Another day in South Haven

Today we got up early, had our coffee, and went for a bicycle ride. First we rode around the South Haven waterfront. The South Beach area, which is situated just to the south of the harbor entrance, is really interesting - lots of little vacation homes and cottages densely jumbled together on a sandy rise overlooking the beach. It's sort of similar to certain areas of the North Carolina Outer Banks - or at least the way Phil remembers them from over 20 years ago! That's not something we've often seen in Great Lakes towns.

Then we rode over to the Kal-Haven bicycle trail. The ride to the trail head, which is about a mile or so outside of downtown, is pretty interesting in itself. It takes you along parts of the river you don't normally see when staying in town. Then, the first mile or so of the trail continues along the river. During this part of the ride, we saw the transformation from bustling harbor town, to condos and small marinas, to periodic homes, and then finally to streams and marshes with dragonflies and cat-tails, then finally through farm areas with fields of corn and blueberries. Because it's an old railroad bed, the trail is generally flat and the grades are easy. So it is good exercise but not exhausting. It's also very well maintained.






Speaking of farmland, it seems as though every rail trail we ride has a pig farm situated somewhere along the way. This one is no different.







But a least they also raised beef. From the sign posted, it's good beef too. Although Bernie wouldn't really trust the info on the sign without further knowledge of exactly how those cows are raised. But Phil gave them points for "call for more info" and Bernie did note that the sign echo-ed her sentiment of "know where your meat comes from".



After returning from our ride, we stopped by the South Haven farmer's market. It's in a nice location near the center of town that's a short walk from the marina. It's small but seems to have potential to grow and is set-up as a covered open-air market. Bernie really liked the mural that is painted on the building beside the market.




We also stopped at the Golden Brown Bakery ("producing the finest baked foods for southwest Michigan since 1938") in town on the way back to the boat. The apple/cherry fritter and walnut maple stick were scrumptious!
Then it was back to an afternoon of reading and relaxing on Meridian.

Dinner tonight was a little odd - omelets. Not usually what you'd have for dinner but we haven't been eating the breakfasts we thought we would and Bernie wanted to start using up the Country Cottage eggs. So she made 3-egg omelets filled with the Tomato Lavender Piperade (this is very versatile as it was also served as a sauce for the chicken on Monday), River Valley Kitchen's Mushroom Salsa, and Prairie Pure Farms' Butterkase cheese. It turned out to be a good mix - there was a little heat from the Piperade. The strangest thing was that despite the fact that the boat was rocking a little, Bernie made perfect omelets - uniformly golden and no squishy center. Obviously the rocking boat helps keep the eggs moving around in the pan so they don't get brown. Now, just how to do that on dry land?? ;)