In advance I will say this is a long post but a good one!! ENJOY!!
So part of the reason Jesse and I decided to embark on traveling is so that we can visit all sorts of new places. This next “assignment” (I say it like that since I am not actually leaving my Indiana job yet) will have me working more weekends with 12 hour shifts so that means fewer days during the week. I was off a Tuesday and Wednesday so Jess and I decided to take a weekday weekend trip to Holland Michigan. I have been told by many of the wonderful folks I work with that it is a great small town with lots of local shops and restaurants. My mom even told me there was an article in the NY paper that mentioned this town. It is also a very outdoorsy area. The city has gone so far as to put pipes under the sidewalks. They have warm water flowing through them that comes from the power plant and it keeps the snow and ice off the sidewalk so you can enjoy the town all year round!
Jesse did all the planning; booked the hotel, got the dog to the kennel and printed out directions (yes we are still against the GPS). We hopped in the car earlyish on Tuesday and headed out to our “weekend” getaway. It was a fairly easy drive, hell I drove so you know it wasn’t difficult. We passed a really cool wind farm on the way up. Turbines as far as the eye could see which is pretty far in the vast flatness of Indiana. When we were a few miles away from the hotel all of a sudden the sky opened up and we were poured on. My poor little car could barely make it through all the water. Needless to say my nerves were shot when we got to the hotel and I told Jess that I was done driving. We asked the nice lady at the desk for a town map and she gave us a few suggestions for places to go for lunch.
We headed downtown but before we had even made it down the main highway we got to experience a Michigan left or a Michigan U-turn, whatever you want to call it. It is very odd. You are not allowed to make a left at the light that is at the intersection of the road you want to turn on. You have to drive past it to a designed spot where you make a u-turn so that you can make a right onto the road you want, the one you just drove by. It was so strange. After talking to a few locals we found out that people will drive miles out of their way to avoid this particular action.
So we make it downtown and it is adorable! The rain had stopped so we walked along and took some pictures. We ended up having a great lunch at an Irish restaurant with really good beer. I had a nice dark local stout that was wonderful. We walked around and saw just how many great local places there were. Not a Chili’s or CVS or anything commercial to be found along this great little main street. The harbor was not too far away so we walked down there. It had a beautiful park and restaurant that had seating right along the little boardwalk. We wandered a bit down there before heading back into town to find Gazelle Sports. It is a local running store that has a group run on Tuesdays that we wanted to see if we could join. I found it while searching for things to do. We met the woman in charge of the run and she said we were welcome to join and there would be a guy named John who is a Hoka OneOne rep there so we could test out some new shoes.
We went back to the hotel, drank some water and changed to go run. When we got back to the store John, the Hoka rep was there and we decided to try them on. They were the Cliftons, the newest shoes they have come out with and I must say I loved running in them, they were super comfortable shoes, and maybe they will be my next pair.
The woman in charge introduced us to the bunch and said that we were visiting from Indiana. They gave us a very warm welcome. The group calls themselves the Urban Herd and there was a pretty good size group. We started running and I ended up with two women who have been in Holland a while. It ended up being a running tour of the area. We ran to the park that Jesse and I had found earlier and past the Heinz pickle factory, then through a very historic neighborhood and finally through the beautiful centennial park before heading back to the store. As people got cleaned up we were told to meet next door and John would buy us our first beers. Well this guy was awesome and we ended up spending the rest of the evening hanging out with him and a few other locals. They told us about Holland and how great it is and what other events go on during the rest of the year. John even ended up getting us a few more beers and some wings. We then headed over to Peachwave which is one of those yogurt places where you get to pick your own toppings. It was a fun night with really great people.
The next day the weather was perfect, sunny with no clouds so Jesse and I decided to head to Holland State Park which is right along Lake Michigan. I was going to go see my third Great Lake. The park was beautiful. They had free two hour parking and there was plenty of it (another perk of traveling during the week, less crowds). We walked to the beach and out onto a pier like thing that sheltered the harbor. They have a lighthouse called Big Red that sits at the mouth of the harbor. The water was clear and cold and the sand on the beach was fine and had no sharp shells like the beaches of North Carolina. It was very different. The views along shoreline made you feel like you were in some exotic locale with all the high dunes and you couldn’t see land on the other side. It was really amazing.
There is a large sand dune called Mt. Pisgah that has 230 steps leading up to a large deck were you can see the park, Lake Michigan, Lake Macatawa and the harbor. The view was amazing although climbing up those steps was no joke! We found another trail that lead in to the woods and walked those a bit but the views were blocked by trees. Since we were hot and hungry we headed down the steps and back to downtown Holland for some lunch. We found a cute cafe with seats out on the sidewalk. Sitting under the shade of the umbrella having some good food we could see why people live there, I wish it was like that all year then I would never leave.
We started to head back home and stopped in Saugatuck, another cute town on Lake Michigan. Since we were feeling pretty tired by then we only managed to wander around once and then decided to head back to Lafayette. I want to go back there some other time and explore further. It will be beautiful in the fall.
Since it was dark on the way home we were sad we wouldn’t get to see the wind farm again but instead when we came to where it was we got a different sight. Each turbine had a red light at the top and they were all blinking in unison. I can’t imagine what it must look like from a plane. Eerie and cool all at the same time.
This trip was awesome. Who ever thought we would find ourselves in Michigan. I hope we find time to explore even more areas before we head to the next place, where ever that may be!
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