Every small town has some kind of festival designed to get people into town to promote the businesses. Caseville, Michigan is no exception with their Cheeseburger Festival. The festival runs ten days long and it’s all about cheeseburgers, music, street venders, and fun water sports. I was visiting my sister and her family. They decided to head up to the festival so we went. However, we did not participate in any of the events. We walked up and down the streets and saw many vendors with bright colored supplies. It reminded me of a very small Shipshewana flea market. There were plenty of food places frying cheeseburgers on grills and you could smell that greasy smell throughout the town. We did go to the local Cheeseburger Museum which was not about cheeseburgers at all but similar to most small town museums with old things donated from the local people from tools, to war paraphernalia, an assortment of ceramic plates and even someone’s wedding dress.
Going to little festivals like this brings in all kinds of characters. It’s more fun to see some of the people and the things they bring to the festival that I find more interesting. I loved the tie dyed appearing Volkswagen bug. If I was in college I’d love have a vehicle that looked like that! It looks like something you would take to the beach with a couple of surf boards plopped on top. While Caseville has a beautiful beach we didn’t go to the beach. I could see Lake Huron as I peaked by the homes as we were leaving to go back to Marlette. There were plenty of motorcycle riders and they seem to have their own rules for the road. I photographed one bike with a helmet on it that said, “My other toy is a dick.” I think it takes a “special” kind of person to wear something like that! It certainly wouldn’t be anyone I happen to know. Of course you could buy some “cheesy” looking t-shirts to celebrate the festival even though the festival over all is set up for fun with family.
We ended the afternoon by stopping by “Shaggy J’s” Eatery & Pub in Pigeon, Michigan. My brother Pete treated us all to lunch. The only one that liked their meal was me as I had the Parmesan salad. It was pretty good. However, the rest of the lunches were pretty questionable. We all had problems with the onion curls that were more like onion salt mixed with thin, curly strips of batter and deep fat fried than anything remotely related to a real onion! None of us liked it. It looked like a large plate of calamari when they brought it out but its taste was fairly indescribable. We tried the fried dill pickle which is essentially a dill pickle put in batter and fried. It was an easy way to take five calories and turn them into one hundred and fifty. It reminded me of when I lived in Oklahoma in the eighties when everything was deep fat fried from okra to zucchini. The service was also confusing as the young woman tended to make her own substitutes for items such as sweet tea rather than discussing it with the client.
At the end of the day we all had fun and it was great seeing my sister Nancy, her family and my brother, Pete, who was down visiting all the way from Juneau, Alaska. Every small town has festivals to get people to visit. We all should participate and go to these events. With the economy so deeply in the tank this is one “stimulus” spending that can be fun for all involved!