Adventures in Saugatuck

There are a few things that are amazing when traveling by boat; 1) you travel with your house, this is the biggest bonus I have come up with so far, and 2) you create your own travel schedule, which works better with our travel personalities and is pretty nifty as well. If you really like where you are at you can stay longer, if you don't, you can leave at any time. It's that simple. Yes, it is similar to traveling in a car but most people don't live in their cars, do they? Last, this one goes along with #1, you have a bathroom available to you anywhere at anytime!

So, after arriving in Saugatuck we found out that like many visitors to this town we fell in love with it! Everyone there is very welcoming, there are many different places to explore, as well as lots of great restaurants and bars! Best part about it, is that it is kept up very nicely and very clean! This is our ideal town! Because of this we decided to stay an extra day so we could explore this town as much as possible!

Takeout from Marro's, yum!

We arrived in town a bit late. We are beginning to realize that we need to leave for our next destination earlier than we have been to make sure that the harbor doesn't close before we arrive and so that we can dock the boat before dark. Both of these things can be done if you arrive to your destination late but we prefer to avoid this situation all together. After tying the boat up, having a celebratory drink and putting everything away, we headed into town a bit late and almost everything was closed. Fortunately for us, we found a wonderful restaurant, Marro's, where we could order some delicious takeout.

We are SO fancy with our plastic
wine glasses!

We woke up the next morning to a scorcher! The temperature inside the boat was getting up there well before 9 am. So, we decided to see if we could find somewhere cool in town to enjoy a little breakfast. When we gave the hostess our name at Ida Red's Cottage we didn't blink when she told us there was a longer wait for indoor seating. A wait, we can do that if it means we can enjoy some air-conditioning!

Our jimmy-rigged boat sun shades!

After breakfast, we wandered around downtown Saugatuck and lingered in some of the shops just so we could enjoy the air conditioning before heading back to the boat for lunch. BTW, down town Saugatuck has many fun shops, that even Brady enjoyed, to browse around and kill time. The best part... I was able to start my Christmas shopping with some of the unique stuff the shops had.

Brady hard at work!

The chaos of boat projects.

I'm not sure what got into us, maybe we were a bit delirious from the heat, but we decided to do a couple of boat projects and clean when we got back. Our brains were working well enough to jimmy-rig some sun shades to try and cool down the boat. It worked better than nothing at all! (FYI, This was the exact moment when we decided to invest in a real sun cover as soon as we got back from our trip!) After freshening up we decided to celebrate completing another task and cool down by going to Phil's for dinner and air-conditioning and following it up with some ice cream!

It's a good thing we decided to stay in town for another day since some summer storms come rolling into the area that evening and stayed through the next day. The storms gave us a chance to learn about the town's Interurban shuttle service.  We took the Interurban to the Douglas side of Lake Kalamazoo to explore the Steamship Keewatin Maritime Museum. This was one of the highlights of our trip! This steamship was built in 1907 and was a passenger and freight liner in Canada. She was retired in 1966 and was set to be scrapped until RJ Peterson of Douglas, MI purchased her in 1967 for historic preservation.

 As we finished touring the Keewatin, the sun was starting to break through the rain clouds so we were able to enjoy a long and peaceful walk back to the boat from Douglas to Saugatuck.

We enjoyed our final meal in Douglas at Everyday People Cafe. When we walked in, the place was packed! Thankfully we thought of making our reservation while we were in Benton Harbor. The food, drinks, and service were amazing and friendly. It was the best way to end our time in this beautiful harbor town!

We only did a portion of the things we wanted to do here and cannot wait to come back next year to explore more of what these beautiful little lakeside towns have to offer!