Discover St. Joseph

Thanks to the very warm and sunny weather we've been having this spring, the tulips are blooming early in Holland. I've never had the opportunity to visit Holland during tulip-time and neither has D. So last Saturday, after our hunt for fruit tree blossoms in the St. Joseph and Coloma area , we made the 1 hr. drive from St. Joseph to Holland in search of blooming tulips. It didn't take us long to find tulips. They were right there under the city's welcome sign. I'd printed out the official Tulip Time Festival  brochure before we left for Holland so we had a map of the downtown area with us. We found the tulip-route in short order and discovered it had some nice blooming tulips. If I'm being honest here, I have to admit I was a bit underwhelmed. I guess I'd seen one too many promos for the Tulip Time Festival showing what looks like acres of multi-colored tulips. The tulip route was certainly not that. It's just a row of tulips planted at the foot of...

Spring has come early to Michigan. This has been just about the warmest spring I can remember. We've had more days of blue skies and sunshine than is typical for this season and I've truly enjoyed it. D and I (mostly D ;-) have been working on our winter projects at the condo and we're wrapping those up now. We'll be finished by mid May. But we just had to take a day off to grab some pics of the beautiful blossoms in the area! Last Saturday we started out taking just a few pics of the apple trees blooming in the orchard at Nye's Apple Barn in St. Joseph. They were a lovely deep pink and oh so pretty! That just whet our appetites for more spring blooms! So off we went in search of more blossoming fruit trees. We drove to Coloma because I was hoping to get some pics of peach blossoms and after all, Coloma's famous for it's Glad-Peach Festival . Well, that didn't work out so well. I couldn't figure out which trees might be peach trees because they d...

On Saturday we took a drive down to Silver Beach to see if the ice mounds on the beach were gone. They were! The first signs of spring were evident. The first thing we noticed was boats on the lake! Fisherman are a hardy bunch so it would make sense that the first boats out for the season would be those of the fisherman. The next thing we noticed is that the sand moving gear had been pushing the sand from the parking lot back on to the beach. You can see the equipment tracks in the sand. And there were people walking on the beach too. OK, so they're not in their bikinis yet but still it's nice to see people out and about on the beach. The south pier was occupied by a group of fisherman too. I wonder if they were catching anything... And on a drive along the lake we caught site of another couple of firsherman out on their boat. I know it's too early for the sailboats to be out but hopefully the warm weather we're having will coax them out soon! Let's see...only...

What better way to spend Valentine's weekend than at the Magical Ice Carving Festival in St. Joseph, Michigan! We had a wonderful weekend checking out the ice carvings and trying to photograph them. Unfortunately, we were unable to get into town in time to see the "fire and ice" opening ceremonies Friday evening. The organizers assembled several blocks of ice and lit a fire inside them. It was probably awesome to see. I was only able to grab a picture of it the day after. Maybe next year we'll be able to see it ablaze. We were lucky that the sun came out both Saturday and Sunday making for lovely pictures of the ice carvings. Just look at this beauty. Nature's spotlight makes it sparkle! And to add to the fun, there was a miniature golf course set up and competitions waged... Doesn't that look like fun?! My personal favorite was this ice carving... What a great castle! The ice carving that took the first place blue ribbon was... A fish! Very app...

Once the big snow was over, I expected the sun to come out and stay out for a while. I was waiting for an opportunity to get some pictures of the sun glistening off the snow and ice on Lake Michigan with blue skies and the deep marine blue lake water to set off the bright white lighthouses. I wanted that picture to hang above the fireplace in the condo. So I waited. Here's Silver Beach on January 2nd... We came over the weekend of January 9/10 but I didn't bother to take any pictures since it was still grey and gloomy. Here's Lake Michigan January 17th... And on January 18th...   I didn't bother to take pictures the weekend of January 23/24 because it was still cloudy. Finally, the sun came out on Saturday January 30th. According to the meteorologist on TV, it was the first time the sun had come out since that brief time the morning after the snow storm, January 2nd! Talk about a month of gloomy, grey weather! Anyway, I finally got my picture :-) Isn't i...

Here it is February 1st. As of today, we are basically 2/3 of the way through the winter season. This is the first winter I've experienced in St. Joseph and it has been interesting. December was pretty much what I'd expected, maybe a little less snow. But January more than made up for it. D and I experienced our first lake effect snow storm on New Year's Day. We'd heard the warnings for days in advance but we weren't all that concerned. We had plenty of food on hand and we were planning to stay in St Joe until January 3rd anyway. We figured we'd be able to get out by then and we did. But it sure was an interesting 3 days! We'd been watching the bowl games on TV New Year's Day and from time to time I'd look out the window to see if the forcasted snow had started yet. C and R had come over to stay with us for a couple days and were planning to head back to Detroit after spending the afternoon at the indoor water park in Watervliet. C called about 4...

I've taken quite a hiatus from writing on this blog, haven't I? I guess that's the winter doldrums for you. I haven't stopped having fun in St. Joseph, I just haven't been motivated to write about it. D and I have mostly been spending this month working on our condo. It actually feels good to be working on projects again (more so for me than for D ;-) And with all the grey, gloomy skies we've been having, indoor projects are just the thing to focus on until we see the sun and the mild temperatures beckon us outside once again. But enough about the winter greys. The big news in St Joseph this month has been the much anticipated grand opening of the Silver Beach Carousel and the Curious Kid's Discovery Zone . There was a New Year's Eve gala at the Shadowland Ballroom (also housed with the carousel and the museum) for those who were inclined to fork out the big bucks for a fancy evening. There was a time when D and I would have been one of those couples...