Sunset, Sunrise, Sunset 9/18/18

Holland State Park, Holland, Michigan

This is real love – not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. I John 4:10

UPDATE: Something happened with my picture uploads from 9/17, and five of our sunset pictures ended up in 9/18 and I didn’t catch it. I still want to include them, but Blaine was efficient and already published 9/17. Blah, blah, blah – – I say that to tell you, the first thing you’ll look at today are sunset from last night. 😊

Now aren’t you glad you didn’t miss those? : )

“Catch a wave and you’re sittin’ on top of the world!” ~ Beach Boys

That’s how we began our day. Only in reverse. A sunrise bike ride to Mt. Pisgah and a climb to the top, but alas, we were too late. Now, Blaine will tell you it’s because there were clouds and fog, but that’s because his definition of a sunrise includes the orb. Don’t misunderstand, he likes pretty as well, but to him, it’s watching the orb fall or rise above the horizon that excites him most. My definition doesn’t quite match his. My definition runs along the lines of pretty, which really doesn’t include seeing a brilliant sphere at all. In fact, for me, if given a choice, the sphere would be behind clouds, creating brilliant pinks and oranges.

This morning, we were too late. The sun was high in the sky and the only color behind the clouds was yellow-white.

Sunrise over Lake Macatawa

Blaine insists that the clouds and fog blocked the sunrise, I respectively disagree. But who was right? Most likely, Blaine, because he’s always right. In fact, I’m thinking of having our name changed to “Poppins”. As in Mary. As in ‘practically perfect in every way’. But I’m not fit to carry a name like that. Because I’m not.

At least I got my exercise over with first thing. 😊

Lake Michigan – there’s still fog. : )

When we rode back home, after we flew down the steps because I was getting attacked by mosquitoes, we stopped at the beach. There were waves today! We stood at the walk to the signal light and watched for a while, until we caught a wave, and consequently, wet shoes. Well, we were standing on a dry space, so we thought we were safe!

We noticed a large tractor with a fork lift trying to pick up a picnic table when we returned home after last night’s sunset.
Look what he did!
They’ve closed this entire end until April – or so the sign says. : )

Back home, we prepared for our day trip to Grand Haven, about a half hour drive for us. Actually, we spent more like half a day there.

The first thing we did was visit their lighthouse. The Army Corp of Engineers just finished two years of improvements (due to structural concerns with the stone and cement) and reopened on August 17^th.

It’s a beautiful lighthouse and fog signal building, and both seem to be freshly painted. And we met a nice Norwegian couple while we were out there.

That’s the State Park Campground.
Blaine made a MUCH better choice!

This picture shows how close they all are to each other – these particular ones, to the road!

There are quite a few signs out here. Most are some kind of warning.

Yikes!
Stay away from the edge, Blaine . . .

This lighthouse has a channel, just like Holland.
We loved the Fall leaves!

The Grand Haven Lighthouse and Fog Signal Building

They made the concrete protective wall to look like the bow of a ship. Intentionally. Nice! : )

Ducks and a Cormorant

We’ve never met a cormorant that would allow us such close access! Great picture, Blaine!

After we toured the lighthouse, we just had to go into the campground and do a drive-by.
No thank you very much!

From there, it was just a short drive to the downtown area where Blaine had scoped out a free museum.

That’s the museum

Pretty darn nice for free! And we learned more stuff, which means you will too! 😊 Enjoy the tour! And ladies, be grateful! (you’ll understand if you read all the stuff I put in here)

A few items were in the “Back To School” display outside the museum.

I’ve heard that nearly every race of people has a “Flood Story”.
Isn’t that interesting? God made sure everyone remembered.

Interesting stories these men have!

This is some of the actual wood they dug up.

And now the “Victorian House” they have in here! This gets real interesting . . . at least I thought so!

We saw one of these someplace else, quite a while ago, and the picture then was better.
This wreath was too far away. : (

The Dining Room

The kitchen

You have to read the entire thing to get to the good part. : )

The Master Bedroom

We’ve completed our brief tour of the Victorian House and move on to other things . . . .

This is Gerrit

There was a display with a bunch of toys. I chose two to share that I found particularly interesting.

Do any of you remember these?
I guess our history isn’t too great, we didn’t know what this scene depicted.

One of the reasons Blaine wanted to visit this musem was to check out their Coast Guard display.
Unfortunately we were a day late. They’re in the process of dismantling it. : (

There’s where it was . . .

They have a temporary exhibit on World War I, in which we learned some other things were weren’t aware of.

Two German soldiers posing with rats that were captured in the trenches.

I don’t know . . .
that guy on the right looks like he’s up to no good . . . . : )

Never seen a gun like this before!
It’s a Mauser C96 pistol with detachable stock/holster. Often carried by German officers.

A dugout for reserve troops. Camouflage netting was invented during the war and was used to hide from enemy scout planes.

Chateau-Thierry, France reduced to rubble.

Clockwise from back left:
German officer’s helmet
German enlisted soldier’s helmet
German steel helmet
French Army helmet

Thus ends the museum tour. I hope you learned something you didn’t know before!

We hit the streets of downtown Grand Haven and took a couple of pictures there.

This is the Second Reformed Church.
We couldn’t find a date for it.

We walked around this pretty little park, not knowing it’s history until we left . . .

Road work in downtown

From there, Blaine set out to satisfy my recent craving for a Wendy’s burger, then it was off towards home, but along the way we wanted to check out “Tunnel Park”. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? Of course it does!

They have a concrete tunnel that goes from the park, through a sand dune to the shore of Lake Michigan. Pretty unique! I tried to find details about when and why it was built, to no avail. . .

If you don’t go through the tunnel, you come down these stairs.

But that little tunnel’s not the real story.

The real story was our nice walk on the beach. It started out well. It ended well. The middle . . . . um . . . not so much.

There we were, ambling down the sandy beach in the direction of home, sailboats were circling in the water, nice homes up the shore . . . .

Waiting to be used . . .
Too bad we don’t have the key!

That’s quite a boardwalk!!

When suddenly, and without provocation, we were attacked!

Hordes of mosquitoes began landing and poking us with their little blood-sucking needle mouths. We did what we could – we ran. And when that didn’t work. We ran again. We thought we were safe, but they kept after us, and we kept running/and or walking quickly in water up past our shins. And suddenly, we were closer to home than we were to the Jeep and no way were we going back. And Blaine kept his customary white hat on as he stayed behind me shooing the little vampires off me when he could. (This is one of many reasons I love this guy!)

The Beach of Blood

That’s Big Red up there. . . .
Stay focused, and RUN!

Once we got to the State Park Beach, there was a breeze and the little beasties disappeared! We theorized that the huge sand dune we were walking beside was blocking the wind and the mosquitoes had a field day with us! You should have seen all the blood on Blaine’s legs – little dots everywhere! He sacrificed his life’s blood for me. Now who else do you know who would do such a thing? I’m doubly blessed!

We made it to the State Park Beach!!!!

Turns out, these boats are participating in a sailing class.
Sure were pretty!

Are you wondering about the Jeep?

We ended up 2.5 miles away. Guess who jumped on his bike and went to retrieve it right after we got home? Yep. He did that too.

Then we went back to the blueberry shop from yesterday, spent $20 on stuff we didn’t really need, but wanted desperately, including a surprise for our family’s Thanksgiving Dinner in Ohio on October 13^th.