In August, Erin and I ventured off to the west side of Michigan for Lake Michigan beach time. Anyone who has ever been to the lower west side of Michigan on the weekend already knows that the beaches of Holland, South Haven, Grand Haven and others are almost always packed by 9 or 10am. The roads by the beach also serve as a parking lot, and while the beaches are quite beautiful, they can also feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable for those of us with body image issues.
Perhaps betting against this knowledge, we still drove through Holland in the early afternoon in search of parking before quickly resigning to search elsewhere. The nice thing about Lake Michigan apart from its size is the related benefit that many cities and small towns touch its waters. If one beach is full, you can just drive to the next one up the road. Which led to our discovery of the beach in Saugatuk.
We visited Saugatuk several times before for the Waterfront Film Festival and playing with the band. Even with it's proximity to the coast, I don't think I even knew before this weekend that Saugatuk had a beach.
It's not easy to find. Once you pass the State Park guard post and park, an entire forest stands before you and the beach. Seriously. On one path, it's only a half-mile walk through looming trees and brush while the other path is more like two miles. Not being people that often follow the crowd, we accidentally took the two mile path on the way to the beach. Walking wasn't an issue since we had dined at the Hut of Pizzas an hour prior and Erin kept gleefully running up the hills while I took pictures of her. The trees were miles high and appeared to be sacred, never to be touched by urban landscapes. At last, we both saw dunes with grass beckoning us from up high and below, I chose to go below and meet Erin on the other side where we met up and ran down the scorching hot sand to the Lake Michigan waters.
Our feet recently ex-foliated, the waters felt amazing. A few couples and families lined either side, however being purists we were not keen on lapping through the seaweed or lake foliage churned up from boat propellers. Instead, we enjoyed the water from the lake's edge and enjoyed watching the boaters out on the water. We reveled in the sun and relaxed the afternoon away, then re-joined civilization and drove back to Holland to see an early evening movie.
Erin had already staked out 'The Dutch Village' on our way in and said must stop there on our way back in honor of her ancestors. Taking pictures of geese, REALLY big geese and dutch building facades, one felt like they were in an extended version of EPCOT's Holland. Steep ticket prices turned us off from walking through the official gates so we wandered over to the local AMC movie theater to see, “Crazy, Stupid, Love”. Funnier than expected, surprise cameos made the movie even if it wasn't sure where to end.
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| Trail Through The Forest |
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| Scenes Through the Trees |
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| Saugatuk Beach |
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| Outside the Dutch Village |
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| Yes, a Wooden Shoe Shop |
