As you may have read in my other Pokemon GO! posts I usually get an opportunity to catch a Pokemon and spin a Pokestop daily. This daily activity doesn’t cause any huge changes in my collection all at once, but the daily grind moves me ever closer to my collection goals… This last weekend my family and I had the opportunity to go on a day trip to South Haven, MI. If you don’t know South Haven is a lake shore town off of Lake Michigan. It has many fun local shops and a great beach for enjoying the water.
We had only just decided the day before that we would go on this trip. It just so happened that neither I or my wife had to work this day. We haven’t had a chance to go out for a family day in a while. Many of our family activities include delicious food. We love food and are particular about where our favorite dishes come from. This trip was no different. We began at a restaurant by the name of Clemintine’s. This inviting restaurant does Americana justice. We usually enjoy several fried dishes when we visit here.
While we were enjoying our meal it just so happens that the building that Clementine’s resides is a Pokestop (with another Pokestop within range). So, while we waited for our food I spun the Pokestop and caught Pokemon. It was here that I caught my first new Pokemon of the day, Solrock. I also fought a Team Rocket Grunt and liberated a Cubone. I caught duplicates of other Pokemon while we were here also. While we were at the restaurant we also surveyed the area and found many Pokestops and Gyms in the area.
After we enjoyed our food thoroughly we decided we would make our way down the main street toward the beach. The road to the beach winded down hill. Following along side the road is a channel. Normally people would line the side of this channel and enjoy the water and boats, but this day the water was so uneasy that it was actually spilling over the channel as waves came through. As we walked down the street we could see a lighthouse in the distance. Normally the light house would be accessible, but the water was so high that we didn’t try to reach it.
The road to the beach had several gyms. At the time we were more focused on getting to the beach that battling the gyms, but I was able to battle and take one gym. I caught enough Cyndaquil to evolve it into a Quilava. I was also able to catch enough Tortwig to finally evolve my Grotle to a Torterra! I was very excited at this.
We finally arrived at the beach. There were not too many people at the beach because it was kind of a cool day. It was not a good day for swimming, but there was a playground. This was perfect for us because my three daughters are all under five years old. They enjoyed getting to play in the sand and on the playground. I caught a few more Pokemon here. It is here that I was able to catch Zebstrika and Clamperl. My third and fourth new Pokemon of the day. After playing on the playground for a while we made our way toward the water.
Even though the water was way too cold to swim in the girls all had a great time splashing in the waves as they came in. My wife and I were careful to watch the girls near the water so I didn’t play Pokemon go while we were on the shoreline. It didn’t take long for the girls to get soaked. With it being as cold as it was we decided that it was time to head back to town to find something dry for the girls to wear.
We stopped at a little beach shop and then we went to a Ice Cream shop to get some sweets. There was a pokestop near by so I spun that and caught a few Pokemon while we enjoyed our ice cream treats! When we were done with our ice cream we walked around town a little more. Before we decided to call it a day I was able to capture a gym. Unfortunately for my wife her phone drained battery early on so she wasn’t able to accomplish as much as me. I made sure that we stopped at a couple gyms on the way out of town for her to capture or drop Pokemon off at so she could earn some coins.
We stopped at a church a little ways out of town that was a yellow gym. I helped wife to capture it. After our first round of battling we revived/healed some Pokemon before getting back at it. A rival yellow gym member had pulled up to heal all the defending Pokemon before finally driving off… I didn’t realize that you could heal a defending gym if it was under attack? After that we made the drive home. When we arrived home I saw I had collected enough Rhyhorn candies to evolve it into a Rhydon! (Below you will see a list of all of the Pokemon I caught that day)
It was a fun but tiring day! Everyone agreed that we would love to do that again sometime soon… The girls were disappointed to leave, but they all passed out withing moments of setting out on the drive home (Haha). Altogether, it was a lot of family fun coupled with a PokemonGO! adventure!
BloodMan Gaming 