Lansing (7/14/2015)

Today we were going to "do" Lansing.  Collins came up with the bright idea of getting an "early" start, so we were ready to go at 8:00 a.m.  Of course, our car's first stop was for Joe's soda.  And he got lost coming out of the convenience store.  He went in the side door, and unknowingly came out the front door, then couldn't find the car (he was driving David's car today).  He thought we must have hidden it, or drove off and left him.  He finally figured out that he had come out the wrong door.  I wondered what was taking him so long.

So we were then on our way again.  I must have been boring company, because I was unable to keep my seat-mate awake.

We were on our way to the state capitol in Lansing, for a 10:00 tour.  And it rained on us off and on all the way to Lansing, which was about 60 miles.  We found street parking (Joe and Collins both have been getting some parallel-parking practice on this trip), then had to scramble to come up with enough coins to feed the parking meter.  They are refurbishing/cleaning/repairing the dome of the Capital building (they had already done the lower part).

Inside the rotunda on the ground floor are flags representing the battle flags of the various regiments of Michigan's soldiers during the Civil War.  The original battle flags, with blood, badges, writing, originally hung here but have been removed to shelves in storage for preservation, and replaced with replicas (not exact duplicates) for the public to see.  Very impressive.

We had a guided tour which included the governor's office (we could only look through the door), the House (which was in session but the representatives were in caucuses somewhere else in the building when we were there), and the Senate.

Governor's Office when he's at the Capital

House

 Senate (there are ceiling tiles named for each of the states in this room)

Looking DOWN from the 4th Floor

 Looking UP from the Ground Floor

This building was dedicated in 1879, so it's 36 years old, and has been completely restored.  Quite impressive.  We finished our tour and headed out to the cars to get umbrellas so we could walk over to the 9/11 Memorial here (well, 4 of us did -- Dave and Mazie went out the wrong door and ended up on the opposite side of the building, so they were a bit delayed.  Must be the day for that.)

Anyhow, Mazie caught up with us at the car and got her umbrella, but stubborn Dave decided he didn't want his.  We headed over about 2 blocks to the 9/11 Memorial, and of course got caught in the rain.  There was a Radisson Hotel right across the street from the Memorial, so we hung out there until the shower ended.

Since Joe has his super-umbrella, he shared with David, but Joe's not used to walking under an umbrella, especially with someone 6 foot tall, so he kept poking him in the head with the umbrella ribs, then dumped all the rain on him when he started to put it down once we were under the overhang of the hotel.  I think David decided to take his chances in the rain next time.

We finally walked over to the Memorial, which was "under-done" after seeing that really nice on, I think it was in Erie, Pa.

I guess this plaque was somewhere here on "Remembrance Plaza," but we didn't see it.  This is right on the banks of the Grand River in downtown Lansing.

So we headed back to the cars, it had quit raining momentarily, and loaded up for our next stop, which was lunch at Saddleback BBQ.  Then we spent the next couple hours at the Michigan Historical Museum, a very nice museum covering Michigan history.  It covered areas of agriculture, auto industry, bridges, fur trade, copper mining, logging, as well as Michigan's place in the various wars.  There were kids from either a day care or school sharing the museum with us today, and they were all pretty noisy, although I thought maybe I should join their tour because their teacher seemed pretty good at explaining things to them.

There were at least 4 of these kid groups, with probably 10-12 per group.  That's a lot of chatter.

Civil War Photo

Logging Wheels

Copper Veins in Copper Mining

Joe checked out the furs for softness, and declared the beaver fur to be the softest.

Agriculture - Fordson Tractor:

Automobile Industry:

Bridges -- the bridge at Mackinac far outdistances the other suspension bridges (
Brooklyn, George Washington, Golden Gate) in length.

I thought maybe I could try out as Rosy the Riveter.

They also had exhibits of rooms from back in the day.  We had a floor radio very similar to this one when I was growing up.

 The dresser in the bedroom looks almost exactly like the one in the "blue room" at Lucille's house.

We watched several film clips, checked out the gift shop, then finished up our tour here.  We had an hour drive back to the campground, and we were going to Jan and D.C. Ivers, Joe's cousin, for dinner and to collect the packages we had forwarded to their mailing address.  We got back to camp about 4:30, so we had a little rest before we headed out at 6:30. But Marilyn had a problem -- she had misplaced her credit card so she was trying to backtrack over the places we had been to figure out where she lost it.  No luck, so she ended up canceling it, and now we will be going back to Jan's for another package.

 I had backed a cake this morning before we left, so I had a sink full of dishes to take care of, and the cake turned out to be a disaster.  I think I must have broiled it or microwaved it instead of baking, and it was more like hard tack when we cut it at Jan's.  (I made the mistake of not trying it before I took it, and Marilyn sliced it so I wasn't even aware that it was hard as brick in some places until she served it.)

But we had a fun time there.  They grilled burgers and hot dogs, and we brought in some salads and my disastrous cake.

Just as we pulled into the campground, Mazie realized she had left her purse at Jan's, so we backed out and went right back over to her house to retrieve that (fortunately it was only about 2 miles).  So she and Marilyn had their own challenges today.  Apparently we had two themes going today -- going in one door and coming out the other, and leaving/misplacing our money sources.  Hope those viruses don't continue beyond today.

It rained on us on the way back from Lansing, but that pretty well ended the rain for today.  We are hoping to get in a good day tomorrow before the rain returns on Thursday, either Holland or Grand Rapids.  There are lots of things to see in Michigan! 

Heritage Car Museum (7/13/2015)

I forgot the big highlight of yesterday.  Last winter, in December I think, Joe's key fob for the Explorer broke and it wouldn't keep the key on it anymore, although the brain in the key fob still unlocked the doors.  So he ordered a new fob.  But by the time it came in, we had lost the old one.  We looked high and low, many times, for that broken fob, inside the house, in both garages, all to no avail.  Well, yesterday, Joe had put up the third seat in the Explorer so we could all ride to Ft. Wayne together, and Mazie laid her jacket in the backseat and there was that broken key fob, in the third seat of the car.  She asked if that was anything we needed, and Joe and I both wanted to leap for joy (well, use your imagination here).  Mystery solved!!!  I'm tempted to mail it home so we don't lose it again before we match it up with the new one he order (which we left at home, of course).  Anyhow, that made it a great day.  Something I can quit looking for in my spare time.

It was sunny when I woke up this morning, but a little later I noticed that it had gotten really dark in the kitchen, and then it started raining, a little thunder and lightning with it.  We hadn't planned on leaving before 10:00, so we tried to wait out the rain a little before de-camping.  But Marilyn came over and suggested we head on out and stop at the Heritage Car Museum about 12 miles away in Hickory Corners.  Yeah, another day in Michigan, another car museum.  But Joe headed out with his raincoat on and got us ready to leave.  I drove up the road to the Shell station and got his soda and picked up some donuts for the crew, then we got on the road about 10:25.

We drove along Fine Lake, with houses on one side, and the lake with boat docks on the other.  Looked like a great place to spend a few weeks in the summer.

They even had boat covers on some of the docks to protect their boats from the rains. (You have to look through the rain drops.)

We arrived at the Heritage Automotive Heritage Center about 11:00, and spent the next 4 hours looking at cars, cars, and more cars.

 For any car buffs, this is a must-see.  It is the most extensive car museum we've seen, and even Marilyn said it is the best one they've seen, and they've seen a lot of car museums.  Of course we took lots of pictures, so I'll have to post a few.  The first one is the world's first automobile.

And here are some cars!

There were lots of different buildings and the collection was broken up into several different categories:  Steam Barn, Franklin Collection, Model A Ford Museum, Campania Barn, Pierce-Arrow, Classic Car Club of America Museum, Pedal Cars, Motorcycles, and a few others. 

Here were my 2 favorites: a 57 Chevy convertible (we had one like this, same color, but not a convertible, when I was 17), and 1 beautiful 55 T-Bird.  I loved the paint job on that one.

All the cars in this museum were beautiful, almost all had been restored into prime condition, with lovely paint jobs.  This next one is the Little Deuce Coupe that the Beach Boys sang about.

We came out of this building, and old Abe was sitting there on the bench.  Joe shared his raincoat to keep him dry.

They tried wooden tires during the war, when supplies were so limited.

They also had a few campers on exhibit.  It's hard to realize that campers came along so early in the days of automobiles.

There was also a significant collection of emblems, or motoring mascots, here.

There was also an old-fashioned filling station, including the drive-way "hose" that rings when someone runs over it, which I remembered once I heard it.

There was also a building full of old pedal cars, which were all in excellent condition.  Some were very cute.

Also on exhibit was the Gnome-mobile, from the old Disney movie.  The "set" was huge.

After walking a couple miles or more, we finally headed back to our RV's.

We drove through the country over to highway 131, toward Grand Rapids.  We are staying right outside Grand Rapids at Dorr, in a city park.  There was a slight mix-up in getting set up to camp.  Someone had parked their pick-up in the space we were assigned, so I had to go back up to the office and get a different site.  And Joe dumped our tanks when we got here, since he didn't want to get wet this morning dumping them in the rain.  But we got here about 4:00, and were pretty well set up by 4:30.  The rain had quit not long after we arrived at the car museum, and the day cleared off and was beautiful, in the low 80s.  After dinner, we played cards for a while, then called it a night.  We are planning a full day tomorrow in Lansing, so we all hope to get a good night's sleep and an early start tomorrow.