DayTripping Chicago to SW Michigan

So, I'm from the Chicago, and while Chicago is great and has a ton to do, I like to get outside the city and explore as well. While we do have a few cool things in the area like Starved Rock and Lake Michigan, I'm always a bit disappointed at what my state has to offer as far as interesting outdoor adventures to take. I'm often envious of people from areas near the ocean, or the desert, or even the Pacific Northwest with all the cool State Parks and BLM land and everything like that.

That said there are some hidden gems within a 1-3 hour drive from Chicago, we just have to look a bit harder.

Most weekend my girlfriend and some friends visit the beaches of Southwest Michigan, a favorite stop of ours is Weko Beach in Bridgeman, Michigan. While this beach isn't what today's post is about, if your in the area definately recommend you check it out. Much cleaner, nicer and less crowded than Chicago beaches and on Saturday and Sunday afternoons two older gentlement who live in the community come out to play taps as the sun goes down. It's really pretty cool watching the sun sink below the horizon as they play taps on the trumpet.

This past weekend however we decided to try to find something new to do. So we set off in the direction of Indiana and Michigan not really sure where we were heading but doing some Googling along the way trying to find a place to go and maybe a place to stop and eat and have a few drinks.

Around the time we started hitting Northwest Indiana, which by the way has more abandoned boarded up "gentlemens clubs" than I've ever seen in my life, I found a place on my phone called Grand Mere State Park. The pic below is one of about 20 we passed within a 5 mile drag. I love "live nude girls" as much as the next guy but really 20 strip clubs in one town? lol.

While we'd never been there before it looked pretty cool, had good reviews on Trip Advisor, and worst case scenario, was only a few minutes down the road from some of other beaches we normally visit so we figured if it was a bust we'd just pack up and head somewhere else.

Now surprisingly Southwest Michigan is a mecca for small wineries and breweries. I wound up settling on one called Watermark Brewery as it was in the same town we were heading to, and it also had a nice beer list full of Pale Ale's and IPA's, two of my favorite types of beer.

As we got off the exit and headed into Stevensville it was a cute little town. We pulled up to the brewery and we were not disapointed. There was a food truck out front, apparently they have rotating food trucks all weekend every weekend. They also had a great area for outdoor seating with bean bag toss games and Bacci Ball and the wall of the building was garage doors which pulled up to let the outdoors in even if you wanted to sit inside out of the sun. They also had foosball and other games and things to do inside as well. While I didn't bring my dogs with me, another cool thing is you could bring dogs there as well.

We enjoyed a couple flights of beer and some delicious pulled pork and brisket sandwhiches along with a couple sides of tots. We stayed for a few minutes to soak up a bit more of the ambiance, and a few more beers and headed off to our adventure Grand Mere State Park.

Upon initially pulling in it looked like more of a forest preserve than a beach. I asked a couple younger guys parked next to us if there was a beach and they said no just hiking. Turns out there was a beach, but we'll get to that.

Anyhow, we decided not really to bring all our stuff as we expected to take a quick hike and head down the road to a beach, so we packed a couple beers and a blanket and headed off down the path. After about 10-15 minutes of walking through the woods we entered a clearing and noticed sand dunes. I pulled out my phone and pulled up a map and sure enough it looked like Lake Michigan was just over the hill.

We hiked over several large sand dunes, and once atop one, we could see the Lake peering over the top of the sand at us. We run up over the crest of the dune and there it was, a nice pristine and very secluded beach. There wasn't that much beach area, it was mainly dunes and tall grasses leaving about 10 to 15 feet of shore before the water. I think the long hike to the beach kept the crowds at a minimum which I kind of liked.

Unfortunately because those young kids told us there was no beach we didn't bring our suits or much else so we sat there and had a couple beers. Finally I said screw it and decided to go swimming in my boxers, nobody was really around anyway. The water was perfect, the normally frigid Lake Michigan waters were actually a perfect temperature this day and it was much cleaner and bluer than back in Chicago. Not sure whether it was the particular area we were at or if it was just a windy day but the normally calm Lake Michigan was wavy enough that you could actually bodysurf and had I brought a boogie board could have probably even boogie boarded on them.

We had a great day of swimming and hanging out and eventually decided to make the hike back to the car. On our way out of town we stopped at a little fruit stand and got some fresh strawberry jam and a jar of real honey, both were delicious. Upon the recommendation of the kid working the register we also turned around and headed back a few miles down the road to check out Mikey's Drive-Inn, an old school burger joint where they run food out to your car on a tray. Had a couple burgers and some homemade cherry pie before making the treck back to Chicago.

Overall a pretty awesome day. If any of you are in the Chicagoland area and looking for a good way to spend a weekend or a nice day trip to make I'd highly recommend taking our journey yourselves and to those of you who aren't in Chicago, I'd definately recommend you take an afternoon sometime to explore some of your local areas treasures as well.