Calvin College & Grand Rapids

Greetings from Grand Rapids!We’re on a short trip to Grand Rapids to visit the Belgian Wonder’s nephew, who is attending Calvin College. I meant to tell you on Thursday, but instead I pulled together a Food on Fridays post, packed, and hopped in the car to drive up here.Here’s a little photo log of our visit thus far.On the bridge that passes over a four-lane highway, I asked the Belgian Wonder to snap a photo of me similar to what L.L. Barkat captured when I was here about a year ago for the Festival of Faith and Writing. Long-time readers may recall that I enjoyed several writer-encounters on this same bridge:Then the kids raced after each other and their cousin:We admired the pond: We admired and enjoyed the cheese sculpture: We visited the Frederik Meijer Botanical Gardens:The gardens also have a butterfly pavilion:The kids raced to the giant horse sculpture:They had to run for some distance:Because this horse is huge:Lest I leave you thinking the horse sculpture was the only thing, here’s a normal sized sculpture of a wolf pack:We went to downtown Grand Rapids at night:Along every street, the sidewalks were covered with chalk art. Most were simple drawings made by everyday people. This one was kind of nice: So when the kids found some extra chalk lying around, they couldn’t resist adding their own little touches:And that’s it. Tomorrow we have lunch planned with some friends. Then, believe it or not, we have thrown together a trip to Washington, D.C., directly after this. Instead of driving home, we’re taking a road trip to our nation’s capital!The opportunity came to us, and we threw it together quickly and rather unexpectedly. We don’t know how much we’ll be able to see, we’re there such a short time. People have warned us not to plan very much, so we hope to see some monuments and maybe slip into one of the museums. No matter how much or little we’re able to enjoy, we’re grateful to go.I hope you have enjoyed your extremely brief tour of Calvin College and Grand Rapids, Michigan. You may now exit through the side doors. Enjoy your weekend!