Leg 3, Interlude 1: Grand Rapids

We took a day off here in Grand Rapids today. This wasn't for resting (we've only done 50 miles or so over the last 3 days), this was for exploring the city. We've never been here before, and we probably will not be getting back anytime soon.

As an overall impression, I guess I would say this city feels like a midwestern version of Hartford. They both feel like they're trying to be big cities with modern glass towers downtown, and so on. They both have a good amount of cultural institutions: museums, live performance, sports teams, etc. They also both feel a little sterile and corporate, not a lot of character/charm.

Fun fact: Grand Rapids is the home of Amway, and dozens of buildings here are named after that company and its founders. If you're not familiar with Amway, they are the OG of the "own your own business!" MLM pyramid scheme scams. Have you ever had a former high school acquaintance message you out of the blue on Facebook about purchasing overpriced facial cream or candles or weight loss shakes, or with an exciting opportunity to make lots of money? That was all pioneered here in Grand Rapids!

They have a really good public museum here, with a gigantic steam engine, and lots of cool other stuff. Marna was especially excited for the "Streets Of Old Grand Rapids" exhibit where there's a small-scale recreation of city streets from yesteryear. Earlier in the trip, we also saw "Streets Of Old Milwaukee", and we will absolutely go to any other "Streets Of Old ..." exhibit that crosses our path.

They also had a baseball pitch radar gun, and I can tell you that my fastball currently sits at 53 miles per hour. That's only a loss of about 10mph from when I was at my peak in 8th grade! I also discovered I have a strict pitch count limit of 2 before I start to develop shoulder tenderness.

We also went to their art museum, walked around the city a bunch (including up to a city overlook). We also took in a movie: "The Sheep Detectives", which was decent. Not a great movie, but enjoyable and fun.