DAY 31!!! Michigan to Ohio...

We stayed in Grand Rapids to see the Frederick Meijer Botanical Garden today. It's rated #5 in the US (Maine's in Booth Bay is #1). But this one is foremost a sculpture garden of monumental scale.  Our intended hour long visit became an almost day long visit!

Here are the Meijers, in bronze. What a generous legacy they've left!  

Look close those are people underneath! Below Jarad is standing slightly in front. 

Meijer arranged for an unfinished DaVinci statue to finally be cast -- in 15 tons of bronze!  Then presented an identical one to DaVinci's home town of Milan!

There are more than 200 works, from Rodin to contemporary artists like Nina Akamu, who produced the horse.  Many have their own botanical "room" outside. 

"Neuron" is a model of a real brain cell. 

A mobile in a field of prairie flowers. 

Jarad taking pics under a metal freeform.

One of our favorites -- a family grouping of what we dubbed "Hopsquatch."

A huge indoor conservatory with rain forest, Victorian, cactus, and carnivorous gardens, in front of which stands "Mom." She ushers visitors into the absolute best Children's Garden anywhere!

A to-scale Great Lakes water play area!  Did you know the water in all 5 combined would cover the whole US one foot deep!

Friendly dragons, bears, beavers, and every kind of farm animal...

You get the idea. We were entranced!  The cafe even had Chihuly glass flowers in a rainbow swath adorning the ceiling!  

Then on the road 350 miles to Sandusky Ohio.  The highway of triple trailer trucks! We are staying at a special water park hotel. Spent an hour hiking up 3 flights of steps to tube down several long sinuous slides. Jarad and I went double twice -- double the weight, double the velocity!  

Tomorrow, though, we'll have to get serious about getting home...