Monthly Archives: July 2015

That perfect Michigan weather we have been hearing about has finally arrived.  The high temperature was 78 degrees with sunny skies and nice cool breeze.  What a beautiful day to explore the area south of Ludington.

First stop was a small coastal town called Shelby and the Shelby Gem Factory.

With nothing to go by but a name on a list; not even an address to put into the GPS, we set off looking for this place.  It turned out to be hard to find but interesting to see and fun.  The owner actually makes gems out of crystals and chemistry that goes beyond my understanding and then cuts and facets them like real gems and mounts them in 14k gold and platinum jewelry.  The gems are actually flawless and make beautiful pieces of jewelry.

While we were there, they offered to clean my wedding ring but noticed that one of the prongs holding my diamond was missing.  This had originally happened many years ago and we had it repaired but the repair obviously did not hold.  They said their jeweler could fix it for $15.00 right then and asked if we wanted to have it done.  My first thought was here is where they really get their diamonds by switching out my diamond for a synthetic stone so I did not agree.  Then she offered to let me watch the jeweler as he did the repair and we agreed it would be good to do rather than take the chance of the stone falling out.  The jeweler introduced himself as Lauro and was a delight to watch and listen to.  He had a philosophy on everything and expressed it while working on the ring.Lauro and MG in his workshop

From Shelby we traveled to Pentwater for lunch.

Lunch on Thursday 7/30 right on Lake Pentwater

 This entire area on the coast seems to be an endless collection of small towns with vibrant summer communities.  Years ago when the communities were started, the primary industry was lumber and the trees were over cut leaving nothing to hold the sand.  The sandy beaches and dunes were the results. We discovered there are many jeep rides through the dunes all along this coast as well as beaches filled with sunbathers.  The water temperatures are not that high so the number of people in the water is much less than you see in Florida.  We saw one woman standing in knee high water with her arms folded across her chest like she was cold and I bet she was.

Pentwater is a small lake connected to Lake Michigan by a channel.  Some houses along the channel walkway are beautifully landscaped and just beg you to take their picture.

Channel from Lake Pentwater to Lake Michigan

There was also the Little Sable Point Lighthouse and we read that the water between the Big and Little Sable Points was the most destructive during early shipping and resulted in many ship wrecks.  The lighthouse was originally built in red brick but the ship captains complained it was hard to see it because of the trees.  The lighthouse was painted white, but when they refurbished the structure they took it back to its original brick.

Little Sable Lighthouse

Jim finished the day with another trip to the coast and more incredible pictures of the sunset.

Today we took off for the White Pine Village, an historic village of buildings dating back to the mid 1800’s here in Ludington.  They told us this village started with the first County Courthouse by a group of concerned citizens wanting to preserve the historic building and now has twenty-five other buildings to intrigue visitors.  Remember the current courthouse picture from July 27th?  Here is a picture of where it all started.

Old Court House from Mason County – Ludington, MI

The story is that Aaron Burr Caswell took his family to this area via ship.  The information said he and his wife came ashore in a small row boat from the ship but the livestock was just thrown in the water left to swim to shore.  Wonder if they all made it.  Anyway, over time the building that became their home was modified to be the county courthouse on the first floor and the Caswells moved upstairs to a small apartment up there and the basement became the jail.

Upstairs of Court House

Basement of Court House was the jail

The second most interesting building was the school room.  Jim went to a one-room school in Pennsylvania and he said it looked a lot like what he remembered.  Could he have lied to me about his age?  Actually it had a few things in it that I remembered in my elementary school back in New York.  Did you have a portrait of George Washington on the wall too?

School in White Pines Village

Check out the blackboard.  What do you think of the punishments and the length of the walk?

We roamed through all the buildings and discovered lots of interesting facts and information for about 2 hours.  Here’s one for you.  If you can accurately identify this display, we will buy you dinner when we get back.  Good luck.

More of the buildings in White Pine Village

General Store in White Pine Village

Old Doctor’s Office

Farm House in White Pine Village

Out House

We left the village and headed to the State Park to see the Big Sable Point Lighthouse.  Unfortunately we were told the only way to get to the lighthouse is walking 2 miles on the soft sand and another 2 miles back.  Being the ever optimistic travelers that we are, we put on our sneakers and headed off towards the lighthouse.  I made it about 1/2 mile and Jim said he got about 1/2 mile from the lighthouse which was close enough to get this picture.

Sable Lighthouse in Ludington State Park

To give you a hint of how hard the walk was, the whole time I was sitting and waiting for Jim to come back, (just under one hour), only one group of people walked by me and there were hundreds, if not thousands in the area on the beach and campground.

After that work out we decided to have dinner downtown at a place that seemed to have crowds every time we went by called the House of Flavors.  Very family friendly and we got there just before the masses arrived so we had no trouble getting in.  It reminded me of Friendly’s Ice Cream with better food because it started as a dairy back in 1948.  By 1956 the company decided to stop making other dairy products and concentrate on ice cream making 600 gallons an hour.  By 2002 they were producing 2.5 million gallons a year being sold in their locations (two by now) and wholesale.  We had a wonderful Wild Cherry Chicken salad with pecans and blue cheese and finished with dessert.

Today I learned one thing.  No matter how tired you are, its hard to fall asleep before it gets dark!  Sunset is 9:13 and not totally dark until after 10pm.

We left our country campground in Coopersville and moved to a larger, more metropolitan campground in Ludington, Michigan, Poncho’s Pond RV Park.     This place is a jewel among campgrounds.  Two swimming pools ( a family pool and an adult pool), large exercise room with at least 6 machines, concrete pads, landscaping, not to mention cable TV and a strong WiFi  are just a few things that give it this rating.  (I have to admit I have been really missing my cable TV.)  We are just a few miles away from the Lake Michigan beach and another lighthouse.

Jim was having chicken wing withdrawal (back home he has wings for lunch once a week) so we found some wings for dinner last night.  The restaurant was in a downtown area not unlike some of the other towns we have seen lately, but this town does not appear to be as financially affluent as some of the others.  In fact, this was probably the least expensive dinner we have eaten out since we left Ocala.  The only grocery store is Save-a-Lot and there are lots of empty store fronts.Court House in Ludington, MI

We took our groceries back to the RV and then made the short trip back to the beach where Jim took some incredible sunset pictures.

North Brakewall Lighthouse – Ludington, MI
Sunset in Ludington, MI

What do you think?

Today we have a general plan but no rigid schedule to follow.  Remember, we are on vacation!

The highlight of the day was watching the Parade of Ships in Grand Haven provided by the US Coast Guard.  It is generally very well attended by visitors and residents alike and we wanted to be on north shore of the Grand River where there is a small park and maybe 30 parking spaces.  There is a walkway along the river that made a perfect spot to put our chairs to watch the ships.  To be sure we were one of the 30 with a parking spot, we stopped at a Subway and bought lunch and set up around 11:00 a.m.

MG waiting for Parade of Ships

The sun was already hot but my ingenious husband had a golf umbrella and bungee cords in the truck and before long we had a nice shady spot for boat watching.  We had lunch and watched the boats ride out of the channel to meet the Coast Guard and be part of the parade.  One observation I made is there are some really clever people who come up with the most interesting names for their boats.

By 1:00 pm the parking lot and seawall were filled with spectators and the Coast Guard was right on time.  It started with a 100 foot long buoy tender named Buckthorn,

Buckthorn

followed by 140 foot ice breaker named Biscayne Bay,

Biscayne Bay

225 foot long Alder

Coast Guard Ship – Alder

and the final ship was the monster ship named Mackinaw

Mackinaw

reported to be  a state-of-the-art heavy icebreaker in the Great Lakes.  Each ship had either a Coast Guard, Sheriff, or Auxilliary ship to escort it into the harbor.  It was heart warming to hear the crowds cheer the Coast Guard and hear the Coast Guard cheer back with their ship’s horns.

We left there to explore Muskegon just north of Grand Haven.  We found the chamber building (old train depot) and although the city appears to be trying to build up a tourist oriented downtown area, they are not there yet.

Train Depot – Muskigan, MI

We settled for a tour of the USS LST 393 carrier; one of two remaining of the 1,051 built and used during WWII.

US LST 393 in Muskegon, MI

These were the ships used to transport the tanks, trucks and troops to battle fields on foreign soil.  In fact, this particular ship was used at Omaha Beach in Normandy.  To see the enormity of the back gate and ramp where the equipment disembarked as contrasted by the cramped space of the berth deck and bathrooms for the men was stunning.  There was a video playing of a classified Navy training movie showing how everything worked so we sat down to watch it.  We were amazed at how manual every operation seemed to be compared to what we use in our private lives today.  Actually, at one point, I confess I may have closed my eyes for a few seconds and wondered how the sailors stayed awake during this film.

It was time to treat ourselves and we have gotten really good at it.  We found this marvelous restaurant on the lake with an outdoor deck under some shade trees and a wonderful menu to choose from.

Lake House Restaurant – Muskegon

We started with an appetizer called Duo Dip which was fresh made guacamole and mango, watermelon salsa with tortilla chips.  Just sitting there watching the marina and nibbling would have been enough but then we order the special of the evening; Caribbean Jerk Seared Uku Snapper.  I had never heard of uku snapper and found out it is from Hawaii.  It was topped with grilled pineapple, strawberry, and coconut chutney, served over red pepper wild rice and ginger/cardamom carrots.  Trust me.  To die for!

Nice way to end our trip to this southwestern part of Michigan.

Tomorrow we are on to Ludington, MI which is right up the coast.

What a great day we had in and around Holland!  In fact, I broke every dietary rule I have been following and I know I will pay for it tomorrow.

We started off at the Saugatuck Dune Rides just south of Holland.

This is a privately owned company that owns a piece of property that was once a huge lake reported to be very deep.  In the middle 1800’s the trees were all harvested from around the lake and before long, all the sand blew into the lake bed.  Now it consists of high sandy hills and wooded valleys used by this company to give 40 minute jeep rides to tourists.  Each jeep holds between 20 and 25, depending on the size of the children, and takes these hills at high speeds creating a roller coaster without the tracks.  This apparently is very popular because we had to wait over an hour for our turn to come up.  It was lots of fun and worth the wait even though I ate a small popcorn while we waited.

Now it was time for lunch and we found the Salt and Pepper Grill with two menu items that caught our attention.  I had Artichoke chicken with sun dried tomatoes, artichokes and capers in an olive oil –garlic sauce.  Yum!  Jim had an olive burger made with beef patty with green olive cream cheese, sugar-cured bacon, stone ground mustard and more olives.  He said he would order it again which is a rousing recommendation for him.

Our next stop was the Windmill Island Gardens with the only imported Dutch working windmill in America.

Windmill Island Gardens

It was originally built in 1761 and shipped to the US in 1964 because of the negotiations between the City of Holland, MI and the government of the Netherlands.  A stipulation of the agreement was that it continues to be a working windmill and to this day, it is used to grind wheat into flour for local restaurants.  In fact, the city of Holland employs the only Dutch-certified miller in the US, Alisha Crawford, to do the grinding and maintain the windmill.  The building itself is 7 stories high and we were able to go up the first 5 stories.

We learned two things we didn’t know before we stopped here.  The first is that each windmill has a single purpose.  They are used for power, irrigation, grinding, and other things but each mill has only one job.  The second thing we learned is that the turret rotates 360 degrees at the top to be able to position the blades into the wind.

In April, the grounds are covered in tulips which are replaced by summer flowers and just as beautiful.

Gardens around Windmill

Drawbridge found in many Netherland communities

They have added a traditional drawbridge over a waterway, just like in the Netherlands and a miniature model of a traditional Dutch village from the late 1800’s complete with animals and people all hand carved. 

We were treated to some traditional Dutch dancing and music from an Amsterdam Street Organ.   Before we left we went into the gift shop and bought something called Mini  Stroopwafels.  This Dutch cookie appears to be thin round waffles with maple syrup cream in the middle.  I had to have one, or two, or three.

Next was the “Big Red” Lighthouse.  After driving some distance through a community of large lakefront homes, we arrived at a gated community with a sign that said the lighthouse was only accessible on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The guard at the gate told us that since we were from out of state, we could go in but we had to park just inside the gate and walk the rest of the way bearing in mind that everything other than the lighthouse itself is private property.  So we walked, I would guess a little over a mile, but it felt like 5 miles this late in the day.  Can’t really tell you why they call it “Big Red” because I didn’t think it was so big but hidden in the rocks at the base was a family of ferrets playing and having fun.  Still not worth the long walk there and back.

Boats entering Lake Macatawa from Lake Michigan at Big Red Lighthouse

Downtown Holland is another quaint vibrant street filled with shops and restaurants.  Most of the restaurants had outdoor dining because of the perfect weather up here in the Spring, Summer and Fall. This is where I lost my dietary resolve.  We were not very hungry, either because of the late lunch and the stroopwaffels, but we shared some calamari and something called The Ludwig.  This dish is spaetzle dumplings with spinach, bacon, and melted Swiss cheese.  Both were excellent and just met our appetite needs.

Back to our campground and to my dismay, we have been invaded.  The park is filled with other campers with RVs and tents.  Every available spot is taken.  So much for peaceful!  Did I mention we were next to the basketball court which hadn’t mattered until tonight.  Remember it doesn’t get dark until almost 10 p.m..

Saturday is stay at home and relax day!

When we left to explore Grand Haven, we were a little hesitant to leave our relaxing, peaceful campsite.  In the morning, the river is just like glass with a perfect reflection of the trees until the first boats stir up the water.  We saw a wild rabbit searching for some food and its just hard to leave.

By the way, the Park Hostess at this campground was right when she said that  dusk is very late.  It is actually at 9:45 pm.   Plenty of time to play 18 holes of golf even if you start at 6 p.m.  (This would be for you, Carl).  Sunrise is about 6:30 a.m. so there is lots of daytime to fit in plenty of activity.

Anyway, back to Grand Haven.  We drove into this charming town with a bustling downtown district filled with shops and restaurants of every liking.  We stopped at the Chamber to get the lowdown on activities and found out just how big the Coast Guard Festival is.This is the welcome area at the center of town.

This is the 225 Anniversary of US Coast Guard so you can imagine its going to be big.  Every year it is held here in Grand Haven and they call themselves the Coast Guard City.  We will only be here for the first few days but the festival will last a full week ending next Sunday, August 2nd, with a gigantic fireworks display.

Coast Guard Station – Grand Haven, MI

We had lunch at Snug Harbor Restaurant on the upper deck on the riverfront.  Spectacular view (below) and weather for eating outside which is probably why everyone else in town was there as well.

Entrance of Grand River from Lake Michigan

We decided to return on Sunday to see the Musical Fountain show at nighttime and wander through the shops.

We drove over to the beach, which was where all the other people were.

Beaches at Grand Haven

 The sign said the water temperature was 65 degrees so I have to question the sanity of all these people.  It’s interesting to see the State has an RV Park right at the edge of the beach with camp sites that looked like zero-lot-line housing.  But how else do you fit all those campers into such a limited space.

The beach was beautiful whitish soft sand and thousands of people slicked with sunscreen.  Within walking distance was a long walkway leading to the old lighthouse.  During stormy weather, the walkway is often underwater so there is an elevated walkway used by the lighthouse keeper to service the light.  Today,  the lower level is a promenade for walkers and runners.  On this walk we saw confirmation that the teen brain is not fully developed yet.  There were groups of teens running and jumping into this 65 degree water.  I know that doesn’t sound that ridiculous until I tell you that the spot they chose to do these gymnastics had two levels of seawall and if you didn’t get out far enough to avoid the lower level, well suffice it to say the damage would not be pretty or temporary.

Tomorrow we plan on taking in the sights and sounds of Holland.

This morning we left Lakeville, Indiana and headed to our first stop in Michigan, staying at the Conestoga campground.  Thanks to Jim’s planning we found ourselves with our rear window of the RV facing the Grand River just up the road from Grand Haven touted as having the best beaches in Michigan.  The campground sits high above the water level providing beautiful vistas of shoreline, water and trees and is incredibly peaceful and quiet.

The humidity is 34 percent and the temperatures are in the high 70’s.  There is also a mild breeze most of the day making the weather as perfect as you can get it.  For the first time in a long time, we are functioning with the windows open and no air conditioning.  Our plan is to stay here for six days and I am loving the idea.  Starting on Saturday there is some sort of Coast Guard Festival in Grand Haven and we think it should be fun and interesting to visit along with some of the other sites in the area.

One negative is the remoteness of all this peace and tranquility.  We had to drive ½ hour to find a restaurant and grocery store.  I guess we will be doing more cooking while we are here.  On the way back from our excursion, we saw a large fruit and vegetable market on the corner of the road.  It was already 7:40 p.m. so I didn’t think it was still open but you know optimistic Jim.  He pulled in and found a nice lady who said, “we just sell on the honor system.”   “Just take what you want in a plastic bag and put the money in the cash box”.  We found the most delicious black cherries and blueberries I have ever seen.  Of course, we did our part to help the local economy.

By the way, in this part of the country sundown is not until after 9 p.m.  In fact, the hostess at the campground says it should be around 9:45 p.m.  No wonder at 8:40 p.m. there are still people boating and fishing on the river.