Why I Oughta...

Way back at the beginning of August, we spent a weekend up in Coloma where we hit up our usual haunts like the Great Lakes Antique Mall, Silver Beach Pizza in St. Joe's and the Hilltop Harding's grocery store. But, we also timed it right in order to be able to partake in the 2016 Glad-Peach Fest goings-on.  You know....carnival rides.  Cotton Candy.  Avoiding the expensive pay parking.  Those kind of things that every local hometown fest has going on. I've written about the Glad-Peach Fest before on the blog.   Here's a post from the 2013 fest taken from just about the same spot as the photo above/below. The festival celebrates both peaches (harvest time for them!) and gladiolas - the flower.  They don't do a great job of incorporating the peach theme, frankly.  And each year we're up there, both Nat and I talk about how if we had the time and were able to get involved, there'd be so much more peach-stuff.  I'm talking peach cobbler, peach ice

Four years ago, I posted about these Donut Peaches that we picked at Jollay's in Coloma Michigan .  Today, we picked more peaches (and nectarines) but had to just 'buy' the Donut Peaches at the little store that Jollay's has set up.  There weren't any on the trees.  

Over the weekend, we went up to Michigan and were able to attend the annual Glad Peach Festival in town.  They had all the necessary elements to have a great fest:  a good theme (Peaches and Gladiolas!), a small town atmosphere, some fun events, and great weather. We even saw the crowning of Miss Coloma 2013!  The Babe loved that. I know A LOT of hard work goes into the production of the festival, but what is a fun time, could be an amazing festival, I think.  Start with upping the number and variety of peaches.  Where's the peaches?  And the gladiolas?  That's a start, I'd think.