After cold and grey winters in Illinois, the well-deserved sunny and relatively warm weekend arrived. Mother nature was pulling to spend my time in the nature and very encouraging to go for a nice long drive. Decided to make a trip somewhere nearby, with short time duration of travel, a place which is easily reachable by car within a couple of hours.
Saugatuck
Art cost of Michigan
chocolate garden
On the way I started noticing multiple billboards for Chocolate Garden, which took my attention to venture off I-94 and take exit #39 for a stop. A sweet treasure in Coloma, in the middle of “nowhere”, surrounded by farms.
Blossoming cider trees all dressed up in pink. Plums and sweet-cheery trees all around.
A charming house converted into a mini, most probably family owned chocolate house. The specialty of this place is the delicious handmade chocolate truffles. Seeing this green colored, welcoming house, I felt like Gretel and Hansel (written by The Brothers of Grimm).
The interior was nicely decorated, everywhere different sized packing of assorted chocolate ready to buy and gift. You can also buy a tasting tray for $2.99 in which you get to taste three different flavors of your choice with small pieces of selected homemade truffles.
Choice of the day: Dark cinnamon love; Darkest dark chocolate, Cayenne kick – Delicious taste, I need to repeat 😉
Saugatuck
Saugatuck picturesque spectacle, flooding tranquility, a hidden paradise in Michigan. Absolutely beautiful.
This place surprised me a lot with its casual relaxing atmosphere, which made me to dedicate undivided attention (unplugged from social media) and time for the nature and rejuvenate.
What is great about Saugatuck?
In many brochures, magazines, Saugatuck is mentioned as “Art coast of Michigan”. No wonder. The petite city center has a unique charm due to the artistic flavor and the 19th century architecture built next to Kalamazoo river connecting to Kalamazoo lake.
Yachts, boats and chain ferry (which starts to operate post first week of May). On the Water Street I found houses converted into various artistic shops & studios, unique galleries. While walking on the roadside, between these artistic houses, my head was moving as a perpetuum mobile machine, kept moving left and right, right and left, eyes rolling till the time they got stuck on an exclusively designed show piece, home decoration and attracted me as a magnet towards the window, which was followed by entering the shop.
Saugatuck is a combination of scenic beauty, beaches, art. Each generation regardless of age will find here something fun, something related to outdoor activity: biking, hiking, walking, picnicking, kayaking, jet skiing, yachting. Due to the off season, I have not tried many of the listed popular activities, but I got to know about these while interacting with local people.
Line of shops on the lakeside looked miniature souvenir places, however when I entered, actually it turned out to be shops with huge spread in the basement, opening up towards the lake, with a huge variety of all kind of goods, which chained me to the shop for a while.
In one of the tea shops I found huge and unique variety of tea infusers. There was an option to buy the tea in this particular shop and actually be brewed to my taste in the coffee next door opening up into the lake with yachts park all around, looking towards the blossoming trees on the other side of the lake. Really amazing!
Kalamazoo Lakeside Dining
Sitting next to the Kalamazoo lakeside, enjoying food and drinks is a must to explore.
“The Butler restaurant” highly recommended place not only because I had one of the most amazing burgers there, but also because it is a historic building, built in 1892.
The description of the restaurant mentioned that originally the same building was a powered grist mill, later on converted into summer resort. Since 1972 only the present restaurant and bar operates.
eyes wide, Eyebrows up,
mouth wide
At the end of Oval Beach Road, one mile west of the Saugatuck Ferry landing, across the river from downtown Saugatuck, the white sanded Oval beach of lake Michigan took my breath away.
Eyebrows pulled up, eyes widened, the only word sneaking out from my mouth was: WOW. So gigantic freshwater lake, which looks like just like a sea or ocean lay at my feet. Since the weather was pretty windy, the lake was turbulent, darkish, greyish colored with waves.
Mount baldhead and the climb
From the Oval Beach Road you can take a trail or drive down towards Mount Baldhead.
There is a climb of 282 steps (this number I took from touristic booklet, due to the fact that while I was climbing the stairs I lost the count of steps), which took me to Mount Baldhead, where my reward of climbing was on one side splendid view of the harbor on the other side Lake Michigan.
During my visit I missed out to go to the sand Dunes of Saugatuck, which would be worth as inclusion of your itinerary when visiting Saugatuck.
