Grand Rapids

The drive back to Grand Rapids wasn’t too bad. We went to Josh’s house where he finished up a presentation that he had been working on and had to give in a class that night. We dropped Josh off at campus and then left to go explore Grand Rapids.

The city of Grand Rapids was nice. It was great because it’s not very large and easy to get around. We parked just outside the city center on a side street and walked in from there. For dinner we stopped by the Pita House and got some delicious pitas which we took across the street to Rosa Parks circle. We sat on the grass along the side and watched people setting up a band. We learned from Josh that it was going to be swing dancing. After eating and sitting around for a few minute we decided to head on towards the river.

The river had a few (grand) rapids which were basically where the water dropped slightly across the whole river. On one side there was a walk down at river level and on the other the Gerald Ford museum (Gerald Ford eaten by wolves today, senselessly, we showed Dan that clip later on) and a grassy park with some interesting things in it. There were a lot of sculptures, which I love because they’re fun to look at and even more fun to take pictures of. Some of them were a group of people who I think were on strike, an Indian with a peace pipe, an astronaut and a huge button (which we got on and in)! From there we walked along that side of the river and made our way to the dancing which was in full swing. It was great how many people were out there dancing away. All ages and all abilities. Some people were great, others were just having a great time. The band was pretty good as well. It was nice to sit in the grass again and watch and listen. The last dance we saw before we left was a line dance. Dan was blown away by the fact that everyone knew the steps. We learned from Josh later that a lot of Calvin students go to the dancing every week so I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the people that were there went all the time.

Before it was time to get Josh we wanted to do some shopping as well. Using our trusty GPS we asked him where the closest Meijer was. This is a huge food-everything story kind of like a super walmart but apparently they do good things in the community and treat their workers well. Dan and I went in while Caleb stayed in the car. We bough everything we could possibly want/need for the next day’s cinco de mayo celebrations. Things for vegetarian burritos, cheese, avocado, salsa, chips, corona, tequila, limes, etc etc. Needless to say we ended up leaving Josh with a lot of food but he’s a college student so he assured us that he’d eat it. We also ended up leaving a lot of our food that we brought on the trip with us and bought along the way for camping. He was pretty sure it would get eaten. Which is nice for use because then it would be appreciated and not go to waste.

By the time we got out of the store it was much later than we realized and we arrived at Calvin a couple minutes after Josh had gotten out of class. We went back to his place and hung out in the attic for awhile before heading to bed.

Their attic is awesome it used to be full of junk but they cleaned it all out (Caleb was actually there for the original beginning of the cleaning). It is funny because the door to the attic stairs is through the bathroom. It’s ok when you’re coming from downstairs but when you’re coming out of the attic you have to make sure you enter cautiously so as not to disturb anyone who may be using the bathroom. In the attic they have a bunch of blacklights and things to react to them (paint, easter eggs, fishing line dipped in blacklight paint). They did a great job with the decorating. By one set of windows there is a hammock which was my favorite place to be up there, but a bit anti-social as it was away from the rest of the seating. The other area had speakers mounted to the ceiling as well as further away connected up to an amp/record player (except the record player needed a cord which we didn’t have so we didn’t get it working). There is also a sitting area with a couple couches and coffee table. It’s a great open space as well. Just generally cool.