Road Trip: So Long, Traverse City

 By Monday both Asa and I were a bit under the weather, but he did say we could head out for lunch somewhere before his student calls. So we took a little walk around and landed at Millie and Pepper for crepes and tea. Because, we're crepe and tea people, apparently. Both were delicious, and again come highly recommended. That was pretty much the extent of our Monday, we did get take out for dinner from a few blocks down at a place called Firefly. It was decent, but nothing I'd highly recommend. We had to finish up everything we had left, because by Tuesday we were heading out. We wrote in the guestbook, cleaned up the place, and headed south. 

Our first stop for the day was in Grand Rapids Michigan. While I had been close before, I'd never quite made it to the Gerald Ford Presidential Museum, or his burial site. And you guys know how I love a good presidential museum/grave combo. All in all, it was a top tier presidential museum- especially for a guy who was never elected president OR vice president and only spent about two years in office. You had the typical oval office replica, a cool cabinet room where you could sit, an informative movie and of course all the random presidential memorabilia. Shockingly, Nixon's original resignation letter resides here. (I think the Nixon museum shies away from that part of his presidency, or at least it used to- it does now have a Watergate section). Anyway, the grave sits right there on the river, rapids and all, and is tastefully done. 

After an hour or so at the museum (it is smaller, but again, he wasn't president all that long), we passed through Zeeland, Michigan and stopped by a petting zoo called the Critter Farm. While we did pet some goats, pigs, and sheep, overall I thought there wasn't a lot of access to the animals for a petting zoo. Still, kids seemed to enjoy it, and it was a nice serotonin dump for me. 

Continuing on, we stopped in Holland, Michigan to see the windmills at Windmill Island Garden. While too early for tulip season, and some things still closed, we did get to climb up an old Dutch Windmill, try some Dutch made cheese, and check out an old pipe organ. 

At this point we'd made a habit out of stopping at random meat markets for dinner, so we found Earl's Meats along our route and nabbed a couple of things for dinner for the next two nights. While our initial plan had been to spend time in Chicago, we were tired, a little sick, and wanting a place to relax, so we nixed Chicago in favor of an AirBnb in southern Michigan along the Kalamazoo River. 

It was a bit of splurge with a lower deck along the river (sadly the river was always too rapid-y to use the canoes), a hot tub, some games to play, and gorgeous views. It was the perfect spot for Asa to work from home and rest up. And we got to be cuddly and warm with a fireplace.