Saturday coffee.

Union Pier, Michigan.

Anne, Ulysses and I have left the City for a month.

We have rented a little cottage a few yards from Lake Michigan. We are planning little more than walking, reading and watching the colors change. The change has begun. That picture above was taken last Monday when we arrived and already the road is lined with gold, yellow and rust. Ten more days and we will be in peak colors.

Saturday coffee is here at the cottage. Or maybe a latte at the Whistle Stop, a ten minute walk down Red Arrow Highway. Or maybe at Rosie’s in New Buffalo. That would be weak coffee along with the Sunshine Special:  A half order of biscuits and gravy, eggs and sausage. I admit to a love of biscuits and gravy and Rosie’s is pretty good. You can also order what Rosie calls SOS, but that older folks recognize as shit on a shingle. That would be chipped beef in gravy over toast.

Rosie’s has been in business since 1979. We started coming out in 1975. It’s an old story. In those years you could have bought a place for a dime. Which we didn’t have.  Now Lakeshore Road is lined with million dollar summer homes which are empty most of the time. A midweek morning walk with Ulysses is a solitary activity. Nobody else on the road, except some occasional construction guys heading to a huge house they are building or a gardening crew.

They work for the summer people. The locals tend not to be so well-off. Half the kids at the local high school are poor enough to qualify for free lunches.

Berrien County has for years tried to create a tourism industry around wine production. A Napa of the midwest. Grape fields have replaced many corn fields. But that has met with only partial success. Instead, in the past few years a artisanal beer brewing industry has cropped up. A dozen little breweries scattered between here and Kalamazoo. A laundromat next to the Garden Market in Sawyer is now Greenbush Brewing Company, a brewery run by a couple of young guys. It has good bar food and a rotating menu of small batch beers.

This afternoon we are headed for the Beer Fest at Weko Beach where the local beer makers will be offering their brew with bands and food under a tent between the dunes and the water.

The local paper, The Harbor Country News reports,

One thing that did change at Exit 16 on Monday, Sept. 17, was the installation of a new “welcome” sign.

The sign was put in place along northbound Red Arrow Highway after the arrows were corrected to point in the correct direction. That was the latest of several production problems to delay the signs, which had been promised to be up by Memorial Day.

Another sign, for southbound motorists on Red Arrow Highway, was scheduled to be erected later in the week, with additional regional and attraction signs promised soon.

It is important to have the arrows pointing in the right direction.

It puts dealing with Chicago problems, like Rahm Emanuel, in perspective. Although he’s been pointing in the wrong direction since he was elected a year ago.

Sorry. I couldn’t help myself.