beautiful contrast to the older trees that are still standing and haven't stared to change color yet.

Generally, I stay at the resort in Bellaire when I attend this conference. This year, I decided to take follow a couple of my colleagues example and stay at one of the hotels downtown because there are so many cool things to do down in the town. See my post here.

I pulled in to the the Stone Waters Inn and got checked in to my room. That is actually a lie, the place is very laid back and when I arrived the front door was wide open and there was no one at the front desk. It was really cool inside though because the whole town pretty much goes wild for Halloween.

Back to my lie... There is a sign next to a phone on the front desk that says call (xxx)xxx-xxxx for service. I dialed the number from the antique looking phone and was connected to the owner of the hotel.

She asked my name and told me she was at lunch and that the key should be in the door for the room I rented. She said to just go ahead and we would try to connect at some point over the next three days.

In all honesty, I never saw the lady my whole time there. I stopped back at the desk several times and there was no one there. When I checked out, I just left my key in the door and walked out. I am assuming my work got billed for the room, but quite honestly who knows. It was all very atypical of my usual hotel experience.

The room I stayed in a was a little small, but it was nice. It probably wasn't as clean as I had liked, but there is something to be said for being able to just walk back to where you are going to lay your head after a night of "networking". There is a shuttle back up to the resort, but it stops running at 10 PM and driving or walking are out of the question for various reasons.

After I got checked in, I went and got some lunch at a local place called the Lunchbox. I plan on writing a post in the future about that so stay tuned!

The view from the resort is fantastic and the leaves changing color against the lake always makes for some great shots!

They always do a great job of brining is speakers that cover a wide range of topics that are relevant to education technology professionals. Many organizations in my profession have conferences throughout the state during the year, but this is the one I make sure I always attend.

The feed us pretty well too. The first night we had steak and some other items. This picture is from lunch the second day where they decided to go with a Mexican theme. Meals are setup as an all you care to eat buffet style.

Downtown Bellaire, isn't very big as you can see in the pictures below.

These were taken looking each way down the street from the front of my hotel. That night, I decided to meet up with some of the technology people from the district North of where I work.

One of them had to take a phone call, so the other one and I headed to this new meadery that had just opened in town.

As you can see from the menu, they specialize in mead and cider, sadly though, they were out of a lot of their offerings. We asked the bartender what she recommened and I ended up getting the Antrim Apple Pie. Antrim is the county that Bellaire is located in so they made sure to incorporate that into the name.

Honestly, I was quite dissappointed for my first time trying mead. It really tasted a lot like a hard cider to me. It was more bitter and tart than the sweet I expected. My colleague tried something else(I don't remember which one now), but he said it was quite possibly the worst thing he had ever tasted.

We asked the bartender why it wasn't as sweet as we expected and she explained to us that traditional mead usually is much sweeter, but most people don't like that, so they only make a traditional batch once or twice a year. It's too bad because that is what I was really hoping to try.

We quickly paid up and made our way down to another establishment to meet up with the other guy.

We passed this little alley along the way and I thought it deserved a quick snap. Had I been visiting with my wife, I am sure we would have tried to get a selfie. I am sure many other groups stopped by this area to get late night pictures with their friends.

Continuing our walk, I also ran into this guy:

Like I said, the town really does it up for Halloween and my friend is a big KISS fan, so I knew I had to stop and grab this shot to send to him.

Eventually we made our way to the Bellaire Bar and I apologize now, but I had to take a bunch of pictures. It is your basic small downtown bar, more long than wide with a bar along one wall and tables in the front and along the other side.

They had this awesome ceiling fan system though, unlike anything I had ever seen before. There was a motor in the far corner that moved a belt. That belt connected to the first fan to drive it, then there was another belt from the first fan to the second. Likewise, a belt went from the second fan to the third.

It had a real steampunk vibe to it and I was totally loving it. If I had a big enough space I would absolutely implement something like that.

Thanks for coming along. If you ever get the chance to head to the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, I totally recommend you make a stop in Bellaire. It's a great place to visit and if you go there in the Winter, there is some great skiing in the area!

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