5/25/11 (Wednesday):  I'm doing laundry this morning, and it seems like a good time to do a blog (I get a really good connection to WiFi in the laundry room, which speeds things up a lot).


Last week we visited Holland, Michigan, in time for their tulip festival.  It's a pretty town on the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan, across the state from where we are.  It was founded in 1847 by Dutch Protestants (Calvinists) who were being persecuted in Holland.  Much of the population today is of Dutch ancestry.  Many of the original settlers were also very forward thinking in their ideas about agriculture and science. The city suffered a major fire on October 8–9, 1871, the same time as the Great Chicago Fire in Illinois and the very deadly Pestigo Fire in Wisconsin. Manistee and Port Huron, Michigan also burned. I never knew that there were other deadly fires in the U.S. at the time of the Chicago fire!

The city was very crowded with families who came to admire the streets lined with tulips and see the parade. There were also dancers and (oddly enough), costumed street sweepers, which is apparently a Dutch custom. It was lots of fun to watch.

We had lunch at a restaurant in a historic building with really neat decor.  Unfortunately, it was too dark to get a good picture of the interior.  We both had the Dutch pot roast with mashed potatoes and red cabbage.  Yum.

After lunch, we took a pedicab (a little surry pulled by a bicycle).  This was a nice way to enjoy the old houses and tulip-lined streets.  Some of the streets were lined with all one color of tulips and others had mixed it all up.  The dogwood, lilac, crab apple and other spring blooms were all glorious, too.

Our next adventure took us due north to Frankenmuth.  It was settled by people from Franconia (now Bavaria), Germany in 1845.  The settlers were conservative Lutherans who were intent on bringing Christianity to the Chippewa Indian tribes in the area.  Now it's a big tourist destination.


We did not have one of Zehnder's famous chicken dinners, but we did have a very nice lunch in the historic inn you can see here on the other side of the street.



Most of the buildings have exposed timbers in "X" and square patterns.  This is typical of the Bavarian region of Germany, apparently.  The two figures you see in this building "dance" to a german polka like a big cuckoo clock!

 Our first stop was Brommer's Christmas store, which bills itself as the largest Christmas store in the world.  I have to believe it, after giving up after making it halfway through the labyrinth of buildings.  Mag would have loved the room devoted to creches from around the world.  Wish you could come visit!

This reproduction of the German chapel where the Christmas carol "Silent Night" was composed and first sung has translations of the carol into hundreds of different languages posted along the walkway.  It was quite lovely on this Spring day.

We enjoyed browsing through all the little shops and even bought a Christmas present or two.

There were not too many tourists (it was a weekday), so we were actually able to enjoy the brick sidewalks, gardens and pretty architecture.  This fountain particularly caught my eye.  It had statues of children playing in the water (blowing bubbles, splashing, etc.).  Lovely!





We left from the back side of town over this covered bridge (not antique) and enjoyed the ride home over back roads lined with farm fields being plowed and Spring flowers.

This weathervane just outside of town caught my eye--very elaborate!

We passed through Judd's Corners (now known as Juddville) about halfway home.  It's one of a number of old towns that thrived in a bygone day In the 1880's, there was a sawmill, blacksmith shop, general store, a creamery, and two churches. Population peaked in the 1880s at approximately 175 people and began to decline and the post office was closed in September 1902. This school house is about all that remains of the town.











We were surprised to see these long-horned cattle taking their ease in a field of dandelions.  We thought they only lived inTexas and Florida!

But if long-horned cattle were surprising, this oil well was even more so!  We had seen one other operating oil well on U.S. 12 just West of here.  As it turns out, though, Michigan is actually having a boom in drilling for oil!  Check out this link:  Saginaw County Oil Wells.


Laundry's done, time to fold and go home for lunch!  We don't have any big plans for the coming weeks, other than Wiley's surgery (hopefully in July), but we'll probably have some more mini adventures, so stay tuned!