Grand Rapids Trip Day #2 and #2.5

On our second day in Grand Rapids, my mom and I spent the morning wandering the trails at Calvin College's Ecosystem Preserve and Native Gardens. This park is actually really close to the Meijer Gardens that we went to yesterday, so if you didn't get your fill of outdoor time there, you could combine the two activities. This park is absolutely delightful. It's more than 100 acres of well-maintained trails.

These were fresh wood chips. It's clear this is well-maintained and cared for.

Most of the trails were part of a "meditation trail" in which there were frequent stopping points that had you do a relaxing activity or read a quote and reflect on it. My mom and I were fans of the "stop and listen to the birdsong" and all we could hear was traffic. Ha!

Another cool thing about this park is that they have free discovery packs that they lend out to families. We saw several families with these backpacks and the kids were doing things like identifying types of trees and turtles and one family was in a creek bed with a net doing something. It's a great program and it was great to see kids out enjoying the park.

We followed up this delightful excursion with a trip to the Grand Rapids Public Museum.  This was also a place we had occasionally gone to on a field trip, like the Meijer Gardens, when I was a child, so I thought I knew the place, but it has undergone huge renovations since I was there last. The museum is great with its regular exhibits, including their streets of old Grand Rapids, fish of the Grand River, and a new to me exhibit on immigrants to the area. 

We waited for like ten minutes for me to get on this penny-farthing because it's a huge favorite with the kids.

The Old World Grand Rapids exhibit is just as I remember it, to be honest with you. It was like being back in fifth grade with a scavenger hunt list in my grubby little hands.

There were two special exhibits going on when we went, including one on fashion and nature (basically, we need to stop fast fashion and start caring how our fabrics and textiles are made) and one on pterosaurs. These exhibits were fabulously well done, with just the right combination of hands on and stuff to read for someone like me. We went on a Friday in the early afternoon and I was impressed that it wasn't too busy. We were frequently the only ones sitting down to watch the videos.  I was really happy with our choice of this museum.

I want that coat. I would wear it all day, every day.

We then went for a late lunch at the Grand Rapids Downtown Market, which is a selection of local vendors selling a variety of local cuisines. We ate a hurried lunch because we were starving and then I went back inside and bought half of the bakery and some chocolate treats.  This market has opened since my mom and I moved away from the area, so it was brand new to us and we both thought it was a cool place. It reminded me of the Milwaukee Public Market, if you're familiar with that. 

After that, we meandered over to the Grand Rapids African American Museum and Archives. It's a small operation and is basically just a medium sized room with a handful of displays and lots of things to buy. The volunteer was super excited that two old white ladies came in and we had an interesting discussion about The Green Book and redlining in Grand Rapids.  I thought the local history about the black experience in Grand Rapids was really interesting, too. However, we probably spent less than thirty minutes in the place and unless you're going there with a specific research question in mind or you're already in the area, it's probably not worth going out of your way for.

At this point, we wandered back to the Air B&B, ordered a pizza, and called it a day. I wrote out many postcards to send to my nieces and nephew and a few others and made my mom laugh because it had been too long since I'd made her help me with mail.

The next morning, we made our way over to the Kent County Millennium Park. I should have done more research on it because we had a hard time finding decent trails to walk. We parked on the beach side of the road, but you have to pay for beach access and I didn't really want to go to the beach, let alone pay for it. We should have parked across the street from the beach and that's where the wildlife trails were. Regardless, we walked around for an hour and a half or so, saw snakes, a turtle, lots of birds, and some rodent that we couldn't identify.  Then I said goodbye and we each headed our separate ways.  

And that's it. I think we made the most of our few days in Grand Rapids and was really pleased with our successful trip!