Day 2802 A grand day out

17th April 2025

STOP THE PRESSES! We did something totally different today, we went of a trip.

Yes, instead of slaving away in the garage like some third world slave, we went to the Frederick Meijer Garden and sculpture park in Grand Rapids.

But first, as my good wife was reversing out of the driveway she hit and knocked over the recycling bin, spilling the contents over the road.

I was so happy to be the one to gather up all the stuff, and tidy everything up.

Kelli was excited to see the live butterfly collection that happens from the beginning of March running till the end of April.

This was part of her birthday treat, and the weather was good to us.

It was a forty minute drive, and as we pulled in the the gateway I was impressed with the size of the place. Obviously popular with schools, the entrance was filled with hordes of the little darlings.

We made our way to the ticket area, I was delighted to find that I qualified for a senior discount, well, any saving is worth while.

Then, whilst Kelli ran off to the ladies bathroom, I ventured into a large hall that had massive three dimensional human faces formed into large tiles.

I stood there thinking how they were made, and how they were fixed. The gaps between each large tile was about 2mm, very impressive.

Once Kelli returned, we walked towards the room where the butterflies we fluttering about.

This area was a vast tropical environment, full of green trees and plants. All around there were thousands of butterflies of all colour and sizes free to dive bomb the many visitors that were wandering through the space. I took many pictures, as you do, probably never to be looked at again, but it was a wonderful experience.

We were curious with what happened to them at the end of April. I kidded Kelli that they were mounted in a small frame and sold in the gift shop, which quite by chance they had on display.

A bit of further research showed that they were collected and shipped off to other exhibitions I different parts of the country. I would like to see the size of net they would need to capture all those little critters.

On the way back we stopped off to collect a large dresser that we bargained for. It was a bit of crap actually, but we will make it beautiful again.

Later the couple that came to look the curved fronted dresser came back to collect it, which was great, and we might have a sale on the cedar chest that we have yet to start on.