Summer of 18-#17-Windmill Island Gardens, Holland, Michigan

June 9th, 2018 (Part 2)

The middle part of our day with J&K was spent at Windmill Island Gardens, Holland, Michigan.  This is a mini Holland and beautiful.

This lady welcomed us to the park

The flower beds and gardens were beautiful.

The Gift Store

Ornamental Fountain

Sue walking through the gardens

Love Birds in the garden

Our first view of the De Zwaan Windmill. 

Waiting to cross the drawbridge

Drawbridge

Bryan lagged behind taking pictures. :)

                                

This LINK gives a very interesting detailed history of the windmill.

This LINK gives an excellent description of the interior.  A tour guide gave an interesting informative tour.

                            

                            

Original parts from the mill

The hole was caused by a bullet in WWII

The windmill still makes flour and has its own miller.  Here is the STORY OF ALISA CRAWFORD, the first American, and the first woman to become a Dutch Certified Miller and her job at the windmill.  A fascinating story and what this lady does to make flour at this windmill is amazing.  Climbing the sails, and moving the wheel shown above to change the direction of them, according to weather conditions, is just a small part of it.  Unfortunately today the weather wasn't good for making flour and so the mill was not operational.  The winds are better in the spring and fall.

Beautiful gardens and Canadian Geese

Are the Geese going for a swing on the bench?

Sluice Gate in the distance

Operational Sluice Gate similar to those in the Netherlands

Dutch Mailbox

Carousel

There was a 1928 Dutch Organ donated by the City of Amsterdam in gratitude for the United States role in helping to liberate The Netherlands in WWII.

Explaining how the organ works

Model Windmill

Look at the artists brush!!

Another model windmill and the sluice gate 

As we were about to leave I realized I had left my raincoat somewhere on our walk around, so Kathy & I backtracked.  A gentleman saw us searching and asked what we were looking for.  He told us he had just handed it in to the lady at the front.  We thanked him and went and retrieved my raincoat.  Phew, good job my heads attached!!!!

Next stop, the lighthouse.  If you haven't already read about it, here's the LINK.

Summer of 18-#16-Moving, Friends, Indian Pow-Wow, Holland Lighthouse

May 28, 2018

It was time to head out to our next campground and we packed up.  I thought I would take some pictures to show how our home looks as we make it ready to get on the road.

Recliner, side tables are put in the slide 

Printer, storage boxes put on the couch

Everything off of the sink

Slides In, ready to go, from front looking back

Coffee Pot, toaster stored, ready to go, and view to the front

It was a relatively short trip, 114 miles, to Alice Springs RV Park, Ionia, Michigan. We stopped to stretch our legs about halfway.

May 29th - June 8th, 2018

We arrived safely and settled in for five weeks.  We are going to visit with our friends Johnny & Kathy and do some relaxing as well.

Bryan's comfortable

I got a soda one day and look what country I got for the World Cup!!  Quite appropriate, I thought.

C'mon England

We have been visiting, sharing dinners, playing Mexican Train, having ice-cream and sharing stories and laughter with J&K.

June 9th, 2018

J&K told us about an Indian Pow Wow that was happening in Grand Rapids, so we decided to go out for the day.  There were some amazing colours, costumes, dancing, crafts etc.  We had fun watching the dancing and looking at all the craft stalls.

The guys were having fun, picture courtesy of Kathy.

Kathy joined in, in a spot dance

Bryan said he thought this guy was thinking about scalping me.  I'm sure he changed his mind when he saw my hair isn't nice and thick and long. Ha!!Ha!!

There was a huge flag across the road.

After a couple of hours we decided we would go to Windmill Island Gardens, Holland, Michigan.  We took so many pictures there that I am going to give it a blog post of it's own, see HERE.

After our visit to the gardens, we visited the Holland Harbor Lighthouse nearby.  You know how much we love lighthouses and this one didn't disappoint.

Holland Harbor Lighthouse (Big Red)

Harbor Channel Light with a paddle boarder.

Other Channel Light

Love this picture of K

Macatawa Bay/River

Holland State Park Beach

The gang with the lighthouse. A perfect end to a perfect day. :)

On the way home we stopped so Bryan could take a picture of this T-33 at Park Township airport.  He worked on these when he was stationed in Alaska, many moons ago. 

We were all exhausted but happy from a fun packed informative day.  We certainly slept well.