Greetings From the West Coast…

…of Michigan.

You know what?  I was raised on the West Coast – of California, that is.  I had never visited any of the Great Lakes before.  It has been a wonderful treat visiting the West Coast of Michigan.

My mother and I are in the midst of a Midwest road trip.  We have not really spent any time in this area and want to get to know it better.  So on Friday, we boarded an airplane from Phoenix to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

As we got off the plane, it was a bit of a shock because the trees were leafless and the weather was cold.  It was like winter back home.

We spent our first two nights in Holland, Michigan, which is a Dutch settlement and home to Hope College.

Our first full day was spent going to a tulip farm, visiting the coastal town of South Haven and then back to Holland to explore the downtown area.

Holland, Michigan

The tulips, daffodils and hyacinths were just beautiful.

I don’t see many (okay any) tulips where I live and I just love their vibrant colors.

I do love daffodils, and they do grow where I live, thankfully.

The fragrance of the Hyacinths was just intoxicating and I just love the color blue in the garden, don’t you?

The gardens were just beautiful.  They also had bison on the property, which I thought was kind of unusual.  They sold bison meat in the garden store (I passed on the meat).

There was a Dutch shop next to the garden that we explored…

There was a huge display of Delft porcelain as well as wooden shoes…

They aren’t as comfortable as my mother’s regular shoes.

Our next stop was about 25 miles south at the town of South Haven.  It was a lovely sort of beach town and the downtown was a great place to shop.  

It was a very blustery day and a storm was blowing in.  But, the beach was beautiful.

The store owners were more then ready for spring to arrive and it has been unusually cold for this time of year.

They had quite a few chocolate shops and we walked into three of them, smelled the delicious fragrance of chocolate and then left before we were tempted to buy anything.

That is until we walked into the Chocolate Cafe…

We were ready to leave without buying anything until we saw this…

A six-layer chocolate cake.

Now believe it or not, we didn’t eat a slice of this cake, but it certainly made us want to give into our craving for sweets.  So we bought a large muffin and split it between the two of us 😉

We had a lovely day of shopping, but the storm clouds started to approach so we decided to leave and head back for Holland.

Holland, Michigan

Once back in Holland, we made a stop at the Holland Museum, which was having a Dr. Seuss exhibition.

The walls were painted in red and white stripes like the “Cat in the Hat’s” hat.

We had a lovely time in Holland and the surrounding area.  Our next stop will be in Amish country in Indiana, which we will reach by driving through small towns in lower Michigan.

Our fun was just beginning.  Our next stop…Amish Country.

Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."