A cross-country race through farm fields, a craft show on the old asylum lawn and country tunes at NMC filled Traverse City’s Saturday

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Runners who would rather race across a farm than down a parkway got their chance Saturday, Oct. 10, when the Traverse City Track Club held its Farmland 5K and 10K on private farmland at 999 Rasho Road.

The club bills the race as its signature cross-country event: a European-style loop of turf, wooded dirt paths and hilly fields. The 10K was new this year and ran the opposite way from the 5K, over stretches of trail the race had not used before. Both were set to start at noon, and each cost $35 through Oct. 9, with prices going up after that, according to the registration page.

Children ages 2 to 12 had a one-mile race at 11:30 a.m. for $5, with a small pumpkin to decorate for every one of them. Grown-ups could chase prizes for farm-themed costumes, the club said, and the age-group awards were cut from reclaimed barnwood. Winners had to be there to collect them; nothing was to be mailed.

Before the race, the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, 1200 W. Eleventh St., held a free Outdoor Craft & Vendor Show on its historic front lawn from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Commons occupies the grounds of the former Northern Michigan Asylum.

Also at 10 a.m., the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy led a free Conservation Center Tour at Mitchell Creek Meadows: The Don and Jerry Oleson Nature Preserve, 2846 3 Mile Road N. The 243-acre preserve mixes wetland, meadow and forest, and the walk followed the universally accessible Looyenga Family Trail, where visitors might spot the goats the conservancy uses to eat invasive plants, according to the event listing. The conservancy can be reached at 231-929-7911.

Downtown, Walk to End Alzheimer’s gathered at Open Space Park, with registration at 9 a.m. and the Promise Garden ceremony and walk at 10, according to the Northern Express calendar. The event was free.

The evening belonged to Old Town Playhouse, which staged Honky Tonk Laundry, a country jukebox musical set in a laundromat, at 7:30 p.m. in Milliken Auditorium inside the Dennos Museum Center on Northwestern Michigan College’s main campus. Tickets were $44 for adults and $30 for those under 18. The theater suggested parents and other ticket buyers use judgment: the show includes sexual references, swearing and scenes of drinking and prescription drug use. It also played Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. that weekend.

Farther afield the same morning, the Frankfort Fall Festival opened at 9 a.m. at Open Space Park in Frankfort, and the Made in Cheboygan Craft Shows set up at 10 in Washington Park, according to the Northern Express listings.

Updated Oct. 12, 2026: These events took place Oct. 9-11. This guide was published before them, and its schedule language has been changed to the past tense.

Updated Oct. 13, 2026: The headline and summary were changed to the past tense for events that have already taken place.

Updated Oct. 13, 2026: Traverse City Tourism’s Honky Tonk Laundry listing is no longer online, so it is now cited without a link. The Old Town Playhouse page in Sources still carries the show details.

Sources:
Traverse City Track Club, “Farmland 5K, 10K, & Kid’s Race” registration page, https://www.farmland5k.com/
The Village at Grand Traverse Commons, “Outdoor Craft & Vendor Show”, https://www.thevillagetc.com/events/octobercraft
The Ticker, “Conservation Center Tour” calendar listing, https://www.traverseticker.com/calendar/conservation-center-tour-1/
Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, Mitchell Creek Meadows: The Don and Jerry Oleson Nature Preserve, https://www.gtrlc.org/recreation-events/preserve/mitchell-creek-meadows-the-don-and-jerry-oleson-nature-preserve/
Northern Express, “Walk To End Alzheimer’s” and Oct. 10 calendar, https://www.northernexpress.com/calendar/2026/10/10/walk-to-end-alzheimers-2/
Old Town Playhouse, “Honky Tonk Laundry”, https://www.oldtownplayhouse.com/performances/special-events/honky-tonk-laundry.html
Traverse City Tourism, “Honky Tonk Laundry” event listing (no longer online; no archived copy available)
Photo: Patricia Drury, “Northern Michigan Asylum,” March 21, 2009, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), cropped and color-corrected, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Michigan_Asylum.jpg

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Tags: Up North · Michigan Travel · Cross Country · Parks and Recreation · Arts and Culture