Grand Rapids, MI day 1: Ford and Wright

And the colors go rushing by...

Early Saturday morning, the 29th, we hit the road eager to make our way south. We headed east until we crossed the Mackinac Bridge over the straits between Lake Michigan to the west and Lake Huron to the east. We were glad to see the beautiful fall colors of the Upper Peninsula followed us into mainland Michigan. Our long trip ended north of Grand Rapids in the small town of Cedar Springs where we set up at the Lakeside Camp Park, a lovely campground with a pretty little pond full of fishies and colorful maple trees all around.

Old barn next to the campground

With Yelp.com's help, we selected Sushi Kuni in Grand Rapids for dinner. Just a short 20 mile drive away from the campground, we snacked on very respectable nigiris and rolls, with excellent service to boot. Nice. With much of the evening still to go, we decided to head downtown for a preview of Grand Rapids. No sooner had we pulled off the highway on the downtown exit that we noticed them. Hordes and hordes of people walking around several sculptures. The traffic was terrific, so we bailed out and headed back to the RV.

Bronze kids in bronze boats in the water fountain

Over happy hour we realized that we had stumbled into the middle of ArtPrize, the world's largest art competition held every year for 2 1/2 weeks in the fall. The swarms of pedestrians were milling around the entire downtown area taking in the art offered for their inspection and, hopefully, votes. The prize winners are determined by a series of voting days that narrow the number to the top ten and then to the grand prize. We vowed to return to see more of the sculptures than the few we glimpsed while making our getaway.

Giant fishing lure attached to the museum

Penguins playing
in the fountain

On Sunday, we headed to the Gerald R. Ford Presid-ential Library and Museum, coincidentally right where we had been last night when we first encountered the teeming mobs of people for ArtPrize. The morning hours did nothing to calm the enthusiasm for the sculptures nor did it quell the number of visitors. Miraculously, we found a parking space and then made our way through the throngs of people to the museum's entrance where we spied a gigantic colorful fishing lure titled 'Hooked on Michigan'. Ha! Nearby, a large group of sculpted penguins played in the water fountain and a couple of bronze children paddled around in bronze boats.

With the vast majority of the crowd interested only in perusing the six or eight large art pieces in the museum's lobby, we headed upstairs to begin our tour of Mr. Ford's life in relative isolation. The first section of the museum set up the timeframe of his presidency in terms of social norms and customs. In other words, the room was decked out in bell bottoms, hip huggers, fringe and a disco ball while 70s tunes played overhead. Groovy.

File cabinets in the DNC broken into by Nixon's cronies

With Ford's presidency resulting from Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal, many of the exhibits told the story of the investigation, cover-up, release of the tapes, impeachment, resignation and then Ford assuming the presidency. Ford made his new administration one of openness and honesty in order to reestablish the trust of the country and the integrity of the position. But his pardon of Nixon for any crimes he committed or may have committed before Nixon had even been charged soured the public's opinion of Ford bitterly.

Ford grew up in Cedar Springs, Michigan, coincidentally the same town where we camped while in the Grand Rapids area. His upbringing by a strong mom and stepdad helped develop his lifelong penchant for doing right by the country in spite of the political toll it may take. Thus, despite intense criticism over the decision, he felt that pardoning Nixon would allow the country to move on from the scandal and halt a quagmire of investigations and upcoming trials.

Inflation and foreign oil exhibit

Throughout his tenure in office, Ford fought the rising inflation across the country. One panel mentioned that leaders from New York City came to him looking for hand outs to pull the city through a fiscal crisis caused by rampant overspending. Instead of cowing to them (and many critics in the media), Ford publicly refused to support any financial relief for New York City. He encouraged city leaders to do their belt-tightening now rather than delay it with federal assistance.

Original stairs at the U.S. Embassy
in Vietnam

With the troops already out of Vietnam, Ford directed the mass evacuation of Vietnamese refugees from South Vietnam. He eventually swayed Congress to allow 120,000 refugees to receive asylum in the U.S., citing our country's precedent of harboring political refugees. We saw the original stairs from the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam which 50,000 people climbed to escape the country. Also politically unfavorable, he advocated a conditional amnesty for Vietnam draft-dodgers to return to America. We saw the angry letters from several Vietnam veterans who had enclosed their service medals in protest over that decision.

With the criticism about Vietnam and Nixon against him, he lost the presidential election in 1976 to Jimmy Carter, who granted an unconditional amnesty for draft dodgers on his first day in office, also wildly unpopular with many Americans. In any case, we also learned about Betty Ford, whose open honesty and forthrightness with the press earned her a lot of respect with the American people. Ultimately, Ford served only 895 days as president, the shortest term of any president who did not die in office.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Meyer May House

Our bellies growling, we headed toward the Frank Lloyd Wright home and found a neighborhood Chinese restaurant nearby. The Beijing Kitchen turned out to be, hands down, the best Chinese food we've eaten in 20 states and 3 provinces, despite a decor with all the charm of a high school cafeteria at a fraction of the size. It's obvious they're spending their money on the quality of the food, thankfully.

Living room with skylights
back lit with electric lights in 1909

Next we joined a tour group at the Meyer May House, a home designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Completed in 1909 for a local clothier tycoon, Mr. Meyer May, the home is typical of Wright's other structures in its elegant simplicity, complex architecture and earth tone colors. After a dull introduction video detailing the work required to restore the home to its original glory, we toured it. Our guide led us though the disguised main entrance, so unlike its Victorian neighbors with their auspicious entrances and large windows.

We began with the living room whose carpets were designed to accommodate only specific pieces of furniture also designed by Wright. A beautiful hearth with horizontal glass detailing between the bricks stood behind a pair of arts and crafts style chairs. In keeping with Wright's adherence to the scale of his clients, he built the home to accommodate its short owner, Mr. May, who rang in at a paltry 5 feet 4 inches in height. Proper to the scale of its owner, the ceilings were only 8 feet high, in contrast to the 10-18 foot heights of the neighboring Victorian homes.

Dining table with built in
electric lighting

Steelcase, the office furniture manufacturer, sponsored the total renovation of the home in the mid-1980s and now offers free tours to the public, in deference to the history it has with Mr. Wright. Apparently, Frank Lloyd Wright designed furniture on behalf of Steelcase for the Johnson Wax building once upon a time, thus providing the basis of Steelcase's subsequent office furniture lines and solidifying the company's position in the industry. We were thrilled to see such a complete and detailed restoration of a period home, and for free.

Niedeken mural in
Meyer May house

In the dining room, Wright designed an expandable table with electric lighting built into the corners, before electric lighting was commonplace in homes. Nearby, a stunning mural of pastel hollyhocks painted by George Niedeken adorned the center post of the home. Upstairs our guide showed us the bedrooms and open floor plan between the rooms, as well as the maid's quarters and entrance to the kitchen below.

Bed linens designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Apparently, Frank Lloyd Wright was known to control every aspect of a home's construction from the archi-tecture to the furniture, decorations and dresser runners. He was even known to insist on the evening gowns women would wear in the homes he designed. Our guide mentioned one client who, after taking over the home he commis-sioned Wright to build, invited him for a weekend visit. Unbeknownst to Wright, the wife had stored Wright's furniture and replaced it with furnishings more to her liking. While his hosts slept, Wright enjoined the house staff to remove the new furniture and replace it with his. In the morning, perhaps not surprisingly, the irritated hosts asked him to leave and never come back. Quite a control freak.

Lakeside Camp Park pond

Typical of his other homes, Wright also designed the land- scaping of the Meyer May house, digging out the yard by 18 inches in order to make the home appear to 'rise out of the earth'. The strong horizontal lines of tan brick and bold dark copper detailing were so out of character for the Victorian neighborhood of colorful wooden homes that the May's daughter remembered feeling strange in the house. Despite the oddity of its Prairie style for the time, we both appreciated the attention to detail and simple elegance throughout the house.

Pond at Lakeside Camp Park

After a run to a Goodwill and some grocery shopping, we headed back to the campground, now filled with the yellow glow of the late afternoon sun of autumn. With dinner out of the way and Ken safely absorbed in a Sunday night football game, I took a short walk to the camp's pond and admired the calm beauty of the water and the fall leaves in the setting sunlight. What a gorgeous area of the country for us to visit this time of year.