Located at the upper end of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula is a boujee vacationland offering proximity to ski hills, recreational trails, and miles of Lake Michigan coast. Each spring, stooped-back hobbyists scour the shorelines and shallows in search of the town’s eponymous and most famed resource—the Petoskey stone.

During the Devonian period, some 350 million years ago, the land that is currently Petoskey was very near the equator. Marine life including corals and crinoids flourished in the warm shallow sea covering most of the state. Fast-forward many millions of years, fossilized coral colonies are formed into stone and distributed via glaciation.

Today, the winter movement of frozen lake ice brings new Petoskey stones to area beaches each spring.

The beach is where I spotted Steve. Honestly, he was kind of hard to miss. He’s a big guy but also, he was sitting amidst what amounted to a workshop on the sand. From where I sat, his movements appeared practiced and purposeful. I had no clue what he was up to. Eventually I worked up the courage to ask.

Steve spoke like a man who had graciously given similar explanations many times. He creates wafer-thin slices of Petoskey stones using a tile saw, then wet sands each slice with progressively finer grit before baking with olive oil (I didn’t think to ask how long or at what temperature).

Steve offered me one of the translucent slices as a souvenir. By the time I returned to the beach with a copper enamel piece to gift in exchange, Steve and his wife Jenna had packed up and gone.

Stay: Petoskey State Park is a favorite for “convenience camping.” Groceries, carry-out curries, mini-golf and more are just minutes from our water-view site via the 23-mile Little Traverse Wheelway.

Explore: Steve proudly shared that his wife is a writer of Christian romance novels. Dashing heroes and feisty heroines are not my jam but it would be fun to match the up-north inspirations to Jenna’s fictional settings.