Tag: Adventures

Adventures

Adventures at the Air Zoo

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We went to see the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo at the beginning of October and it was really cool! They had everything on display ranging from huge engine pieces, restoration jobs, declassified stealth planes, and a bunch of other exhibits. For a smaller museum, it was packed full of things and they had two buildings. We went with K2 and J and the boys had a blast (no pun intended) wandering through the museum.

The helicopter below was climbable for kids and I will admit to debating with K2 if I was short enough to qualify! Sadly, there were actual kids there, so I had to be good.

These are resorted planes from WW2. It was cool to see the stories behind the nose cone art.

I appreciated being able to read the pilot stories too. They had a wedding dress that was made from parachute silk of someone who had been shot down. It was beautiful!

They didn’t just have planes there either. This is a rocket engine. 5 of these power a rocket! Can you imagine?! I’m pretty sure we all could have fit underneath it.

It was super neat to see the restoration work going on. They had a declassified plane and two planes that they had recovered from Lake Michigan on display. The two downed looked really good for having been dragged from the bottom of the lake. The silver plane is one of the Lake Michigan planes and then black one is the declassified one. The green one was also a wreck somewhere, but I don’t remember where it was from.

They had a lot of exhibits about different war time things as well. The WASPs were featured. Sue Parish was one of the founders of the museum actually. She had a pink flight suit! My camera was done by this time, so I think K2 has the end of the pictures for the museum.

They also had a Willow Run exhibit, which was cool. My Dad told me that my Grandma Florence worked there, which I either hadn’t known, or had forgotten. I knew all four of my grandparents were involved in the war somehow, but not entirely how.

This was the Husband’s favorite part, I think, although it was super hard to get pictures of because I am very little and it was not. It is an SR- 71 B Blackbird.

It was very interesting to learn about all the airplanes and fun stuff associated with them. They had a lot of hands on things to play with although we didn’t play with too many of them as there were a lot of germy children running around snotting on things. The amount of sneezing.. *shudders*

I really enjoyed it though and a lot of the exhibits were Michigan based, not surprisingly. I’ll leave you with some outside shots that I’m particularly proud of. I hope you enjoyed this mini tour!

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Space and Flight

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“The mysteriousness and mystique of space is such, that science fiction attempts to tantalize you by telling you a story that could possibly be out there and that’s the appeal of science fiction.
William Shatner

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.”
― Leonardo da Vinci

“It was exciting to be off on a journey she had looked forward to for months. Oddly, the billowing diesel fumes of the airport did not smell like suffocating effluence, it assumed a peculiar pungent scent that morning, like the beginning of a new adventure, if an adventure could exude a fragrance.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly,

“Being alone in an aeroplane for even so short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces, and the hopes rooted in your mind – such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stranger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night

“Mary decided that flying was a lot like reading: they both made a body feel free as a bird.”
― Rita Lorraine Hubbard, The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space, listen…”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Gardening · Life Posts

Words Have Power

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It’s interesting to write this post about powerful words for a couple different reasons. I’m fascinated by the messages in the pictures for one, but also by how much words can affect our daily life. As an LPC, my entire job is word based, even if the client in question doesn’t know what words to use, or a child who maybe speaks through play instead of vocally. And it’s kind of meta to be writing a blog post about words, even if I know only a few people will read it.

I follow a lot of librarians and indie bookstore owners too on different social media sites (shout out to Bettie’s Pages and Blackstone Books and Cultural Center) and it’s been very interesting to see what has come up during Banned Books Week. Words are important. We should be choosing our words and our time to speak more carefully. Whether you are speaking about something you’re passionate about, something you’re concerned about, or with joy, our words have impacted others more than we know. They also impact our own sense of self and worth.

With that in mind, I’d like to share some more pictures from Meadowbrook Art in the Elements. One of the artists created floral sculptures based on the work of Masaru Emoto who proposes that molecules of water can be affected by our words, thoughts, and feelings. He froze the water and photographed the crystalline formations that he claimed represented each type of thought or sound. While his theory has come under criticism and is reportedly flawed, it still can make us think about the ways we talk to ourselves and others. Whether or not you believe it, the floral sculptures were beautiful and I hope inspire you.

At the end of the exhibit there were two bouquets that you were invited to either write positive or negative messages or words on their vases. I didn’t see the end result of this, as we came on the last day. But here are the bouquets for your viewing.

I hope this has inspired you, even though it may be a silly thing. We are 60% water after all. Speak kindly to yourselves, friends!

Gardening · Wordless Wednesdays

Wordless Wednesday- Potawatomi Conservatory

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K and I went exploring on out Wine Hike and found this cute little conservatory across from the Potawatomi Zoo in South Bend, Indiana. It was pretty cool! There was a flirty cat, which K adored and I admired from a distance. We had to be sure he didn’t follow us further than the library though, as he had figured out which trees to climb to get access to the side vents which lead to the outside. They have yoga classes, but we were all too tired to go, as they were early in the morning. I took lots of pictures and am planning on saving some for the winter when I really crave green things.

Here’s the website, if you’d like to check it out. https://www.potawatomiconservatories.org/

Life Posts · Wordless Wednesdays

Almost Wordless Wednesday- Wine Hike at Mt. Tabor Trails

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I went on a fantastic Girls’ Night with some friends to Mt. Tabor Trails in Buchanan, Michigan. It is a trail between two wineries where you can take your drink with you. Each winery has different specials and such. The two wineries are called Round Barn Winery and Mt. Tabor Winery. Here’s the website if you want to check it out. https://moerschhg.com/trails

We hung out for dinner with live music on Friday after hiking and it was lovely! I had a honey hard cider and a frose- Frozen rose wine. Both were delicious! Anyway, on to the pictures!

Simple Sundays

Simple Sunday- Wine Trip Style

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“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”― John Keats

“Wine can be a better teacher than ink, and banter is often better than books.” ― Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles

“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”-Joan Collins

“I know I have eaten more good food, drunk more beer and fine wine, had more friends, and seen more of the world than most men ever will.”-Andre The Giant