Belated B-day present

Two weekends ago Niesha and I took a trip an hour west and a bit north of Kalamazoo to Saugatuck Michigan which is a small town on the coast of Lake Michigan and at the mouth of the Kalamazoo river. Niesha had booked some spots on a sailboat for Sunday afternoon and we made a day of it.
The area was quite nice with lots of lush trees around the town and a real "summer fun" atmosphere in a town that had lots of shops and stores lining the streets. There was even a large wooded hill close to the river that had some stairs leading up it. The stairs looked like they went up a long way so I naturally wanted to climb it and see: 1)where it went, and 2)what the view was like at the top.

284 steps later, we reached the top of Mount Baldy as it was called (but it wasn't really a Mount by any means) and had a wonderful view of Saugatuck.



The sailing trip itself lasted a good two hours. First we had to meander down the Kalamazoo river for about 20 minutes until we reached Lake Michigan which upon entering the large body of water the captain put up the sails and off we went at about 7 knots (8.4 miles/hr) out to sea.......er lake.


We were allowed to go up onto any part of the bow but the captain said he had one rule, "Just don't fall in the water". It was a beautiful sunny day and the wind was blowing pretty strong, so even though it was warm on shore it was cool enough to need a light jacket on the water.
The day was awesome. It felt fantastic to be back on a body of water. I've been so used to being on the water in the summer I really miss it when I go long periods of time without bouncing on some waves.Niesha and I even managed to get sprayed a little while sitting on the bow of the boat when some large waves sloshed into the side of the boat and soared into the air to greet our bodies with a fine mist.


It was a wonderful birthday present and I'm thinking, now all I need is a sailboat of my own and the rest of the summer will have all kinds of adventures to write about!