Winter Adventure – Ludington Edition

“Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

Every year as the cold settles in over Michigan the lakeshore towns magically hibernate for the winter. But even in this sleepy winter state, these towns have enough variety for a fun winter day trip. An early March warm snap brought out spring fever and we headed out on an adventure.

Heading out for an afternoon of fun, we visited the site of Father Marquette’s death along the south side of the channel. And we took a short walk out to the lake, because one can’t go to a shore town without getting a view of Lake Michigan. We caught a glimpse of the Ludington Light lighthouse—it’s not a self-respecting lakeshore town without one.

Next stop was Starving Artist Brewing that we’d heard of ad nauseam. It’s almost like you have to be in the know to find this brewery. Follow google maps and look for the barrels out by the road. This was the most unique brewery experience I’ve had to date. Standing in a tap room the size of postage stamp, the very knowledgeable salesman helped us to samples of their ten drafts beers on tap. The praise was well earned as they had a wide variety in those ten beers and each was crafted with attention to detail with what they call “no frills brewing.”

Side note: This brewery is a taste-and-take establishment. They’ll help you find beer you like and fill growlers, howlers or make up some cans for you to take with you. And they are only open Friday and Saturday from 12-5. We took home several varieties including: Pit of Despair, Hop Marley and Cranberlin.

Time for brunch—we headed into Ludington proper and popped into the cute and tiny Café 106. I love brunch because you can have either lunch or breakfast. Our orders ranged from a famer’s omelet and stuffed hash browns to turkey avocado wrap with fruit.

We worked our way down to Love Wine at their new location by way of Windowsill Books. The winery was having a wine making class. Our tastings covered most of the wine list. Our favorites ranged from a semi-sweet elderberry wine called Midsummer Night’s Dream to a dessert wine called Caramel Coffee. I took home a bottle of the elderberry after seriously considering the Cranberry Apple Chutney (it’s Christmas in a bottle!).

We spotted a new—to us—coffee shop. And since we can’t pass up a cup of coffee, we grabbed a cup to go at Red Rooster Coffee. My mocha was excellent and they had a great medium-dark blend. Apparently their greatest draw isn’t their live music performances, but the weekly bingo night. I love small town coffee shops; they always have the coolest quirks.

Now we can’t adventure without a little exercise, so we meandered our way to Ludington State Park. It’s winter so most of the park is closed to traffic. We parked and took the path up to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. The four mile roundtrip walk was a nice break in the day. And we weren’t the only ones with cabin fever. Some people were even camping!

After that walk we deserved a treat. And Cops and Doughnuts McDonald’s Precinct was just the place. We ended up arriving during the doughnut happy hour. We bought a plushy doughnut for the puppy and each had a delicious one of our own: a cherry blossom and two deputies, which is a peanut butter ganache filled, chocolate frosted, peanut topped donut. Of course, it was tasty.

Our last stop was dinner. We stopped at Ludington Bay Brewing Co., thinking we would just have a beer. But the menu convinced us to stay for food. The bartender let us try several samples before we decided on Blue Lake, a blueberry cream ale; Big Nalu, an imperial double IPA and Berliner Weiss, a sour with peach. Splitting the beet hummus, we ordered the Crab Rangoon pizza (a best seller), the ranch hand bison burger and loaded fries with bison chili. We had a great meal eating at the bar chatting with the bartenders and even one of the cooks. But our eyes were bigger than our stomachs and we ended up taking most of our food home with us.

What do you do when spring fever hits? Where would you go for a winter adventure?