Grand Rapids Trip Days #0.5 & #1

I took some of last week off work and met my mom in Grand Rapids, Michigan to hang out with her for a few days. On the night we arrived, we basically just met at the Air B&B, went to a grocery store to stock up on bottled water and breakfast items, ordered dinner for pickup, and figured out our itinerary for the rest of our trip. Our B&B was a refinished basement in someone's house and it was fine, although we never figured out how to change the temperature settings, so I was SO COLD the whole time we were there. They had dogs, though, and one of them was friendly, so it all worked out in the end.

Anyway, on Thursday we had a leisurely morning and eventually made our way over to the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. I grew up in a small town about forty minutes north of Grand Rapids and have been to the Meijer Gardens before, for weddings and to wander about. But it's been many years since I've been there and it has been greatly expanded and is really a crown jewel of the area.

These wall sculptures line a room in the welcome center. The artist is Jaume Plensa and the piece is called "Utopia."

One of the major sculptures is a 24-foot high, 14 ton bronze horse based on a design by Leonard DaVinci. It's basically the only art you're allowed to touch at the gardens and its sheer size cannot be underestimated. I was actually quite nervous to go near it, let alone touch it, because I had all these catastrophic ideas of what would happen if it suddenly collapsed.  This is probably not a healthy thought, but there you have it. 

Nina Akamu, The American Horse

The beautiful thing about this place is that it's just well-maintained trail after well-maintained trail and every once in a while you'll just stumble upon a piece of art that makes you stop and think and wonder. I really loved the piece below because it's just so well-framed by the natural landscape around it.

Roxy Paine, Neuron

I found all the "do not touch the art" signs to be perplexing because there were always these perfectly trimmed paths leading directly to the sculptures and it was SO inviting to touch them. I resisted the urge, but had my mom take a picture of me not touching the art. Grand Rapids is known for a giant red sculpture by Alexander Calder in their downtown square. It's so ubiquitous in the city that an image of this sculpture is on the city's logo that's on every government building, street sign, and police car. So when approached this red sculpture, I assumed it was a Calder. It is not. 

Alexander Lieberman, Aria

In case you can't tell, I thought this was an excellent time. There's actually a tram tour which I regret not taking, but I'm still not super comfortable being around a lot of people, so I was trying to avoid public transit when I could. I think both my mom and I would have enjoyed that tram tour.

The ubiquitous logo that's found on everything in the city.

A note about food here: I am still not comfortable eating in restaurants. I still mask when indoors and we spent most of the time on this trip getting takeout and either eating outside at a park or taking it back to the Air B&B. Since we didn't have many what I would consider amazing dining experiences, I'm going to skip over the food for the most part. 

Later that evening, we went to the Grand Rapids Escape Room. We chose this because all the other escape rooms required three or more people. We did the "Judgment" room and we were absolutely horrible at it. LOL. I think it would be nice to do it in a larger group.  

And then we went back to the Air B&B because my mom was about to drop.