With heat of August, we headed up for a couple weeks in the cooler locations of Michigan before returning to Columbus, Ohio. We stayed in Grand Rapids and explored toward the west where I had attended a sea kayak symposium several years before.
We made several visits to the Gaslight Villiage area of East Grand Rapids which was a very pleasent to stroll especially in the cooler evening.
What looks like a multicolor dome is a partial cover over the stairs leading to the upper parking lot. In front of that is a fountain with variable height jets for children of all ages to cool off from the heat. The water fountain is just one of the little touches along the street filled with hanging flower baskets. Leave your checkbook home and it's fun to explore the tourist trap stores. An interesting contrast is my picture of Reed's lake compared to that currently in the official link above. I hope they have also improved the rather limited trails.
The upper floor of the Tri-County Historical Museum in Grand Haven was focused on clowns, carousel horses, and a large diorama of a circus. The ground floor was devoted to local history including these replica rooms. The log cabin was intended to show the room available to a pioneer family but I seriously doubt any had it this good.
We had a stiff breeze blowing the waves from Lake Michigan over the end of the Grand Haven pier. Once past the rather narrow inlet, the Grand River is very placid making the sailboat motor to its dock past the power plant in the background. The restored train and associated Depot Museum is another part of the Tri-County Historical Museum and open for tours one day a year as part of a city Ice Cream Social.
The Grand Rapids Public Museum was another nice attraction. The mural reminds me of the song Little Boxes
by Malvina Reynolds that I sing with my guitar. The whale fossil in the entryway is quite impressive as you walk under and realize it's size. It is just as impressive from the second floor overlook.
The museum had a whole series of these displays representing early life in Grand Rapids. Many of them like the bicycle are touchable allowing you to climb aboard and see what peddling one of these cumbersome monsters was really like without risking the pain of falling off.
The Frederik Meijer Gardens serves Grand Rapids as both a botanical garden and a large sculpture park. One of the things that continues to amaze me is the difference betwwn art selected by a committee and that individuals buy with their own hard earned funds. Generally inidividuals purchase comprehensible works while committees do not and the associated sculpture park has excellent examples of both categories..
Exploring well to the east of Grand Rapids we discovered Fallassburg Park and this nice Covered bridge. On a nice calm day (read hot and humid) I was able to use the pond to practice capturing reflections. While these are real I've read it is easier to just mirror in Photoshop for a perfect reflection.
Finally I'll finish up with a couple photographs from Coopersville where they have an excellent Historical Museum in the old power plant for the northwest terminus of the interurban railway that serviced Grand Rapids. This is also the terminal for a local excursion train and I believe they had hopes of restoring the old steam locomotive but that seems unlikely to happen considering the costs and condition of the equipment.