This past month, we’ve spent a couple solid weekends of activity out away from our abode here in East Lansing, out by our cottage in Grand Rapids. Rather than write a series of separate trip reports about what we did or didn’t do (since some of them are duplicates of things we wrote about earlier in the year), I felt it would be better to simply give some quick impressions of those things in a single big catch-all.
Eden Springs (8/11/12)
We returned to Eden Springs with Chris Trotter in tow as our guest. As was the case the last time we were here, it was the gasoline powered train taking guests around. More work has been done clearing the grounds and the push carts (similar to these from the former Kiddieland near Chicago) are nearly completed. Unlike our prior visit, we were not allowed under the bridge out by the front of the fountain due to work taking place in the valley. We did run across one gentleman who was working as a volunteer on restoration who provided us with some photos of the place prior to restoration beginning a couple years ago. Timbers have been purchased for the first of the two significantly sized trellises spanning the valley. We were also told about the mansions on the other side of the park that used to belong to the House of David and the splinter group that came from that (and some still do). There are some ENORMOUS houses that way, as well as the original front gate for the park, now adorned with “If we don’t know you, BACK OFF” signs to prevent people from stopping and taking pictures. One regret I sorta have – not stopping for ribs at the vacant lot BBQ taking place just down the street from the park which we passed on the way in. $7 for a full rack being cooked in what looked to be a converted 50 gallon drum cannot possibly be bad. That’s classic Caribbean type stuff – I saw that all over Belize. What that says about Benton Harbor, I’m not sure.
St. Joseph’s and Silver Beach (8/11/12):
Nothing like a good carousel – we hyped this one up to Trotter some and I feel like it delivered. The Silver Beach Carousel is really, really something else. On this day, it was much busier than our first visit of the year back in June, with a queue line developing and the carousel being nearly full. We visited the beach as well as eating lunch (and a mighty rich dessert) over at the South Bend Chocolate Company. St. Joseph’s is a really awesome place to go – I’m glad we stopped back in again this year, and perhaps we’ll make the effort to return again later.
Mac Woods Dune Rides (8/12/12):
Pretty much an identical ride with Mac Woods as we had the year before with our friends Vanessa and Josh for identical reasons. I love these. It is such a Michigan thing to do and yet something completely not expected from Michigan from the average tourist. Much like Jungle Cruise, each driver has their version of the spiel for the ride too, which means that even taking the same route, you’re going to have a different experience. This is quickly becoming one of those yearly things we always have to do.
P.J. Hoffmaster State Park (8/25/12):
We had planned for the last weekend of true summer to go to a beach. Which one – we were uncertain about that. I ended up pushing for P.J. Hoffmaster because it was a state park (free for us having paid for a state park passport) and something we were wholly unfamiliar with. Its a gorgeous park with a very clean beach, and early on, we were able to get far away from everyone else and be in quite the private setting. As the morning turned to afternoon, people began to arrive in force, and we split before it got too hectic. The surroundings are very attractive – lots of big, big dunes (including one with a scenic overlook near the visitor center), and woods behind it all. There’s lots of nature trails to enjoy too. Considering the close proximity to Michigan’s Adventure it is something we’d certainly consider combining with the park in the future. Or just ignoring Michigan’s Adventure like we already do and doing this instead.
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum (8/12/12 & 8/26/12):
For whatever reason, I’ve never even been by the Gerald Ford Museum in Grand Rapids until we were with Trotter and decided late on Sunday to pay his Tomb a visit. Then I realized it is a very big building, and big buildings are often filled with big interesting things, which sparkedmy interest in actually going a couple weeks later to see the museum. No cost parking and a $7 admission charge are pretty prices and Meredith and I toured through the various exhibits and saw the short motion picture about him. Regardless of how I feel about Ford, the museum has some impressive exhibits and certainly does a good job of going over the background of Jerry and Betty prior to full public life. The Cabinet Room and Oval Office replicas were extremely well done, and the Oval Office in particular was quite interesting with the loop of sound and turning on and off of lights intended to mimic activity in it.
One thing I thought interesting that was basically never mentioned; Betty’s substance abuse and the Betty Ford Center. Literally only one sentence alluding to it on a sign about their post Presidential lives. There was practically nothing about Ford post-presidency that was in the museum, though there was plenty about pre-Presidency Ford. I suppose if the focus is purely on his 2 1/2 years in the White House, they felt it necessary to include how he got to the office but not necessarily aftermath.
General American Consumerism! Shopping Malls and Movie Theaters! (8/12/12, 8/25/12): I honestly don’t watch a lot of movies, and I haven’t been a big “summer movie” since I was entering my teens. This year having seen 3 of the summer block busters is like a serious deviation from the norm. Trotter thought it would be really cool to see Dark Knight in IMAX, and we agreed with a visit to Celebration Cinemas’ North Grand Rapids location. We had been to the IMAX there before for a nature film with my wife’s family many years ago, but we didn’t remember being assigned seats as part of the process. Pricing is essentially what you’d expect at the theater. Seats were comfortable, screen very big, sound good.
A couple weeks later, again, another movie, another movie theater. This was part of the Woodland Mall Complex out on 28th Street on the outskirts of Grand Rapids’ suburbs. There was lots of activity in the area that day with the Metro Cruise and lots of exciting classic and heavily modified cars rolling up and down the street. Before seeing our film (Men In Black III, intended to excite us for a trip to Universal next week), we did some shopping, much of which was for me. It is roughly comparable to any other 100 store mall – slightly more upscale perhaps as denoted by the presence of an Apple Store filled with white folk trying to buy overpriced consumer electronics, but there’s a low vacancy rate and few fly by night companies holed up there. It is no Somerset Collection (Detroit) or Vaughan Mills (Toronto) by any means. Not far away is a Arnie’s location – Arnie’s is a local West Michigan chain of restaurants that have decor, architecture, and a menu largely trapped in the 1960s. But there’s free cupcakes with any sandwich, and they’re comparatively cheap for a full service restaurant. I love these places.
The movie theater attached is also a Celebration Cinemas location, but unlike the one in North Grand Rapids, this one seems to have mostly film projectors and is ostensibly a second run theater. Pricing at $4-5 a movie is what you’d expect, and while the quality of the projection then doesn’t really match up with newer digital sets (there was some noticeable scratchiness when you’d see whites on screen), it is cheap entertainment outside the home. If you have a surround sound big screen set up at your house, you may be just as well off renting a Bluray from Redbox, but since we don’t at the cottage (quite intentionally), we will join the truly unwashed masses doing this once in awhile because it isn’t so bad. I wouldn’t mind going more regularly for non-Hollywood blockbuster movies, to be honest. $4 for a movie like Safety Not Guaranteed seems like a not so bad idea.
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