Wes & Erica's vacation photo album // Tulsa & Sapulpa, OK // November 2024

Earlier this month, Wes & I took a quick weekender to Tulsa to watch their ballet perform Dracula. 🧛The original plan was to go to the ballet, then drive to Price Tower in Bartlesville. We'd stay the night in a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired room, take the tour in the morning and then drive home. Just as I was about to book our room & tour, I saw on the news that the Price Tower is closed. 😒 There aren't any other tourist attractions in Bartlesville so I pivoted to Sapulpa. 

We got in to Tulsa around lunchtime and ate at Fixins Soul Kitchen. It is a local Black-owned restaurant in the Greenwood District that partners with Black-owned breweries and distilleries. I don't remember the name of the businesses, and I wish I did because our drinks were amazing (and mine was very pretty 🌺). Everything was good, but the roasted okra was the best part of my meal. I paid for the maximum time for parking (2 hours) since I wasn't sure how long lunch would take. [A quick note on parking - I had to download the ParkMobile app, which was dumb because I hate apps, but it ended up being great because it had a very efficient countdown timer and parking was only $2!!] We still had about 45 minutes left on the meter, so we browsed Magic City Books and Made boutique. Both were cute but way overpriced. 

After lunch, we headed to the Vintage Sewing Machine Center & Museum. I've been wanting to visit but they weren't open the last time we were in town. The museum is free but donations are appreciated. The owner teaches classes and holds afterschool programs for children. He showed us some samples of his students' projects and they all looked so professional, way better than what I can do! 

There was another visitor when we arrived; they were busy unboxing a brail sewing machine sent over from the Netherlands, so the owner told us to walk around as we please and not to forget to go downstairs. The "museum" is a house that's been gutted and jam-packed full of sewing machines. Like thousands of them! Some of the rooms are themed & organized but its mostly a mess. LOL I spotted my newly acquired treadle machine! I was going to tell the owner that I have one, too, but I forgot to mention it when we got to talking. Along with sewing machines, there is also a nice collection of old patterns, books, notions and some fabric. I told the owner (I wish I got his name; he was super nice and very informative) that I make my own clothes and he said I could take some fabric & patterns but I didn't want to disrupt his collection. 

The owner found us downstairs and started giving us a history lesson on sewing machines in the military. He has a handful of giant industrial machines that he uses for his classes. He gave me a quick lesson and I felt so silly because I couldn't sew on them. 😳 I didn't really understand the mechanics, but there are no feed dogs and the entire machine is driven by the needle. The machines use a walking foot (I have one but have never used it) and a walking needle (which I have never heard of but it seems to be better than the feed dogs). He said there was one of these machines on each of the aircraft carriers and they were used for upholstery and parachutes. He kept telling us about how the feet and needle work differently when sewing thick leather. Wes seemed to understand but I was lost. All I know is that I want a swiveling foot that can sew in all directions; instead of having to move the piece of fabric around.  

After our downstairs tour, he took us back up and showed me what he says is the best sewing machine ever made. It is a black Singer 201 with the light in the front. I didn't take a picture of it because I was really into his history tour and forgot - I don't think I took a picture of any of the machines he mentioned. Anyway, the assembly of the 201 machine is impossible to mess up because each piece is shaped differently. The light in the front is what sold me on it. He talked about some other machines but I don't remember any more fun facts. Before we left, he let me make a souvenir tile (and showed me all the neat ones his students have made, center right in picture above).  

Our hotel had a late check-in so we were going to go to the mall to find my Unicorno figurine and then stop into Glacier Chocolate & Coffee for a snack, but the sewing machine museum tour took longer than expected. I conceded to skipping my Uniorno, but I wasn't passing up on a sweet treat. I got a free truffle since it was my first time in Glacier. 🍬 I picked the peach raspberry one. Wes got a lemon cheesecake and an oatmeal raisin truffle (he said both were meh) and a cold brew (which he said was weak). My triple berry sorbet was good, but what I came in for was a caramel apple cup that Lacey showed me on Instagram. Sadly, it wasn't on the menu 😑

🩰Ballet time!! 💃 There was no photography allowed so this section will be quite boring. LOL The Tulsa Performing Arts Center is really nice and we had great seats in the mezzanine. There were several people in Dracula cosplay. We saw a guy dressed exactly like Gary Oldman in the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie (remember the grey suit & top hat? 🎩). This ballet version of Dracula was very different from the Bram Stoker novel. I don't even think Dracula was the main character; it was mostly about a towns girl and her fiancé. Act II was the longest and biggest part of the story. It look place in the village where the towns girl (another name I should have remembered) lives and it was all about her eighteenth birthday dance and her engagement. The dancers were immensely talented but I thought it was too long and repetitive. Renfield in Acts I & III was the best dancer, in my opinion. I think I prefer the OKC Ballet's performance of Dracula that we saw a few Halloweens ago much better. 

We were going to eat at Mr. Kim's (a trendy late-night Asian fusion restaurant) after the ballet, but we were both tired so we just got Taco Bell and went back to the hotel--welcome to your 40s 😭. I was so ready to fall asleep but there was an annoying tapping/hammering going on in either the room next to or above ours. I called the front desk and Guest Services told me there were hooligans in the stairwell. 😒 A ton of other rooms have called to complain and their security is trying to find the culprits but they keep moving from floor to floor. I think they finally found them on our floor, thank goodness!

The next morning we had breakfast at New York Bagel. Initially, we wondered why it was in a giant two-story building... we soon found out how busy it gets on a Saturday morning. 😮 Luckily, we got there before the rush. My salmon lox bagel was good except for the red onions weren't pickled. We had just run out of Everything Seasoning at home so it was nice to find a bottle for sale at the restaurant.

I've been wanting to go to The Gathering Place park for a while now but the weather never cooperated each time we've been in Tulsa. ⛅ We almost went after Chinh's wedding last year but I didn't bring a jacket, and it was actually cold in December. There was rain in the forecast this time, too, but it was mostly just overcast so we took a chance and went. We only got sprinkled on a bit --and luckily, we were near the boathouse so we went in to look at the Cabinet of Wonder.

The Cabinet of Wonder is a very clean and organized antique shop. [Two adjectives never used to describe an antique shop. LOL 😆] It had some cool stuff, like a drawer full of old scissors (top right picture) and some rocks & fossils. Like a majority of the park, it was mostly for children. I think I was more impressed at how everything was categorized & displayed than what was actually on display. A family came in as we were going out and the kids were astonished by the fossils, wide-eyed and declaring it a dinosaur (it was horse), so I guess it hit its target audience. 

We also came across a pressed penny machine. One of my pen pals collects them so I had to get her one. Lorie, I put it in the mail last week! I hope you get it soon! 😃 

The map of the park made it look MUCH larger than it actually is. We walked through all of it, except for the children's play area and some gardens on the outer perimeter, and it took us less than two hours. We walked all along Peggy's Pond and went up Mist Mountain (my favorite part of our walk). 🌄 The mountain has lots of manmade waterfalls and gutters that would direct water all around the stones, but the fountains were turned off. 😒 Either that or Oklahoma hasn't been getting enough rain. There weren't any birds but we kept hearing loud birdcalls so we suspect there were speakers hidden in the trees for ambiance. The landscaping is beautiful. It was nice seeing all the leaves in their autumnal colors. We'll have to come back in spring or summer to see everything in bloom.

The Gathering Place was really beautiful and deserving of all its awards. 🌲 We didn't see a single piece of litter, or any homeless people. The homelessness in Tulsa was rampant (waaaaaay worse than in OKC) so I was surprised at how clean and pure the park still is. After our peaceful morning walk, we headed to Sapulpa for part two of our trip.

We had lunch at Wimpy's. Wes is always quoting his tagline (I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today), so when it popped up on the list of unique restaurants along Route 66, I knew we had to go. The food was very mid (I got the Frito chili pie and Wes got a hamburger & fries, and I could have made both of those items better at home), but the prices were cheap so I guess it was worth going to. I think people go for the friendly staff and novelty of it being a Popeye's themed restaurant. 

Next on the agenda was the World's Tallest Gas Pump. We also went inside the Heart of Route 66 Auto Museum. 🚗 Car museums are a permanent fixture on our "travel to-do" list, along with art museums and fashion exhibits. I'm counting the Vintage Sewing Machine Center & Museum in the latter category so we got both on this trip! 😁 Anyway, there was a map and guest book at the lobby with people signing in from all over the world (we saw a party listing Cape Town, South Africa as their location!), but we were the only ones to sign in for November 2, 2024. 

There was lots of classic cars for us to admire. Several of them had current license plates so they must travel to car shows. I think one had a few ribbons hanging from its dash. The neatest vehicle there, in my opinion, was the 1967 Amphicar. It had propellers for driving in water. It only drove a few times and never caught on. Wes liked Maserati. I admit that is a cool car but no propellers or silly gimmick so my pick wins. LOL 😆

The owner of the sewing machine museum told us about how the Singer 201 was used to sew the interior dash of Rolls Royces, and he also mentioned how the industrial machines sewed on leather with a perfectly even stitch length. I never noticed before, but I found myself inspecting the stitches on the cars' seats and other details. 

Our original plan was to go to Little Taiyaki to get a quick snack (they serve Japanese-style ice cream desserts) on our way out of town. I didn't realize how close to Christmas it is (its not, by the way 😑) and downtown Sapulpa was already setting up for their famous Christmas Chute. The roads were closed so we had to park outside of downtown and walk. That was kind of annoying but we got a free viewing of the chute. Wes didn't feel like ice cream and I wasn't super hungry so we passed on our snack. I actually looked at the menu when we got into the restaurant and was going to try to get something to go if it looked amazing but I wasn't completely sold. 

Instead we went to Crossroads Coffee Lab. Wes got a cold brew and said it was really good. The dine-in restaurant part looked really nice, and they had a little soda fountain with gelato, so we'll have to go back to sit down for a meal & dessert if we're ever back in Sapulpa. I am usually terrible when it comes to timing (I try to cram too much into a vacation), but we were actually early leaving town this time around. We would get back into OKC before 6pm so we could pick up the dogs early from camp. 🐕💓 I was all excited to see Athena & Zephyr but Wes reminded me (when he tried calling the camp), that they close at 3pm on weekends. Oh well. We took Route 66 for the scenic route home. We drove through Drumright and Cushing, and I was ready to stop if I saw an interesting tourist attraction but there was none. 

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album // Holland, MI // May 2024

                   

Wes & I went to Holland, Michigan for its 95th annual Tulip Time Festival in May.🌷 I already wrote entirely too much about the rest of our journey here (https://ragsreborn.blogspot.com/2024/05/wes-ericas-vacation-photo-album-grand.html) so we'll jump straight into our day at the festival. We had breakfast at Wolfgang's Restaurant. The place was decorated with famous photographs, movie posters, and artwork but with the main character changed to Matt Wolfgang's face and the other objects changed to breakfast items. It was pretty funny! Wes enjoyed his thick cut bacon and hazelnut coffee. I liked my Benedict okay but thought it was a little bland. The meal was sooooo filling!! 🍳 We walked around town all day and still weren't hungry for lunch (a shame because I had a Dutch restaurant picked out for us to try- deBoer's).

We went to the tulip festival at the Myriad Gardens here in OKC a few years ago and I complained that there weren't enough tulips. What we need is a legit citywide festival 100% dedicated to the flower! Which is how we ended up in Michigan, but sadly their tulips were having issues, too. 😔 The weather has been off this year so the mayor put out a notice stating that the tulips aren't doing as well as the town would have hoped. Most of them had wilted by the time we got there but a bunch of other plants were in bloom, so the parks were still very pretty.🌻🍀🌼 Holland is relatively small so we parked in a city lot and ended up walking the rest of the day. We saw almost everything on the festival map & itinerary. 

The bottom two pictures are the interactive musical sculpture.

We started in Centennial Park- the main park with the most tulips. 🌷🌹 The city held a sculpture contest for local artists to build artwork from recycled bicycle parts. Wes liked the one of the flower delivery driver and I liked the interactive one (it was made from recycled soda bottles as well as bike parts). It was made to be a musical instrument by banging on all the pieces. The festival's website posted all of the winners, but I can't remember which ones won. I don't think any of the pieces I voted for made the cut. 

It seemed like everything we saw was part of some citywide contest. There was an art gallery with tulip themed paintings and signs encouraging us to text in to vote for our favorite one. I chose the tulip ice cream cones. 🍦There was a Dutch costume exhibit in the same building as the art gallery. The traditional outfits were nice but they weren't very exciting. One of the plaques explained that the costumes for the town's dancers were tailor made by local volunteers. There was also a small exhibit about how the breastplates were stippled using nail heads and paint.

We walked to Kollen Park to see the Friends Goodwill Ship, but they were very strategic on its placement so we couldn't see it after all. There was a tour of the tall ship, but tickets were $8 and there was a line; we didn't think it was worth it. We thought we could just walk around the dock and look at it from afar. They placed it to where there's no way you could walk close enough to see it and there was a giant restaurant and boat shop blocking the view from the other side of the marina.😠 We were going to sit at the lake and rest a bit but it was littered with dead fish so we turned around and headed downtown.

I tried soooo hard to get a decent picture of the tall ship... no luck.

Downtown Holland is filled with cute shops & restaurants (it was too bad that we still weren't hungry; I saw an ice cream parlor that I really wanted to try but I knew my snack would melt long before I could finish it.) We went in a few of the shops for souvenirs and stopped in The 205 Coffee Bar for an afternoon drink. ☕ I got the lavender latte and Wes got a cold brew. The café had pastries from deBoer's for the morning... we got there around 1pm and they were sold out. 😒 

We walked from the café to the building where the quilt show was. It was several blocks but I still hadn't finished my drink. Wes wasn't interested in the quilts, so he sat in the lobby and babysat my coffee while I went in. The quilt show was fantastic 😍, and of course we were encouraged to vote for our favorites. I voted for #60 (a paper pieced portrait of the Russian space dog, Laika🐶) and #31 (a red and white quilt with blocks depicting motifs of Dutch farm life). The red one might have placed but I don't think either of them won. 

I voted for the red one in the bottom right corner. The paper pieced flowers in the top left were also stunning.

All of the quilts were amazing and I actually recognized (and have made) some of the blocks from the shop hop that I participated in over the past two years. It was a moment of, oh I can sew this!, but I know I will never have the time or resources to actually finish a quilt. I also recognized the Tula Pink and Ruby Star Society fabric in the quilts. I think I am officially a sewist now! 😎

Laika in the top left corner was my absolute favorite; the Girl with the Pearl Earring was also a top contender. 

We had a couple of options for activities after the quilt show. I originally wanted to take the Dutch dance lesson but Wes wouldn't participate with me and it was starting to get hot outside, so I decided to skip. 🌞 I considered driving us to Windmill Island Gardens but that was more walking during the hottest part of the day, and it was closing soon so I decided against that as well. We ended up driving to the Deklomp Wooden Shoe Factory. It was more of a giftshop than a factory. There was one room that was set up to look like a workshop. It had some display equipment and a ton of sawdust, but it wasn't in use and we couldn't even go in there. Lame.

I wanted to buy a pair but I 1. have no use for a pair of clogs, and 2. have no space in my carry-on.

We had finished up all of the festival's activities and still had some spare time before the evening Dutch dance performance. We were going to go back to Centennial Park to rest (and maybe try an elephant ear pastry from the carnival) but the battery for the key fob to the rental car died. 😳 I've never driven a keyless car so I was freaking out. 😱 Luckily, the wooden shoe factory was directly across from a Blaine's Farm & Fleet. I called Enterprise while Wes went in to look for batteries. The employee at the Holland Enterprise was great and agreed to let me switch cars. 🚗 He put me on a brief hold to review my contract and then told me that unfortunately, they were out of cars. What?? Anyway, he was still as helpful as he could be, and transferred me to the Grand Rapids airport Enterprise since that's where the car originally came from. They didn't even pick up the call. It rang forever and then hung up on me. 😑 I called roadside assistance and the employee gave me three options: 1. drive the car at the risk of the key fob battery dying; she assured me that the car drives without a working fob (Wes did back her up on this claim, but I didn't want to risk it), 2. go to the Enterprise where I got the car from and get another one, or 3. buy a replacement battery and Enterprise will reimburse me when I return the car. She told me I had to make a decision while on the call so she could note it in my contract. I chose buy a replacement battery.

We made it to the park just in time for the children's dance performance. There was a group of small grade schoolers and a group of teenagers. The younger kids danced first and they were so enthusiastic!! The clomped so much louder than the teens. The next group was the "world famous" professional dancers. They did a couple of traditional dances; it was entertaining. 👏 It was my first time watching Dutch clomping so I would have judged anything as good. 

                       

Next was the highlight of my entire trip... I met one of my pen pals!! 🖃 📬 I started pen palling in 2020 as a way to make friends during lockdown. I've had a lot of awesome pen pals but have never met any of them (I got close to meeting one but it didn't work out.) I was so excited when Jodi agreed to come to the tulip festival! She and her husband live about 2 hours away and they had to work the day we were in town, but they still wanted to hang out at dinner. I made us reservations at New Holland Brewing for 8:30pm. 

Our waitress took a ton of pictures at my behest. They all turned out good, so I had to use them all here... which is why there's like 4 of the same photos repeated.

Wes and I got to the restaurant early so we looked around their gift shop. They had all their house-brewed beers on display and I even picked out which one I was going to try, but when our waitress asked for our drink orders, I went with a cocktail. LOL 🍹 I should have gotten one of their beers but the Petal Pusher gin drink was amazingly delicious so I have no regrets! We got the pretzel with mustard and beer cheese. The beer cheese was really good (it had horseradish in it!) but the texture was weird... it was chunky. I ordered a pickle pizza, which was sooooo yummy. 😋 It had alfredo sauce, pickles, bacon and dill sprinkled on top. 🍕 Wes got the roast beef burger, which he said was too salty. 

                        

OMG that pickle pizza was to die for!!! 😋

My pen pal, Jodi, is so nice! 😀 She's super cool in her letters so I assumed she'd be rad in person but she was so much friendlier than I expected. Her husband, Ryan, is really neat, too. We all got along and chatted until the restaurant closed. 🍻 We talked like we had known each other for ages (which I guess I sort of do with our exchanging letters). Wes mentioned their midwestern accents when we were walking back to the car; I didn't notice but immediately wondered if they noticed a southern accent in us. Dinner was the highlight of an already excellent day! I am still amazed--over a month later-- that they took the time out of their evening to drive 2 HOURS to and from Holland on a worknight just to have a meal with us. 

                      

So that's it for Tulip Time. 🌷 The day started off kind of rough with the lack of tulips, but it ended up being a really nice & relaxing trip. I think we still saw plenty of tulips despite the weather. The festival had enough activities to fill a day trip (so it wasn't boring) without being too overwhelming with stuff to do & see. Great balance!! Wes said he was impressed by how big the festival was... the whole town got involved and there were so many different events. 

                       

Wes & Erica's vacation photo album // Grand Rapids, MI // May 2024

Wes and I flew out to Michigan for the Tulip Time Festival in May (yes, it's taken me this long to get my photos and thoughts together 😑). Growing up, my parents had one of those big frames that you can put multiple pictures in hung up on the living room wall of us all the festival. That solidified the tulip as my favorite flower, and I wanted to re-experience frolicking in the fields as an adult. 🌷 ⚘ 🌷 Last year, Wes and I went camping in Arkansas (here, if you're interested - Pictures of neat stuff and some accompanying thoughts...: Wes and Erica's vacation photo album // Mount Magazine, AR // February 2023 (ragsreborn.blogspot.com) to relive his childhood memories so this year it's my turn to relive mine.

We stayed in the JW Marriot downtown; super nice hotel even if the valet was a bit confusing. We got a river-facing room. The bridge is the Gillet Bridge that crosses over the Grand River and leads to the Union Workers' Park.

The festival was in Holland, MI, a tiny town with no airport, so we flew into Grand Rapids (I would have preferred that we drove). There were really bad storms & tornadoes the night before we flew out, so I was already on edge after abandoning the dogs at boarding camp and then watching the weather all night. Wes's friend took us to the airport before he had to log in for work, so we were there at like 4am with a night of zero sleep. 😫 Not the best start to a vacation, but we had a nice breakfast from Elemental Coffee and our flight out of town went smoothly. 

I had breakfast at 4:30am, and then lunch at 8:30am.  You really do lose all sense of time while travelling. LOL I was ecstatic to learn that Denver International had a Shake Shack. My favorite fast-food restaurant!! 🍔

I swear we spent more time in airports than we did actually on vacation. We already had a three-hour layover but the weather in Michigan was sketchy, so our layover kept😭getting😨extended😫. We ended up spending probably 5 or 6 hours there. In hindsight, we should have gone out to eat somewhere in Denver, but we were worried about time and having to go through airport security. Luckily, Denver International is gigantic with lots of things to keep travelers entertained. (The con to that pro is that there were TONS of people and a line to everything. It was insane when we got off of the fully packed plane and into the empty Grand Rapids airport. It was like stepping into a ghost town!)

The duck made from keys, bullets, and other metal objects was me & Wes's favorite. There were also old planes hung from the ceiling above the gardens but I couldn't get a decent picture. 

I wanted to see the Yann Kersale exhibit (Water In All Its States) but it was installed in the escalator that led out of the terminal to baggage claim. Instead, we saw an exhibit by local artists who used recycled items to make art. The blue dresses were my favorite (my camera was not cooperating...the glare is pretty awful 😩 but the artwork was really neat in person). When I decided that we've walked around the airport enough, we settled into some chairs made from old skis and I started my crocheting. I saved a pattern for a basket made using a magic ring, but I could not wrap my head around the instructions. I restarted like probably 2 or 3 times then gave up and made an infinite granny square instead (as in keep adding rounds to the square until I ran out of the yarn I packed with me).

When it was FINALLY time to fly out, we all boarded onto one of the fancy ultra slick 737 Max 8s. ✈It was sooooo clean and so new (who cares about the questionable safety features that have been in the news 😰). It had red and blue lights like a party bus. LOL It's probably just my imagination, but even the off-brand Chex Mix tasted better. I finally fell asleep for a powernap. 😴 🛫 Originally, we were going to Uber from Grand Rapids to Holland and then spend most of our time walking but after reviewing some maps and talking to my pen pal who lives there, I decided to rent us a car. I got a sleek new Jetta that I did not know how to drive. LOL It wasn't that bad but I never got used to the keyless aspect. Luckily, traffic in Grand Rapids was extremely polite and forgiving. 🚘 No one passed me despite me struggling to get used to how the car drove on the highway. 

I wanted to go to bed as early as possible but Michigan barely gets dark... the sun didn't set until well after 9pm and rose again by 6am. 

So our first day of vacation was a long & exhausting day of hanging out in airports. *sigh* Our hotel was downtown, so I wanted to do a bit of exploring but we were both wiped out. We had dinner before turning in at the hotel. I googled what food Grand Rapids is known for and "wet burrito" came up. Then I looked up the highest rated wet burrito restaurant and got Maggie's Kitchen. Wet burritos are delicious!! 😋 (Wes still doesn't believe me.) They are also gigantic. I got the steak burrito, which stuffed to the max. My only complaint would be that the red sauce was a little bland (I thought a lot of the food in Michigan was), but they had really good spicy green salsa. Wes got the rice & pork tacos. 

Our last stop before the hotel was the Woodland Mall; it has a Barnes & Noble which has my Unicornos. 🦄 Normally, we would have browsed the shops at the mall but we were tired, and storms were rolling in ☔ so we just made a beeline for the store. I double checked their inventory online but couldn't find my coveted figurine. I went upstairs where all the toys were; I asked a sales associate and she had no idea what Unicornos are. She asked if they were a toy, yes. Then she asked if they were a children's toy or adult collectible, both I guess. Still no luck, she had to call another employee for help. Turns out they're adult collectibles and downstairs with the nerdy stuff (think anime and Funko Pops). How embarrassing! LOL

Please note how I was in bed by 8:31pm. LOL 😂

The area of West Michigan about an hour away from us got pummeled with storms & tornadoes that night. (The weather must have followed us from Oklahoma.☁) Holland's City Council proactively put out a statement saying the tulips bloomed early this year, so they were kind of past their peak by mid-festival time, then the storms wiped out the remaining ones that weren't already wilted. 😞We flew in for the festival so tulips or no tulips, we're driving over!! But that will be blog for later; now, we're sticking with Grand Rapids. We spent a day being tourists in the city. We started with breakfast at the very upscale hotel restaurant, Margaux. We got yogurt with local honey, which I was surprised to notice that it actually did taste different from the Oklahoma honey I'm used to. I enjoyed my corned beef hash. 

After breakfast, I had planned for us to walk to the Grand Rapids Downtown Market, but we skipped. We walked along the Gillet Bridge by the hotel and then rested until our next activity. It was sprinkling all day so not the best day for walking around anyway. Next on our itinerary was the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Meyer May House. 🏠

I was amazed & jealous at how large the elephant ears are. I wish mine could grow like that! OKC must not have the right weather for it.

This is the second Frank Lloyd Wright house we've visited (the first was in Bentonville, AR). The Meyer May house was really neat but I think I like the Bachman Wilson house better. 🏡 This house didn't feel as homey/comfortable/cozy family as the Bachman Wilson house, which is crazy because it was built specifically for a family. The Meyer May house tour started with a video about its renovation by the Steelcase Company. 🔨 There was a ton of interesting information in the video (the woman presenting the video & introduction was very passionate about her work). Some things I remembered: the company wanted to restore the house to its original version, so they dismantled all the additions and used the brick & other materials from the new wings in the renovation, the carpet was unsalvageable but they found original color samples in other museums/archives and re-wove the living room carpet to look exactly like the original, they did the same thing with all the furniture in the house, the mural of flowers in the dining room was painted over dozens of times so the renovators had to chip all the layers away to recover it.

There is glass in the mortar for the bricks in the fireplace. It reflects the sunlight and looks spectacular!🌞

Meyer May (who designed and sold men's clothing) commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build a house for his family in 1909. He and his wife had just adopted two infants. 👪 Sadly, his wife passed not long after and when he remarried, he acquired two stepchildren. So, the house was definitely built for a large family... but it was the most unsafe, non-kid-friendly house I've ever seen! LOL There were no rails or banisters for the stairs, and there were sharp angles everywhere. 

The chair in the middle left picture is a recliner. There is a chain and notches on the back that you can adjust to move the back into different positions. 🪑 Frank Lloyd Wright installed pegs in various places on the walls that instructed Meyer May on where to hang paintings. Most of the paintings were by Mathias Alten, who also has a lot of his work in the Grand Rapids art museum.

Al demonstrating the specially designed closet. Meyer May had closets like this in his haberdashery. 👔 The hangers are on a sliding rack that you can pull out. Al knew so much about this house; he actually went over time on the tour and had to be asked to wrap up so the next group can get their turn!

Our tour guide was a volunteer named Al (he's married to the woman who showed us the video at the beginning of the tour; they're both architecture nuts and have traveled the states viewing Frank Lloyd Wright structures & doing research). Al was a bit long-winded and rambley, but he was so incredibly knowledgeable. Wes's favorite part of the house was the dining room table that was designed to look like a temple. My favorite was either the closet with a pull-out rack of hangers, or the chairs that were the exact height as the wooden trim on the walls (so the chairs looked flush with the walls). It was an interesting tour and it was free as long as you booked tickets online in advance. Would 100% recommend! 👍

We had lunch at Tupelo Honey, another fancy restaurant inside of a hotel. (I noticed that downtown Grand Rapids isn't that grand... unless your establishment is inside of a hotel. On the flipside of that, we barely saw a single homeless person.) Brunch at Tupelo Honey ran until 3pm and we got there around 2:30pm so I got myself a blueberry lavender mimosa. 🍸 They're known for their chicken & waffles so that's what I ordered. 🍗 I got the mac n' cheese waffles, which I assumed were waffles made from mac n' cheese, but they just had some mac n' cheese smashed on top. A little disappointed but I still ate them all. It was very tasty. Their house pickles were spicier than the chicken! Wes got the shrimp & grits with Cajun sauce (butter and Cajun seasoning, which he said was goooooood).

The water glasses had silly sayings on them. Mine read Madder than a Wet Hen and Wes's read Hold Your Horses.

I ran out of yarn for my initial airport crocheting project, so I bought a kit for the flight home. Over a month later and I am still working on it. 🙍

We had some time to kill after lunch, so I drove us to Field's Fabrics. It is THE fabric chain in Michigan. There were a few locations in the Grand Rapids area and I picked the Plainfield location. OMG this place was amazing and so astonishingly cheap!!😍 They sold all sorts of fabric... quilting cotton (an obvious duh), all types of garment/fashion fabrics, and upholstery fabric, too. They had a lot of really thick, stretchy but still stable enough to be easy to work with, jersey/polyester blend fabrics. I wanted a couple of yards, but I wasn't a fan of any of the prints. 😞 Everything was marked 10-30% off! I saw some cute cottons that I wanted but told myself I was only buying one cut. I ended up with an interesting distressed sweatshirt type fabric. The fabric selection was amazing, but what I was most impressed with was their notions, tools and bag making supplies. It was all stuff that I need but hate to buy because it's usually so expensive. We were only travelling with carry-ons so I couldn't splurge but if we ever step foot in a Field's Fabrics again, it's all over for my bank account. LOL 

Puzzles are another thing I really wanted to buy on this trip. Michiganders must love them because every store had an amazing puzzle selection. I found 3 that I wish I could have bought. 

Thursday evenings after 5pm were free at the art museum so we waited until later in the evening to go. There was a fashion gala type of event going on that night. A ton of tall & attractive important looking people streamed in wearing very upscale & fashion-forward clothes. I think that was the most exciting part of our museum visit (that and the bathrooms offered free period products, which I thought was impressive and should be the norm). 

My two favorite paintings are the stately woman in the round frame with her sewing kit, and the two deranged women trying to catch chickens outside of their country estate.

I'm glad it was a free night because the museum was a letdown. 😑 An entire floor of the museum was closed for renovations, and there wasn't much to view on the first and third floors. The only thing open on the second floor was the Lego exhibit. It wasn't much of an exhibit. There were a few things that local artists and schoolchildren built, and there was a section where you can use Lego to build your own art.

The middle, left painting shows a reflection of the artist in the mirror as he paints his grandfather.

The first floor housed a temporary exhibit for a local Black artist (sorry, I forgot his name 😬). He paints himself into his work, and his work is always social commentary about the Black experience. I couldn't relate so I didn't fully understand his art but I did appreciate his skill. His paintings were very vibrant, but still realistic.

Our Meyer May tour guide kept saying they used Lambert's Arts & Crafts for the refurnishing effort. I thought he was being dismissive, like oh just a silly arts n' crafts company. But, Lambert's Arts & Crafts is a legit Michigan company. They made the lamp and a lot of other pieces in the museum. I want that bookcase!!

The permanent collection was on the third floor. There were seven galleries that lead you through a timeline of art history. I enjoyed the classic European paintings the best, but my favorite piece in the entire museum was from their contemporary collection. It was a modern sculpture of a stub-tailed dog.

Our last meal in town was at The Mitten Brewing Company. Grand Rapids is also known as "Beer City," and I do believe it. 🍺 There was a brewery on every corner! Funnily enough, I didn't drink a single beer while we were there. I mostly got cocktails, but I got a cider at the Mitten. Wes had beer and said it was good. I got an apple pie cider that tasted like yummy apple pie. 🍏 We did a lot of eating but not much walking that day so we weren't especially hungry. We skipped the appetizer and just ordered a pizza. We got the Return of the Goat, which was spicy sausage, goat cheese, basil, and sweet red peppers. A good pizza but I thought the sausage was a little too spicy. Maybe it needed a bit more goat cheese to balance it out. It was still Playoff season so Game 2 of the semifinals was on. We watched as much of it as we could before the restaurant closed. It was Mavericks 24, Thunder 22 by the time we left. We made small talk about the game, the Thunder and being from OKC with the valet when we got back to the hotel. Yay sports! 🏀 LOL

We had an early flight out the next day so we skipped breakfast. I told the Enterprise employee about our battery fiasco when I returned the car. He asked how much the replacement battery was. I had to rummage around my bag for the receipt. He must have been in a hurry because he goes, does a $50 refund sound okay? That was mighty generous! I finally found the receipt later and it was $7.41. The Grand Rapids airport "employs" three therapy dogs. They're supposed to be wandering around with their humans. I walked all over the tiny airport looking for them. No sign of any dogs 😔 We flew into Chicago Midway for our layover. It was a 2-hour layover but after grabbing coffee and quick meal, it felt like no time at all. We had a smooth flight home and another state crossed off our bucket list.