Discover St. Joseph

I seem to be on a roll here writing about holiday light displays. So in keeping with that theme, I'll tell you about St. Joseph's holiday lights. The downtown business area on State Street has been festively decorated for weeks now . On November 20th, the town held its annual Luminary Festival . That lit up the area even more but only for one night. You could see light displays along Lake Bluff Park since Halloween , but until recently they weren't lit. Finally, on the evening of Dec. 4th, the city had its official lighting ceremony for the "Light Up the Bluff" displays. D and I drove over but didn't arrive in St. Joseph in time to hear the St. Joseph High School Choir singing carols as the lights were turned on. We did take a nice series of pictures later on that same evening though. I've been waiting for weeks to see this light display and we really enjoyed it. I hope you will too! Here's the sign to welcome you to the light display on the south end ...

So I've had a home 90 minutes from Chicago for 10 months now and haven't made it to the windy city yet. That is until Thanksgiving weekend. D, DJ, and I made the drive over to have dinner and see the holiday lights on Saturday, Nov. 28th. Here's what we did... We left St. Joseph about 4pm. The sun was getting low in the sky and the shadows were long but the weather was clear. We took I-94 south and opted for the toll road, I-90, when we got to Indiana. That was a mistake as the road is under construction with reduced lanes, shifting lanes, and lots of rough surfaces. Being from Michigan, I'm used to rough roads but not when I have pay a toll to drive on them. :- 7 Driving into Chicago was the traffic nightmare I remembered. Even on a Saturday evening it was bumper to bumper traffic going 70+ mph in a 55mph zone. We knew this would likely be the case but taking the train was not an option. My ability to walk long distances or stand for any length of time has been severel...

What better way to enjoy the Thanksgiving weekend than to check out Christmas light displays! D and I brought DJ with us for the weekend and she enjoyed seeing them too. :-) Friday evening (Nov. 27) we drove up to Saugatuck for their holiday lighting ceremony. I figured this would be an event similar to St. Joseph's Luminary Festival but without the luminaries. I expected to see store fronts all decorated and open late with goodies and sales to attract shoppers, sidewalks full of people chatting and making merry, and lots of festive light displays around town. Here's what we saw: Notice anything odd? There were no people out on the streets, only a very few shops were open, and the town was quite dark. I thought perhaps I had the wrong night, but no, the marquee at the movie theater confirmed that this was the night of the lighting ceremony. Hmmm... We didn't know what to make of it all. According to the Saugatuck.com web site , we were expecting: SAUGATUCK'S SPARKLE 2...