We crossed into the US without any problem, other than that the
border guard was very interested in our plans:
“Why Cadillac? You said you were going through to Sarnia and
that’s not on the way there! How did you
learn about Van Buren State Park? It’s in the opposite direction of going to
Ontario and New Brunswick?!”
We're going to Cadillac because we had arranged for a boondocker’s driveway for the night. US miles are longer than kilometers so we got there quite a bit later than we’d anticipated. Plus, we had to stop to get groceries first because, as mentioned in the previous post, the cupboards were quite bare.
The driveway was a bit narrow and sloped but we managed to
level somewhat, enjoy our supper outside with the setting sun.
During the night it began to rain and in the morning we woke
to a steady drizzle. When there was a
break in the weather, we quickly packed up and left.
We were off to Van Buren State Park. The reason we chose
this park was because it was within reach of potentially meeting up with Dave’s
colleague from SIL. Also, by the
pictures on the internet, it looked like it would be beautiful.
On our way we stopped for lunch in Saugatuck. I asked our young server what there was to do in that town and she had a long list of options. Hmm, maybe we should have stayed there. But we carried on about another half hour down the road.
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| Fresh Lake Perch. Delicious |
We got set up, and took our bikes down to the beach. Wow.
It almost looks like an ocean! You can’t see
across the lake! And pure sand. Lots of sand.
And sand dunes. All along Lake
Michigan’s eastern shore are sand dunes.
It really doesn’t matter which park you’d pick. So much sand.
Campgrounds are for getting off your devices and communing with nature and have no internet or it's notoriously slow. That being said, we still wanted to be able to access the outside world, especially as we didn’t have cell phone coverage. We headed into the nearest town, South Haven. We were told we could bike there. “It’s only 5 miles on a paved path”. But then, it would be five miles back too, not five kilometers, so not being in the best shape, we opted to drive. We drove into South Haven and found it to be a beautiful tourist town.
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| The 'wifi bench'. We could sit here and check e-mails and so on. |
South Haven is famous for it's lighthouse as well. The first evening was quite stormy as we walked out to it. We definitely didn't stay dry!
The next day we spent the afternoon at the beach. It was such a beautiful day to be outside, enjoying the sand, the sun and relaxing.
In the evening we found a jazz concert in the park along the
river in South Haven. It was an evening of contentment:
listening to a Louis Armstrong’s double growling, singing and trumpeting familiar tunes while
watching the sail boats motor up the river coming in for the night. Then, we walked down towards the lighthouse
while the sun was setting behind the houses.
What a beautiful end to our time at Van Buren/South Haven.
So on we went, to our next stop: East Lansing.
It’s our 40th wedding anniversary and here we are, still in touch with one of our groomsmen from that day so long ago. We've been to visit once before when all our children were little. Now it's back to us as two couples. Last time we were together was about ten years ago. As you can imagine, there was lots of catching up and not much touring happening. They live on a beautiful acreage so we had plenty of room to park our trailer.
I saw a quote that
describes our relationship beautifully:
Friends are like stars.
You don’t always see them, but you know they’re there.
Happy 40th Anniversary! My how time flies! I remember the day well!
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