Grand Rapido pt 2
Trip Start
Sep 20, 2008
1
20
37
Trip End
Ongoing
Grand Rapids,
Michigan,
United States
Friday, October 17, 2008
Zutphen, Zeeland, Drenthe, Overisel (yes, without the j) and Holland. I thought it was getting dark so early here until realized that I travelled into into the Eastern Time zone and jumped yet an hour ahead. Cali is now 3 hours earlier and the time difference with the Netherlands is now 6 hours).
I decided to make a side trip tomorrow back to Holland. But I did get off the road when I saw a sign "Dutch farm Market". It's a pick-it-yourself-fruit farm and they have a shed with veggies and all kinds of other goodies for sale. I ended up talking to the owner, his name is Ed Raak. He is married with a lady from Groningen (he said they are a bit stubborn are they? and I said" Only a little bit, wink wink" (hihi)
He told me that there're a lot of Dutch people located in this part of the state and that the town of Holland was started by a bunch of people from the Netherlands (more about that later). He asked me about my plans and I told him that I was staying in Grand Rapids and excited to visit the Dutch store "Vanderveen" that I mail order Dutch products from 2 or three times a year, then he grabbed one of his flyers and said with a smile: "Ask for Rick and tell him that you visited me here and to give you a good deal". I've had quite a few experiences with "it's a small world" so these kind things don't surprise me anymore. You better be courteous to whoever you come across because you never know how it will (I know, you can't be cool with everybody, I certainly haven't).
We drove on to the motel and hung in for the night. Next morning we went to the Dutch store. I had a very nice conversation with Betty, the owner, was offered cookies and coffee. In don't have the Dutch coffee gene but a speculaasje (Dutch ginger cookie) is always good (best when you dip it in tea of hot coco)! So I bought a pair of wooden shoes (I'm sending my current ones to Mary in Green Bay so she can hang them on the sides of the door an put a plant in it) a Netherlands sticker for my new car (feel much more complete with it) and some more stuff that I don't really need....
On to the city of Holland. There is not much of Dutch architecture and I discovered later that that is because houses were made of wood at that time and it changes the lay out/design. I visited the history museum and had the local docent to myself to guide me all around. There were 2 reasons why the group of Dutch people took a boat from Boston to this part of Michigan: The land was bigger and better to grow familiar food/veggies on and fear of being prosecuted for their religion (reformed)
There were 107 people on the boat; the original written list is hanging in the museum, about 10 families and some other non related folks. 1 person didn't make it on the boat and 3 people died during the sail. They have a lot of artifacts on display from that first group. It took about 11 years for them to organize in a more official group. The way they started to divide the land was to give every farmer certain acreage and they gave it a Dutch city name to distinguish one parcel from another. So every couple of miles When the town grew, they started given names of the Dutch provinces most of the earlier city names are gone, there are a few left. Then Mr. Heinz (from the ketchup) came in and changed the famers culture, he started pickle farms. With that came migrant workers and so today, the Dutch people in Holland town are in the minority, In the town of Zeeland, 5 miles from Holland, they are holding on to about 80% of Dutch decendents. Some Dutch people have an issue with it, others don't, which makes no sense. We're all immigrants and the migrant workers were brought in because nobody else wanted to do the labor ...
Then it was Miss Johannah's time. We went to a dog park, and had a nice chit chat with somebody who was born here and considered herself to be 100% Dutch even though she was born in the USA. We exchanged some tips as to where to shop for long inseam pants (she is 6.1" too) and then we drove back to Grand Rapids. Had a bite to eat accross the street and I added one more night because I felt like a rest day....
And that's what we did. Just driving thru town, downtown are very cute, nice older buildings, easy to get around in, having lunch in a little café, hanging out in a park. I noticed a whole lot of Obama/Biden signs in the yards, very few McCain/Palin signs. I was very happy to see that...I was going to go out that evening; I saw an interesting thing I wanted to see. Dueling piano players that do this 4 nights a week seemed really cool by reading the reviews. I waited too long though, I got the hang of it in the motel room and when I finally got up and drove over there, I saw a bunch of hootchie cootchie mamma's on the stage, getting it on and I didn't go in. I should have gone a bit earlier so I made the trek back to the mote, buh bye Grand Rapids, we're moving on....I'm VERY excited for tomorrow....
Night night.
