Thursday, May 5, 2011

Cass County and Berrien County

First off I have to say that my stupid camera isn't working so I have no pictures of a wonderful day so I will have to use my best adjectives to tell you about it. Right now I am sitting in a very basic Motel 6 in Benton Harbor (even worse). I am good and exhausted. Here is why:

I took off from the house at 7:30AM to get over to the west side of the state in a timely fashion since I have to do at least 2 counties a day now in order to catch up. I had decided that I was going to Dowagiac (Cass County) first. The only times I had ever been there was on the train to Chicago which has a stop there. The old train station is pretty and thank God it has a public restroom! I walked through the city neighborhoods which have beautiful old houses, many Victorians with interesting color combinations. There was an awesome old stone mansion with stables that were bigger than a regular house. The downtown isn't doing real well, there are some restaurants but mostly just businesses like insurance companies.

So I walked 3 miles there because I wanted to go to Dowagiac Woods Sanctuary which is a few miles southwest of town. It is a tract of woods that has over 50 kinds of trees and the most beautiful spring flowers I have ever seen. It was thick with trillium, blue eyed Mary, and lots of flowers I have no idea what their names were but blew my mind. You know what it reminded me of? The elven kingdom of Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings. I highly recommend it if you're ever in the area. I also think what the Michigan Nature Association is doing is incredibly important. Here is their link if you're interested: www.michigannature.org

So at that point I had Cass County done and I headed down to Niles because I had read about a reportedly great garden last year and never made it over there so I figured I'd use some of my miles to check it out. It's called Fernwood Botanical Gardens and Nature Preserve. Another freaking magnificent place (www.fernwoodbotanical.org) which I also highly recommend. There are many trails, one of which runs along the banks of the St. Joseph River. They have many different theme gardens. Oh heck, if you're interested just look at the website.

I got 2 miles done there because frankly I was getting pooped and knew I was going to St. Joseph and wanted to save my energy for a walk along Lake Michigan. It never ceases to amaze me how rich St. Joseph is and how poor Benton Harbor is and all that separates them is a river. It's kind of like when you're driving up Jefferson in Detroit and it's all depressing and poor then it's as if you've gotten to the promised land when you cross into Grosse Point. Anyhow, I got my funky hotel room, figured out how to hook the laptop up to the internet (with help from Wes and he didn't sigh too loud when I called him for help), then I had a fortifying taco salad at Qdoba (which is yet another place I highly recommend YUM).

It had started raining but I finished with 3 more miles walking a really good trail system along Lake Michigan. St. Joseph is built on a bluff over the lake and to get to the beach there is a humongous stairway that goes down to the beach. The sidewalks go on for a few blocks and then there is a trail that goes down about a mile and then you have to climb a towering series of ramps to get back up to street level. Again there were beautiful, classy historic houses. At the end of the walk I was tempted to get a coffee at a chocolate/coffee bar but I figured nothing good was going to come of that and just came back to the motel. I got to see Jacob kicked off American Idol so all is right with the world!

Tomorrow I'm going to get Allegan and Van Buren counties done! Yes I am...

No comments:

Post a Comment