Lansing, Michigan with Family

 We met John and Family at 10:00 a.m. at the Oldsmobile Museum.  It was a beautiful day but we spent most of it inside museums.  That was ok.

Lansing is the Capitol.  It is a beautiful building.

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Interesting information on Ransom Eli Olds.

This is a replica of the house in which Mr. Olds and  Family lived.  It was torn down to build an interstate.  Some of the furniture was saved and is on display in the museum.

Mr. Olds founded several companies.  One of them was REO.

John, Linda, Katie, and Aidan in a 1959 Oldsmobile.

This is a REO built semi truck.

A 1932 hearse/ambulance. 

A 1925 dump truck.

Mr. Olds was a man before his time.  This is a 1899 electric car.

Carol, Aidan and the semi truck.

A very early version of an air conditioner for a car.

This is a 1959 Oldsmobile convertible.  I wanted this picture because it reminds me of the car Carol drove when we dated.  Two things different...his was a Pontiac (but looked like this) and a sedan.

1925 dump truck.

Katie and I cruising in the 1954 Oldsmobile Supper 88 Convertible.

This was hanging on the wall and I liked it.

This picture should be at the end because it shows the crew enjoying a rest after visiting the Michigan History Museum.  There are lots of tired feet in this picture.

Michigan History Museum

Michigan played a big part in the WW II  war effort by retooling the automobile plants into producing military equipment.

The winter of 1978-78 Michigan received a record 390.4 inches of snow!

There are some sign named after people you would not think to name a street after like Cesar Chavez.   

John says that these three smoke towers are used on official letterheads/signs/etc. as a symbol of Lansing.  He said they are laughingly named Winken, Blinken, and Nod.

Lansing has lots of murals painted on building.  This one points to the "Old Town" and "REO" districts in town.  We drove through both districts.  Lansing is focused on revitalizing the areas with quaint shops and restaurants. There were lots of people walking around in both areas so I think the city is being successful.

 

This street is named after Malcom X.  Again, I think this is unusual because as far as I could research, he has no tie to Lansing.

This is where we ate a late lunch/early supper.  It was very good.  I don't think Carol and I will eat anything more today.

The city has town down buildings and replaced them with apartment buildings like these in an effort to revitalize the downtown area.

It was a very nice day.  We learned a lot of history about Michigan.  We like Lansing.  It seems to be a city intent on becoming better in all ways.  

Sightseeing in Michigan

 We had plenty of time this morning so we didn't get packed up until after 9:00 a.m.  We couldn't check in our next motel in Lansing until 3:00 p.m.  We decided to eat a good breakfast and then not eat lunch.  We had breakfast at Russ' again.  Breakfast was as good as the supper we had last night.''

Since we had time to kill, we decided to drive  few backroads.  The road skirted Lake Michigan although we only caught glimpses through houses.  We did enjoy driving 45 miles per hour and having time to look at the scenery.

There were a lot of cherry orchards along this part of Michigan.  The trees were just starting to bloom.

This section of the highway was covered on both sides with daffodils.

  They must have visited the Tulip Festival and got the idea.

The sand dunes that are along Lake Michigan spilled over to this lake.  The lake is called Silver Lake and in the summer, I am sure it is a hub of families vacationing and taking advantage of the family-friendly activities all around the lake.

We arrived at our hotel at 3:00 p.m and checked into Room 122.  It is located at the end of a long hall but the important things is that it is on the first floor.  It seems that most of the time, we end up on the second or third floor.  We enjoyed the drive but were glad to get out of the car and relax.

John, Linda, Katie, and Aidan came to our room and we talked and got caught up before going to Culver's for supper.  We parted ways with plans to meet tomorrow in downtown Lansing to visit a couple of museums with them.  

I Love a Parade

 Up early enough to catch a sunrise.  We wanted to get down to breakfast early before the tour bus crowd arrived.  We sat at a table with another couple who were from Mississippi.  They have a boat stored near here and were going to get it ready to spend the entire summer cruising Lake Michigan.  We told them we were from Illinois.  They told us they had been on the Illinois River and it was one of the most beautiful rivers to cruise on.  We left for Holland at 8:30 a.m. wanting to get a good parking space.  We were able to park in a parking garage close to downtown.  It was so early that there weren't many other people on the streets.

The squirrels here are black.

I think I need a smaller size.

We walked up and down both sides of the street, found our bleacher seats for the parade and decided to eat pizza for lunch at Crust 54.

This is a small deep-crust pizza.  It was very good.

One thing we noticed when we began to walk the street was that many people were here very early and had placed chairs, blankets, and tarps to hold their place for the parade.  I asked someone what time the people would have done this and they said they themselves were here at 6:00 a.m.  I have a picture of the street but for some reason, it will not download.

"Hear ye, hear ye.  Let the parade begin.  We were sitting in row one of a section of bleacher seats.  It was good to sit for the nearly two hour parade.

Here are the street cleaners who sweep the street clean before the parade begins.

This was called a children's parade and lots and lots of kids marched.  We were told that all the schools were closed at noon so the kids could be in the parade.  All the schools in the area were well represented in the parade.  There were also several band who marched.

Participating in the parade is a family affair as this picture shows.  This family posed in their Dutch clothes for the crowd

There were several groups of special education students.  They enjoyed smiling and waving to the crowd and the crowd responded with cheers and applause.

Not sure who this fellow was...maybe Santa?

There were lots of floats.  The businesses of the community supported the parade by participating in the parade.

This preschool group had the best ride.

No parade in Holland, Michigan would be complete without a wooden shoe.

I thought this carwash business had a creative float.  It is hard to see but the silver circles represent a drive-through car wash.  There is a kids car driving through the circles.

Even the dogs of the community participated in the parade.

I included this picture because it represents nearly half the pictures I took this afternoon at the parade.  I was sitting by a lady from Buffalo, New York.  She was a very nice lady and we enjoyed a nice conversation before the parade.  She loved to wave at the participants in the parade and because I was too quick taking pictures I would get a picture of her hand.  She would wave and I would snap a picture.  I have deleted all of the pictures except this one so I could remember the nice lady I sat by.  

We found a backroad between Grand Haven where we stayed and Holland.  It was a two-laned highway through beautiful trees and houses.  It was a lot less stressful because there was less traffic and it moved at a slower pace.  The road was called Lakeshore Drive although we only caught glimpses of Lake Michigan 5-6 times.

It was a very nice but tiring day.  We walked 3.6 miles.  The weather was beautiful.  We heard more than one local resident say that the 2025 Tulip Festival had the nicest weather in many years.  The tulips were at peak bloom.  We picked a good year to attend the festival.