Darryl and I recently had the opportunity to get away for a couple of days to a cute cottage in South Haven, Michigan. We enjoy South Haven alot so when this place showed up on Facebook at a great discounted rate for fall weekends, we decided to take advantage of it. We have been super conservative during this pandemic so it wasn't a quick decision but one we felt comfortable with as it would just be us staying in a well cleaned home. (Plus I sprayed the whole place down with Lysol before we moved anything inside!)
We left on a Friday at about noon and headed towards the Grand Rapids area to get our favorite Mexican food, The Adobe.
Anyway, when we finished eating, we headed off on our own little color tour, enjoying a back road drive to South Haven.
I love cows so when we came across this farm with some adorable cows I had to take photos. Darryl keep calling them and they kept looking at us!
We did see some really pretty colors along the way.
This is Crane's Orchard. I've wanted to stop here every time we visit South Haven but it has just never worked out. We stopped and picked up some donuts and Cider for the cottage. We also got a slice of pie (but I will confess, Grand Traverse Pie Company has the best pie ever)
We finally arrived at our cottage on the river.
The cottage is two stories and sits right "on" the river so the view is pretty. We spente most of our time upstairs because it had more room, the BIG TV, and a nice king size bed. (Compared to a full size downstairs)
This was the tricky part HA! This was the staircase from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. Thankfully there was an outside staircase to the deck to bring up our luggage. But this is how we got to the kitchen!
For dinner, we ended up ordering Chinese food and enjoyed dinner at the cottage.
Saturday morning we enjoyed the cottage. I binge watched Criminal Minds (something I never do) and read a lot. Eventually hunger drove us out and we had lunch at our favorite place in South Haven, Maria's.
Now, we have not eaten inside a restaurant since March so this was a big deal. We had to wait 45 minutes for a table (but we could wait in our vehicle as they called when a table was ready). Our table was in an alcove with no one else around - it was like eating in our own dining room. The food was good and that's is really what matters!
We had a great view of the draw bridge from our cottage.
After lunch we went exploring. The waves on Lake Michigan did not disappoint. South Haven has been especially hit hard by the high lake levels so the beach is quite small compared to what it used to be. And yes, there are crazy people on the pier despite the waves washing over it (No, we were not one of the crazy people!)
We also drove by the houses all lined up across from the beach/Lake Michigan and dreamed of living in one. Talk about the perfect location!
Before heading back to the cottage, we got a treat of a Biggby Coffee! Only my second one since March!
For dinner, we weren't super hungry so we decided to order a sub from Mancino's. Now, I have great memories of grinders from there when I lived in the Detroit area but let me tell you, they were gross. HA! For real though. I took one bite of mine and threw it away. It smelled. and not in a good way. We got fries with our subs which were actually super good so I just enjoyed those.
Sunday morning we had to pack up, load up, and head out.
We had picked one place out for breakfast but the wait was an hour and a half plus, honestly it didn't look like a nice place to eat. Instead we headed to main street and tried Phoenix Street Cafe. The wait was 25 minutes and they texted us when our table was ready. We were well spaced out and the food was amazing. I mean a.m.a.z.i.n.g. We will eat there again for sure!
Then we started meandering home through some back roads, picked up a Biggby Coffee, and then hit the expressway for the last bit home
Did we enjoy our time away? We sure did! It was cool and rainy so we didn't wonder downtown through the shops or anything but we enjoyed our cottage, the view of the river and some pretty good food.
