Coast Guard Festival

This year Melissa and I decided to check out the Grand Haven Coast Guard Festival. To avoid the traffic congestion we parked at Roger and Beth's house and biked into town. Even at 10am the traffic was bad. Evan had to drive to work, and he wasn't happy to watch us pass him on our bikes.

We toured the big Coast Guard ships, and learned how important the Great Lakes ice-breaking missions are. The Great Lakes are vital to commerce, as more tonnage ships through the Sault Locks annually than through the Panama and Suez Canals combined. It was really cool, and almost made me want to join...On second thought, I'll leave the rescue swimming to Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner.
After the boats we decided to go the the DeeLite for lunch. On the way there we noticed the parade going by. We only stopped for long enough to see one float, but it was the one we were supposed to see. We finally found the DeeLite and had lunch. The food was great. The garden salad was one of the best I've ever had. I ordered a Chicken Chimichanga, and Melissa had the Beef Burrito. We even had the chef (Evan) come out and talk to us!

To settle our food, we walked down the pier and to the beach. We met up with Lindsay's family who have a cottage near the public beach. It was very relaxing just to lay on the beach for a few hours.
The best thing about the Coast Guard Festival is the fire works, but we decided to skip those this year. The crowd had a raucously high percentage of showy late high-school to early college age kids. We had no good place to wait for or watch the fireworks as every possible spot had been claimed by Thursday. Riding bikes on crowded streets after dark didn't seem wise.
Several people we know saw the show and said it was great. So...maybe next year.