With all the Summer sports at Waterloo West High School finished, it was time for our annual summer getaway. This year, the trip was to circle Lake Michigan, and explore the State of Michigan, with stops at lighthouses, wineries, and other interesting points of interest. This was a LONG trip.. over 1600 miles in 4 days. But hey, if you want to find new places, you need to do some exploring!
The 1st day took us from Waterloo, traveling I-380, then I-80 along the South side of Chicago, before heading up along I-94 toward Holland, MI. Its been YEARS since I have travelled thru East Chicago, Gary, and Michigan City, IN, and things still are the same... In their heyday, these were bustling, heavy industrial centers for the Midwest. Today, the area shows the remains of those days, with many run down facilities still standing. But the cities are working to revitalize this area, including new casino resorts, near the lakefront. Oh, and did I say how much I hate the heavy traffic on I-80, and around the south end of Lake Michigan??????
Given that we lost an hour due to daylight savings time, we opted to skip exploring South Haven and Saugatauk, and head to Holland, MI. Our 1st stop (other than our obligatory coffee stops) was "The Big Red" Lighthouse, on the breakwater leading into Macatawa Bay in Holland.
Access to the lighthouse was by foot, passing by some bay side homes and B&B's along the canal leading into the bay from Lake Michigan. This was a saturday, and boats were constantly passing thru the canal out onto a calm Lake Michigan.
After making it down the pathway along the canal, we came upon our 1st lighthouse of the trip - "Big Red".
The Holland Harbor Lighthouse is undoubtedly the best Great Lakes light house of all. Known as the Big Red it is situated on Lake Michigan. This light house is unique in its own manner, not because of the spectacular light from its bright red color against the backdrop of the sky or water but because of its amazing history of how people stood to preserve it and restore this mast piece which has been part of their history for a long time.
OK, so it dawned on us at about this time, we had not yet "celebrated" the trip with a refreshment! So our priority switched to finding a winery in the area. I set my GPS to "ding" when we were within 5 miles of a winery, and it didn't take long for us to find the Fenn Valley Winery and Vineyards, in Fennville, MI. Fortunately, there was room for use to do some wine tasting.
The tasting only took about 15 minutes, so we decided to grab a couple glasses and relax with some wine and a great day (partly cloudy and in the upper 70's). My "tour guide" enjoyed this part!
By now, it was almost 4pm, and we still had a ways to go to the hotel... and our 1st casino stop of the trip!
Gun Lake Casino, in Wayland, MI was a good choice! I ended up walking out ahead (the "tour guide wasn't as lucky).
OK, now we are wearing out, and had yet to eat, so our 1st nite's dinner was furnished by "Chili's in Grand Rapids"..... onion strings with jalapenos, quesadillos and margaritas helped replenish us enough to get us to our overnite stop in Coopersville, MI... 550 miles for Day One.... A good start to our getaway!
Day Two's adventures to follow.....
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