Saugatuck, Michigan--an updated retrospective

I park the car facing the Kalamazoo River in the Mt. Baldy parking lot.  My daughter Pam and I plan to climb the 282 steps to the top of Mt. Baldy, a stabilized sand dune in Saugatuck, Michigan.  But first we turn our attention to the river and the pleasant garden and informational placards in a tiny park at river's edge. 

 

 

Kalamazoo River moving downstream toward its mouth.  Flowing slowly with a depth of 4 to 5 feet, the Kalamazoo River cuts through the historic town of Saugatuck and empties into Lake Michigan.

 

 

 

 

 

Pam and I have stopped in Saugatuck as part of a long weekend trip visiting small towns and wineries in Southwestern Michigan to celebrate my 70th birthday. We have a lot of memories about this place.  Years ago, my in-laws had a cottage near Mt. Baldy, and every summer we spent time at their cottage in Saugatuck.  Mt. Baldy's official name is Mt. Baldhead, but no one we know ever calls it that.

During those years, climbing Mt. Baldy and running down an open sandy area became a summertime ritual for Pam and her brother David.

 

 

 

 

 

David and Pam run down Mt. Baldy in the summer of 1968.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides the happy memories of seeing my children running down the dune squealing with delight, I have warm recollections of time spent on Mt. Baldy with my future husband, Alan.  When I visited Alan and his parents here in the summers preceding our marriage, he and I would seek some space from his parents' watchful eyes in the slopes and dips and wilds of the Mt. Baldy environs.

Now, more than four decades later, my knees bolstered in Ace wraps, I begin climbing the steps to the top of Mt. Baldy.  My knees don't protest so much going up slopes--going down is when they let me know they would like me to stop.  Pam, ever the determined one, races ahead.  One man in his thirties, apparently considering the climb a good way to work out, runs up and down the stairs several times while we're there.  Meanwhile, I'm climbing slowly, not only to pace myself, but also to examine the dense flora growing on the sand dune.  I especially like the tulip trees that populate the dune.

 

 

 

 

Tulip tree (Lirodendron tulipifera) leaves.  Although also commonly called a yellow poplar or tulip poplar, the tulip tree is not a poplar, but is in the magnolia family.

 

 

 

 

Sweat dripping down my forehead and lightly panting, I reach the top and mentally congratulate myself that I can still do what I did when I was much younger.

  

 

 

 

Looking down Mt. Baldy's 282-step stairway from atop the sand dune.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Pam and I mill about the area resting and quietly enjoying the embrace of the sun and sand and fresh air, a black butterfly with tails and blue patches on its hind wings flits about landing here and there.  It's obviously testing the suitability of the sand, looking for a patch still damp from morning dewdrops, where it can puddle. Butterflies, usually the males, visit sites, such as damp ground or animal scat, to extract sodium and other nutrients they need for reproduction but don't get in their plant-based diet. When puddling, a butterfly secretes saliva through its proboscis into the nutrient source and then sucks it, along with the nutrients, back up.

As I watch and try to photograph the butterfly, I puzzle over what species it is.  It resembles the black swallowtail butterflies I see at home, but the blue on its hindwings is larger.  Later at home, I use my photos to identify the butterfly.  It's a spicebush swallowtail whose range extends north into southern Michigan, but does not reach northern Illinois, where I live.

  

 

 

 

Male spicebush swallowtail butterfly (Papilio troilus) puddling on wet sand atop Mt. Baldy.  The large chunk missing from its left hindwing suggests the butterfly was nipped by a bird or other predator, but escaped.

 

 

 

 

It's time to move on to the rest of our day.  As I descend the stairway, I periodically stop to survey my surroundings.  At one rest place, I get a good view of upstream Kalamazoo River through an opening in the foliage. 

 

 

Upstream (north) view of the Kalamazoo River from Mt. Baldy.  The widened area of the river is called Kalamazoo Lake or Kalamazoo Harbor.  The bridge connects the west side of Saugatuck, where Mt. Baldy, the Lake Michigan beaches, and cottages are located, with the east downtown side of the village.

 

Reaching the bottom of Mt. Baldy, we decide to leave the car parked in the lot and walk to the area where my in-laws' former cottage is located to see how it has fared.  Prior to my in-laws owning the cottage, it had belonged to my mother-in-law's family, so the cottage was already quite old with no modern amenities when we stayed at it. 

Although we've heard that the cottage had been remodeled and added to, when we reach the cottage, we're overwhelmed and surprised by its current elegance.  It looks more like a home than a summer cottage. Its appearance is so different that the thought passes my mind that the cottage had been torn down and a new home built.  The back of the structure, however, looks much the same as we experienced it.  Also, on closer study, we can determine what the owner has changed in the front of the cottage to make it what it is today.

 

 

 

 

Cottage that our family visited every summer while my children were young, now extensively remodeled and enlarged.

 

 

 

When we stayed at the cottage those many years ago, we often went to Oval Beach on Lake Michigan. Leaving the Mt. Baldy parking lot, we decide to make a short stop at the Oval since it is nearby.  I turn into Oval Beach Road, but retreat when we see the weekend parking rate at the beach is $15.  It's not that $15 is too much to pay to enjoy the outdoors.  But it's too much for the few minutes we have time to spend here since we have plans to do a lot more today.  Besides we're still hot and sweaty from climbing and walking, and the air conditioning in the car feels so good.

Our next stop is downtown Douglas, Saugatuck's sister village.  In our visits to the area in the fifties and sixties, Saugatuck, which is home to the Ox-Bow school of art, seemed more interesting and more vibrant.  We went to Douglas to get groceries and gas.  But today downtown Douglas, though still small, hosts intriguing shops with unique, upscale merchandise and several inviting restaurants.  Douglas, like Saugatuck, is also giving more prominence to its history. 

 

 

 

 

 

Downtown street scene, Douglas, Michigan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arriving in downtown Saugatuck, we find that even though it's early in the season, the streets are crowded with cars.  Never good at parallel parking, I'm nervous about finding a space to park, but I'm lucky today.  I glide into a good parking place on the main street that has a no-parking zone behind my car, ensuring I won't get boxed in.  As we move through the different parts of Saugatuck, we note that the village has wisely introduced trolleys to shuttle people around town and to Oval Beach and reduce traffic jams.

Pam and I meander through the streets, looking at the chic fashions in store windows.  But we're more interested in the mundane.  She buys a sweatshirt.  I try a light blue one on, but decide I don't need it.  The store also has a real old-fashioned soda fountain, something I haven't seen for a long time.

We wander to the riverfront, where we eat lunch on the outdoor patio of a riverside restaurant.  I order a grilled vegetable sandwich.  The portion size is much too much and the sandwich is dripping grease.  I sense the calories heading to my hips and the fat clogging my arteries.  I never thought about such things in earlier times when I was young and thin and didn't know as much about health.  It's pleasant eating outside, though, and our server is cheerful and attentive.

Afterwards, we find a bench facing the river and sit watching the river world go by.  On this pre-season day, there isn't much boat traffic, but the chain ferry that transports people and bicycles across the Kalamazoo River is operating.   After enough people have boarded, the ferry-man moves the craft across the river by cranking a cog through a cross-river chain.  When the ferry reaches the other side of the river, it docks between Mt. Baldy and Oval Beach Road, and the passengers alight.

 

 

 

 

Saugatuck Ferry, the only chain ferry in America, transporting people and a bicycle across the Kalamazoo River from the west (town) side of Saugatuck to the east side of the village.  The radar dome in the distance sits atop Mt. Baldy and housed an air force radar station from 1956-1968. 

 

 

 

We rouse ourselves from our mellow state and return to the car for a scenic drive through the open spaces of Michigan to several nearby wineries.  With updated and enlarged memories of Saugatuck, in the spirit of a Jack Kornfield meditation, I give myself a 70-year birthday wish.

May I treat Life well,
May Life treat me well.
May Life and I delight in each other.

May you treat Life well,
May Life treat you well,
May you and Life delight in each other.

May everyone treat Life well,
May Life treat everyone well,
May everyone and Life delight in each other.