What could have been................

Just got back from St. Joesph, Michigan.

Granted, they have Lake Michigan as a drawing point....but they've done some interesting things with their lakefront.

The Amtrak train picks up and drops off in the beachfront area. It's a setup similar to the River Station building. They have a very popular locally owned pizzeria in their old train depot. Just past that is an enclosed beautiful hand-painted carousel which is open year round. From what I could tell, it's a pretty popular attraction. Attatched to the carousel building is a scaled down version of their childrens museum, with a climbing wall, a water-play area and an area for any traveling exhibits-Grossology was the one being featured. Their original childrens museum is in a converted two story brick house a short distance away from the beachfront.

The downtown area is also very cool. Many locally owned shops and eateries, which were busy on the Saturday that we left. The shopping part of the downtown area is made up of brick streets (one way) with parking in front of the stores. Also many, many free city owned parking lots.

Really makes me wonder what our riverfront could have been.

Great place for a family weekend. About a 3.5 to 4 hour drive from Peoria.