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What: #98 Walk around the Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids

Where: Frederik Meijer Gardens
When: December 8th
Why: Michigan is a great state, and sometimes I get caught up in going to all sorts of new and exciting destinations around the country and around the world, but then I remember there are amazing things in my own home state. This is one of those places I've heard so much about, and determined it was worthy of making the effort to visit. It's in a part of the state I don't frequently get to because it isn't on the way to Chicago or Up North, so it has to be an end goal for its own sake.

The gardens are an impressive collection of indoor greenhouses and outdoor sculpture gardens, and at this time of year, an array of international Christmas trees and other holiday displays throughout the main building. We started off bundling up to take a wintry walk through the sculpture gardens, enjoying ourselves by making up what the artist should have named each piece because, let's be honest, the actual names never make much sense. For example, we named this one "Mousetrap" like that children's game we played as kids.

The focal point of the garden is this colossus of a sculpture; it is meant to be the vision created by Leonardo da Vinci and finally realized 500 years after he crafted the models and drew up the plans.

One interesting note is that every sculpture had a sign at it reading "Do not touch", but when we wandered through the gardens containing delicate trains, handmade models, and cacti, not a single sign warned us not to touch. And there were plenty of little hands tempted to do so! It was a very crowded day with lots of families - and exchange students? - and lots of fragile ornaments on the many trees, but it was wonderful to see so many people enjoying this type of an outing. Sadly, I don't think the reindeer was having a very good time.

Iceland's Tree!

One very cool thing: As I mentioned, they had miniature scale models of area building and landmarks, one of which I immediately recognized was in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright! As you know if you've perused my list, I really have a thing for his architecture, so when I realized this was a local home, I had to find it, so we ended up learning about a new cool place in "G D Rapids" (as our GPS lady kept repeating).

Scale model made of all natural materials!