I'm having a hard time finding time to keep my blog going. But in addition to staying in touch with friends and family this way, it's a journal for me to remember things in, so I keep plugging away. It just takes a long time to get all the pictures to load (I know I post too many), so I usually spend at least an hour on each blog. I ran out of hours on Wednesday, so I didn't get to work on the blog until this morning (Thursday). Wednesday was another busy, full day.
Holland was our destination on Wednesday. Mazie and Dave had some phone calls to make, based on their mail they picked up from Jan last night, so we didn't plan an early start. I think we left the RV around 10:00, and Holland was only 23 miles away. Our first stop was the Farmers Market, which happened to be open on Wed. (based on my research), and it was a true farmer's market, with lots of local produce and flowers (Michigan has lots and lots of flowers). It was one long row, about a block long, with tables on both sides full of cherries, blueberries (both in season right now), strawberries (season for them is about over), green beans, cucumbers, onions, tomatoes (hot house), and on and on. Also some jams, baked goods, breads, and a very few local crafts. We each left with a couple bags, some to share, some for our own.
From there, we went to the Windmill Island Gardens, where resides a 251-year old Windmill, imported from Holland in the Netherlands and restored. It is the only authentic working Dutch windmill in the U.S. The gardens here were beautiful, even though we missed their tulip time by a month or so.
The tour started with a brief film, then a demonstration from their player-organ, with a bona fide native , Piet, talking to us. Piet had a strong accent but was fun to listen to. We were allowed to walk around behind the organ and watch the keys move as the card flowed across the top.
We walked across the drawbridge, on the way to the windmill. Of course, this presented a photo op.
Unfortunately, their miller was not there today so they didn't have it running, but we got to tour 5 floors with a costumed guide and enjoying the dancing after the tour.
Our tour guide was part of the dancing team, so while they were congregating, Marilyn and I took a swing in case they needed more dancers (no one asked us to continue).
They did seem to have a bit more of a route than we did, and better costumes. After the dancing was over, they each explained their costume, the city it represented, and the type of person it represented (middle class fisherman or farmer, well-to-do farmer, etc.)
When this ended, Joe, Mazie and I walked around the perimeter of this 36-acre property, and came across some interesting flora. Some kind of little berries, red and orange, and some kind of flowering tree that we had never seen before.
After a walk through the village shops, where we parted with a little more money (bought a little bitty pair of wooden shoes and a windmill magnet for my scrapbook), we were finished here.
We picked a lunch spot on the GPS, but between Holland's one-way streets and the road construction and a missed turn, it took us 20 minutes to go the two miles to it. By then, Joe was a Little Testy!
Then we made a short drive to Holland State Park, right on the beaches of Lake Michigan. Weatherwise, it was an absolutely perfect day -- blue skies, 70s, low humidity. After yesterday's rain, this was a welcome relief. Mazie and I put our jackets on to walk down to the beach, but we could have probably done without them. We drove through a campground across the street, then parked at the beach and spent an hour or so enjoying the atmosphere here. They had beautiful kites flying, the water was sparkling blue, sailboats circling in the distance, and kids digging in the sand or swimming in the FREEZING water.
We lost track of Collins and Marilyn here, and they nor David walked down to the beach, but Mazie, Joe and I managed to put our feet in Lake Michigan! (Joe seemed to take an interminably long time to get the picture of Mazie and me -- Mazie was sure her ankles had turned blue).
On the way over to the pier, Mazie tried to make friends with a duck, but she had nothing to feed it.
Joe took a seat while I took some pictures of the NOAA weather station here, then we headed out to the end of the pier.
We could see the opening through the breakwater here to go out to the big lake, and we could see those sailboats here too.
There were fishermen along the pier, then toward the end of the pier some girls were jumping into this freezing water. They came up shivering, but kept jumping right back in.
We could see the sailboats a little better from the end of this pier.
We finally headed back, but right at the end of the pier some people were looking in the rocks. I asked what they had seen, and they had seen some critters, which they thought might be mink! Well, never having seen mink in the wild before, of course we joined right in.
Joe and I did catch a glimpse of their little heads (couldn't tell if it was mink, but we figured the locals knew more about that than we did, so we will go with mink, and will now look for a mink for our traveling zoo on the dash).
Headed back to the car with a stop at the restroom and snack bar for an ice cream cone. Poor Dave probably felt like he had been abandoned, but he said he did get a little catnap in. Then we headed back through Holland on down the road to Allegan, listed as the "coolest small town in America." We stopped at a gas station, and I sent Mazie in to see what the town had that made it "cool." The cashier answered with "absolutely nothing." We found nothing to justify the "coolest town" either, but it did have a water feature with fountains, a pretty bridge with flowers, and maybe some interesting shops but they were all closed (it was after 6:00 p.m. by now).
We explored the town, still looking for something really cool, and the highway we wanted to take back to the RV, but we finally gave up, found the right highway and headed back. It was about 7:30 by the time we got in, and I still had laundry to do. So I grabbed Marilyn and her dirty laundry, and we headed out again, to the laundramat back down the highway (Hwy 131) to the next exit south. By the time we finished up there and got back to the campers, it was 9:30. A long day!
But a good day. Holland was a nice place to visit, and the beach was awesome. We talked to a fisherman, and he told us how he was rigged up for steelhead -- made us want to go get our fishing poles! Hopefully, fishing is in our near future, probably when we get to Canada where Collins and Marilyn's relatives live, at least one of them has a boat!
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