Traverse City Adventure: In the art town of Saugatuck

DAY 26 • 6 SEPTEMBER 2017 • SOUTH HAVEN

Pedaling up the west coast of Michigan now.  That’s what the locals call it.  When you see the sun setting over an endless sea in the evening, you understand why.  It looks like an ocean but there’s no salt in the air.  On a T-shirt in downtown South Haven, we read: No Salt, No Sharks, No Worries.

After a leisurely and rolling 20-mile ride northward on A82 - a Blue Star Memorial Highway like 301 in Maryland and Delaware - we arrived at the twin towns of Douglas and Saugatuck, divided by the Kalamazoo River and its broad, lake-like harbor.   Gleaming white sailboats, classic cabin cruisers, sleek and fast powerboats all in first-class slips and marinas.  Neat, well-kept coastal towns. Lots of money and a ton of private and public art in Saugatuck.  Clearly an artist’s community with lots of patrons in their midst.  

At nearby OxBow Lake, a summer artist’s colony with artists and students from Chicago has been active for decades.  Another similarity between this area and our own.

Yesterday’s 20 miles puts our total at 910.  Tomorrow the rain is expected to move out, giving way to a skein of warmish fall weather.  Looking forward to camping the next several days at Michigan state park campgrounds along the Lake Michigan shoreline.

Pray for the folks down south.  Irma’s giving them a thrashing. She’s so enormous we’re bound to feel effects in some way, shape or form in Delaware.