road trip

we went to saugatuck michigan..... such a neat town....and a yearly get away for dh and i......full of arty shops and clothes....and several antique stops on the way.... its always inspiring to me to see others stores and how its going and whats working......
the whole town was having its sidewalk days...thats why we went.....huge crowds...nice loud band playing in the middle of town.... some kind of sale about everywhere...end of summer and its on the lake....
we went to our favorite restaurant....and they forgot us, they sat us and never came back....and they werent busy at all....... in 2 places someone said hi....both were the owners.... have you ever been waited on by a guy from india!!!! its almost always a great example for what to do right...
lots and lots of closed shops on the way up on the red arrow highway......you would have tons to choose from if you wanted to be up there........ but we did see 2 nice busy antique places....
what i brought away....besides way too much totally bored young girls representing businesses....trying not to do their jobs...was.....
*****a big funky art sign....hanging in an art section..that might be fun here ..IM THINKING OF AN ART SECTION...OR JUNK ART SECTION
***a cute pic of little kids....in the big family restaurant that forgot us.... labelled ...FUTURE OWNERS....we have jons kids pictures on the door anyway....they might like that..
***the most gorgeous place was marco polo..in harbet.... closed for the day, but i could look in the window....it was fabulous...the total gallery affect...showing how the pieces would look in a fabulous home.....wouldnt work here we have way too much stuff but it was very impressive...kind of a mix among industrial cottage and mission...
***outside displays...one place had wonderful tall metal fountains and used arches really well...
i get so bogged down with our different spaces....i love seeing how others arrange theirs.....

not to be braggy....but our workers get compliments all the time for their friendliness and helpfulness..... i know we have awful problems like any store....but hardly any customer has ever been here and not been spoken to...at least once!!! anyway, thats always our goal....and its sincerely bought into by our workers.... we just dont sit around and look bored with you and keep talking about the party, the kids, the whatever....we know our money comes from our customers....

after we got forgotten at the restaurant we headed down to south haven and ate at clementines.....totally packed with diners and a gorgeous building all put back into its antique glory........and super super service....and reasonable prices.... it was a huge place and just doing great.....

im so into junk art now and was sorry not to see more of that.....

another business part of the day was listening to npr on the way up...... lots of talk about the economy....and how its getting better but we americans have lost equity in our homes , lost our 401ks etc etc...so we are grumpy and not in a big hurry to spend like before......and dh and i acted in the way they were describing......we like nice expensive sheets from the outlet polo store so we stopped there on the way up, at michigan city....we like high thread count but are too cheap to pay full price.....but there, at discount, the pillowcases were 69$ and the whole set would have been almost 200$....i guess we could still afford that if we just had to have them...., we bought there before, but it felt too extravagant and we didnt buy ...