I shared a few photos in my "Week in Photos" post on Saturday but I wanted to go into more detailed about our amazing day trip for our anniversary.
In planning for this day away one of my main goals was doing things and finding things that bring joy to my soul. That focus alone brought so much peace about this get away! We started our journey with a stop at a favorite coffee house right in our town - Sozo's. We both got our favorite coffee drink along with something from their bakery. (They have amazing homemade bagels!) For me, a "Zebra, Hot with Whipped Cream" warms my soul with the first sip! (For real, I get a contented smile on my face with that first drink). After picking up our drinks, we headed north to start our trek.
Our first stop in our journey was in Lundington. This is such an adorable town. We drove to the city beach, which is huge, and made the mile hike out to the light house and back. Lake Michigan is my happy place. If I could, I would head to the shores of Lake Michigan on a weekly basis just because it centers me and brings me peace.
Look at all those minnows! Yes, the water is really that clear! It's just beautiful.
From the beach to the light house it is about 1/2 mile so yes, we really did walk a mile :-) When we started, there was a nice breeze but by the time we headed back, it was HOT! We even got a little sun kissed from our walk. The lake was calm on this day or we would not have made the hike out as the pier gets slippery when the waves are crashing.
After our hike, we got back in the car and headed to our lunch spot. It ended up being in a totally different spot then we thought it was in but it was an amazing drive. It brought us past this Pumped Storage Hydro Power Plant. It drains water from Lake Michigan under this bridge into a huge reservoir on the left during the day. At night, all the water is drained back out and it creates lots of power to be used by the people in the area. It's so breathtaking, actually, but we came upon it so unexpectedly that this was the beset photo.
We stopped (and parked on the side of the road - the only parking for this place- and got our lunch at Bortell's Fisheries. They deep fry everything. This place came highly recommended and it didn't disappoint. We both got the cod dinners and then added a 1/2 pound of shrimp. It was so good - as long as you like fish :-)
There is no place to eat at the fishery but they direct you just down the road to this little park and it is a true gem. We dreamed it was our back yard as we sat at a picnic table to enjoy our meals AND this amazing view of Lake Michigan.
There was a swing that we enjoyed too. We spend more time enjoying this little park then anything else all day. It was fun to dream of living this close to Lake Michigan. It is so peaceful and relaxing to sit near the water. It's calming - more calming than anything else - at least to me!
After relaxing at the county park for awhile, we hit the road again and made it our goal to drive on roads with as many views of Lake Michigan as we could. That allowed us to drive by some beautiful beach homes and get breathtaking views of Lake Michigan along with some great inland lakes too. As we drove along we drove through Silver Lake Sand Dunes area, stopped for some Ice Cream and enjoyed the views of the dunes on Silver Lake.
We stopped at Mears State Park to see this light house which sits in the sand right on the shore of Lake Michigan. The beach is out of the way and so pretty. (We found some new beaches to take the boys too in the future!) We did hear that this beach is a favorite for viewing sunsets so the closer it gets to that time, the busier it gets.
We continued our trek along roads that kept us close to the lakeshore and came upon this place called Cherry Point Farm and Market. We picked up some homemade jam before taking a walk out to the Lavender Labyrinth. I've always wanted to see one and the concept here is so neat. The sad part is that they lost all of their lavender in 2019 during the polar vortex and had to replant in the spring of 2019. It will take a few years for it to get back to it's old glory.
The Herb garden in the center is just full of flowers and herbs and it is beautiful. The idea behind a garden like this as well as the lavender is it is suppose to offer a calmness and peace to each person that enters. Many will use it as a prayer circle as they walk through the circles of lavender. While it is peaceful, it doesn't compare to the Lake Michigan Shoreline.
As we left that farm, we were headed onto the next town, came over a hill to this! It was stunning . . . breathtaking . .. .like nothing I have ever seen!
We even took a selfie (which is really hard with a big digital camera HA!) The sunflowers were just so bright and cheery. We learned something new. So, when sunflowers are still young and waiting to bloom, they turn their heads toward the sun to constantly gather life from the sun. Once the sunflowers bloom (like those in the fields) they all face East because that where is they get the most sunlight. The farmer telling us this said, "If you ever get lost and come upon a field of sunflowers, you will know what direction you are going because sunflowers always face East!" Pretty cool!
This deer was just munching away on some grass on this front lawn and let us stop and take his photo. This was just as we were entering Montague and Whitehall. While driving down one of the roads outside of town, we found a new little subdivision with lots for sale so we decided to stop and look. We did find the perfect lot on Lake Michigan for our dream home that we would buy in an instant . . .. if it wasn't out of our price range! We can dream, right?
We ended our adventure at our favorite beach - Muskegon. Sunsets on Lake Michigan are hard to get and this was no exception. Even on a day that had zero clouds, as it nears sunset, the clouds tend to move in and block those last few moments of sunset. It is still beautiful though - granted any day on the lake is a good day.
It was almost 10:00 by this point so between the time and the covid-19 restrictions we were limited on dinner choices so we picked up Arby's and ended up with some amazing chicken sandwiches which were super hot and so tasty . .. or maybe we were just super hungry HA!
Did I find joy throughout the day? The answer is yes. We had a great day being together, traveling down roads we had never driven on, finding out of the way places to enjoy, and taking in many views of our favorite lake. It was a blessed, peaceful day.
