St. Francis Sculpture Garden

The last day of July proved to be warm and clear in Grand Rapids, after a storm had rolled through the night before. Mid-morning breakfast proved to be at a place called Lucy’s, an adaptive re-use of a large neighborhood grocery store made into a restaurant, where I had a delicious meat-vegetable-egg creation. Everyone else enjoyed their breakfast orders as much as I did.

We planned to visit the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park after breakfast. The last time I’d been there was more than 14 years earlier, and I’d strongly suggested we see it.

While looking for the Meijer location on Google Maps, we noticed a different sculpture garden on the way: St. Francis Sculpture Garden. None of us, me included, had heard of it, but we were intrigued enough to add it to the day’s destinations.

In full, Saint Francis of Assisi Sculpture Garden.St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

The 11-acre site is owned by the Dominican Sisters at Marywood, whose buildings are visible nearby.St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

A nonprofit created the garden, with sculptures by Mic Carlson, a Grand Rapids artist. Twenty-four bronzes of St. Francis, in fact. Some are life-sized.St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

That is supposed to a joyous dancing Francis, which I’ve run across before, but he looks more demented than anything else.
St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

Actually, so does that one. Mic might be a talented sculptor, but those faces of his are a little odd.

Other depictions of the saint — most of them — are small enough to be on a tabletop. At at the sculpture garden, they are on various kinds of pedestals, with signs nearby explaining which aspect of Francis is being illustrated.

Such as Francis and Brother Wolf, telling the famed story of Francis persuading a vicious wolf to change his ways.St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

Francis and Clare, founder of the Poor Clares.St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

Besides the artwork at the sculpture garden, one can enjoy pathways through lush grounds, at least in the summer.St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

A grotto.
St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

And a gazebo-like structure.
St Francis Sculpture Garden Grand Rapids

Must be an ecclesiastical gazebo.

Around Lake Michigan ’22

A little more than a week ago, I took a pretty good picture of three dear friends, two of whom I’ve known for over 45 years. From left to right, Tom, Catherine and Jae.

We were on the second day of our drive around Lake Michigan, counterclockwise, which took us from metro Chicago through northern Indiana, Grand Rapids and parts of western Michigan, Petoskey and environs, Mackinac Island, both Sault Ste. Maries, parts of the eastern Upper Peninsula, greater Green Bay and other parts of eastern Wisconsin, and back to metro Chicago.

Leaving on July 30 from our starting point at my house, we drove my car on crowded and less crowded Interstates, state and county highways, and a host of smaller roads, including National Forest roads cutting through lush boreal territory. Returning yesterday to my house, my friends flew back to Austin today; they had arrived from Austin two days ahead of the trip.

We’d planned the trip via email and Zoom, beginning back in early spring. I was the informal guide, making suggestions and offering bits of information I knew from previous visits to Michigan, upper and lower. But my friends were hardly passive in the course of our travels, digging up information via cell and making their own suggestions based on their own familiarity with some of the territory. Catherine had overseen arranging our accommodations, and everybody drove at one time or another.

We stayed in five different peer-to-peer rental accommodations along way, all entire houses that could provide us enough bedrooms, bathrooms, food prep and dining areas, and, in most cases, space to sit outdoors, once with a view of the waters of Green Bay.

Enjoying the outdoors was one of the main goals of the trip. For me, certainly, but especially for them, escaping the high heat of central Texas. They often remarked on the cool air and reveled in it, checking periodically to learn the temps at home. Three digits in Austin wasn’t usual. I don’t think got higher than 85 F. where we were. Standard night temps in both Michigans generally came in the 60s F.

Two meals a day was the norm: a mid- to late-morning breakfast and a late afternoon dinner, or a very late breakfast and a late dinner, at least as these things are reckoned in North America. So on many days, our meal schedule was more like that of Mexico City.

Food variety has trickled down to the lakeside and inland burgs of the upper Upper Midwest, though perhaps not quite as much as in large metros. Whitefish, the star of a lot of UP menus, had top billing in some of our meals, but we also enjoyed hamburgers and other meat — including one tasty UP pasty — pizza, pasta, breakfast fare, bar food, Italian and Asian, plus chocolates and fruit, such as Michigan cherries and UP jam. We prepared our own meals sometimes, did takeout a few times.

Coffee by morning, wine by night, though I only participated in the latter. Familiar wines were available in every grocery store we visited, and my friends sought out coffee ground as locally as possible: one bag from Sault Ste. Marie, for instance.

Meals and wine drinking were a source of convivial times, but hardly the only one. We talked and conversed and bantered at the table, as we headed along roads and as we walked trails. Shared personal histories were revisited, stories of our long periods apart were relayed, and opinions shared. Odd facts were floated. There was punnery, especially on the part of Tom, a born punster.

We visited one city of any size, Grand Rapids, and many smaller places, a few museums, a sculpture garden, some riverfronts, shopping streets and resort areas, a grand hotel, an historic fort, churches, a Hindu temple, a wooded cemetery, two lighthouses, forests, clearings and beaches, a massive sand dune, waterfalls, rapids and the clearest pond I’ve ever seen. The three Great Lakes we saw stretched to empty horizons — except when Canada or the opposite shore of Green Bay were visible. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge once and the international bridge between the Sault Ste Maries twice.

We walked near the shores of Lakes Superior, Huron and Michigan. The northern woods and the beach ecosystems were fully flush here in late summer. Jae, who knows a good deal about flora, shared some knowledge about the flowers, trees and fungi we saw in profusion.

Though we caught a few showers in daytime, and the last day was mostly rainy, most of the storms rumbled through at night, adding to the restfulness of whatever sleep we each had. None of the storms were lightning-and-thunder dramas, but some were impressive in their downpour. My friends expressed their satisfaction with the cool light winds that often blow in corners of the UP.

There were a number of travel firsts, mostly for my friends. This was the first time any of them had been to the UP, and the first time they had seen Lake Superior, whose aspect I’m so fond of, and their first visit to the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. The trip included Tom’s first known visit to a national park, though later we determined that it was probably his second park. Also, it was the first time two of them had ever been to Canada, since we popped across the border for one night in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

For me, a mix of new and places I saw long enough ago that they were almost like new.

When I dropped off my friends at O’Hare earlier today, we agreed that they trip had met expectations. And more.

Retail Churn

In my photo file marked July 2012, I found an image from the last days of Ultra Foods here in the northwest suburbs. It was a store I knew fairly well. It was a genuine discounter, and sometimes had oddities like Black Jack and Clove gum or frosted flakes from Latin America.Ultra Foods 2012

About to close. A Tony’s supermarket replaced it a little while after and has been in business in that location since. I don’t have any after pictures to go with this before image. All of the Ultra Foods in the Chicago area, its entire market, seem to be gone, closing in the years after this one.

Up the road a piece — the same large suburban artery — was the site of another closed grocery store, though I forget which. Dominick’s, maybe. Soon Mariano’s would be there.

Marino’s has been in business since then. I don’t have any after images for this before picture. I go there more often than Tony’s. Got some fine pies, Mariano’s does.

Three More Walker’s Point Churches

Despite Sunday’s walking tour being exterior only, we were able to go inside three churches that day. One of them, Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, wasn’t actually on the tour. Walker's Point, Milwaukee
Walker's Point, Milwaukee

It was, however, about a block from where we parked the car for lunch, and after eating we had a few extra minutes for a look. Mass was about to start.Walker's Point, Milwaukee

One church I mentioned yesterday, Iglesia Apostolica, happened to be open when we passed by on the tour, because the service had just ended. We asked whether we could take a look, and one of the men at the door — he might have been the pastor, or not — told us we could come in, absolutely. So we did, about a dozen of us. Though a church building for many years, the interior was spare, almost wholly unadorned.

Then again, a church is its congregation, and in those terms the place was well adorned. The church was still full of people, all socializing, entirely in Spanish. All ages were represented. It was a living example of U.S. Hispanic Protestantism, which is in a growth mode — as were some other churches on the tour.

A little while later, as we passed St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which curiously placed in the middle of the block rather than on a corner, a woman at the door invited us in. I believe she was a friend of the guide.Walker's Point, Milwaukee Walker's Point, Milwaukee

It was originally a Lutheran church, and originally in a different location.Walker's Point, Milwaukee
Walker's Point, Milwaukee Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Note the scaffolding, buckets and fans. A few weeks earlier, as the roof was being replaced, wind blew off the tarp keeping the rain out — when no one was around, apparently. In came water, and much damage resulted.Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Does insurance consider that an Act of God? I doubt the parishioners do — more like an act of carelessness on the part of the tarp hangers.

Walking By Walker’s Point Churches

The walking tour we took Sunday was to look at churches in the Walker’s Point neighborhood of Milwaukee. When I signed up for it, I imagined we’d walk around and go inside a handful of churches, as we’ve done on the tours we’ve taken in Chicago.

But no. As I looked at the list of churches handed out by our guide, I thought — we’re going into all of these? Nine churches were on the list. Then it dawned on me that we’d be walking past all of them and not seeing their interiors.

That was a little disappointing. Still, despite the steamy heat of the afternoon, our church walkabout had its charms, including Parroquia de San Patricio (St. Patrick’s Parish), completed in 1895.Walker's Point churches

St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church, dating from 1885.Walker's Point Churches Walker's Point Churches

A structure that’s now Iglesia Apostolica, but when the church was built in 1894, it was Vorfreslsers Norski Evangelical Lutheran Kirke. The only surviving Norwegian-style church in the city, the guide said, and then offered some architectural details about what made that so. I can’t remember a single one.Walker's Point Churches

The charming little St. Michail Ukrainian Catholic Church, built as a Lutheran church in 1894.Walker's Point Churches

The former St. Wenceslas, first built in 1883. Now it’s St. Ann Chapel, and part of a Catholic school. The entrance dates from 1914 and, for all its age, still looks tacked on to me.Walker's Point Churches

The Iglesia Evangelica Bautista, originally dating from 1900 as a Norwegian Evangelical Free Church.Walker's Point Churches

All that only goes to show that even in matters of religious sites, time flies, things change.

Walker’s Point, Milwaukee

Over the weekend, we came across a sign for a really full-service vehicle repair shop.Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Higley Motor Co. happens to be in the Walker’s Point neighborhood of Milwaukee, and we happened to wander by the sign, and I happened to read it. Read random things and sometimes you’ll be rewarded with a smile.

On Sunday, we popped off north at about 9 a.m., planning to take a Historic Milwaukee walking tour in the Walker’s Point neighborhood at 1 p.m. Extra time was built in, so we could visit the area on our own for a while, and have lunch.
Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Walker’s Point is south of downtown Milwaukee, and sliced in half by I-94. As Milwaukee neighborhoods go, it’s an old one. The oldest one in fact, according to the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee. A 19th-century landowner, George Walker, lent the area his name. Immigrants have lived there pretty much since day one — one influx after (and upon) another. These days it’s heavily Hispanic.

Old the neighborhood may be, but there’s also evidence of redevelopment in our time, such as this (I assume) apartment building under way.Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Other buildings have been subject to major modification.Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Or may be soon.Walker's Point, Milwaukee Walker's Point, Milwaukee

Soon we dropped by Zócalo Food Truck Park.Zócalo Food Truck Park
Zócalo Food Truck Park Zócalo Food Truck Park

“A range of diverse indoor and outdoor gathering places are woven throughout the project,” says The Kubala Washatko Architects, who designed the park, which was completed in 2019.

“The team repurposed an existing two-story structure into a tavern, serving as Zocalo’s social heart. Food trucks are positioned to create room-like spaces while a garage was converted to covered dining and private event space. Overhead lights, shading devices, game area, and vibrant mural walls create dynamic exterior social zones.”

A number of options awaited us.Zócalo Food Truck Park Zócalo Food Truck Park Zócalo Food Truck Park

We picked Anytime Arepa.Zócalo Food Truck Park

As the name says, you can get the northern South American cornmeal sandwich arepa at that truck. Empanadas, too. We had one of each. They both hit the spot. The same spot, namely that we were looking for a good lunch, which we ate under one of the “shading devices” mentioned by the architect (a tarp over some tables).

Amble in Lords Park, Elgin

Rain fell overnight on Friday and into the wee hours of Saturday, which re-greened the grass some. It’s been dry enough so that I haven’t mowed in a few weeks, but now it looks like my bourgeois householder impulses (as spotty as they can be) are going to kick in, and I’ll be out there some late afternoon soon, adjusting the height of the grass.

But not yet. After the rain, Saturday was warm and a little steamy, but that didn’t keep us from popping out to Elgin for a lunch from Gabuttø Burger, and then a visit to Lords Park in that same suburb. It’s been a few years since our last visit to the place, whose contour rolls slightly and that the city keeps manicured.Lords Park, Elgin

The 108 acres of the park are lush green in July, after recent rains and a rainy spring.Lords Park, Elgin

One of the park’s distinctions is a small zoo, which has existed in one form or another as long as the park — over 100 years. Once upon a time, that included a bear pit, but that kind of animal display has mostly disappeared. The zoo doesn’t have bears at all these days. Except for some large examples, it’s mostly farm animals these days.

No dogs allowed in the zoo — we brought ours on this particular trip — so we didn’t go in. Still, you can see a number of the animals by walking around the perimeter, including some buffalo and elk, besides a few farm animals.

We took a stroll around the park’s large pond.Lords Park, Elgin
Lords Park, Elgin Lords Park, Elgin

At one of the benches under some shade, we saw a family dressed in Sunday clothes, with perhaps another relative or a family friend taking portraits. A young man and woman, with what looked like twin girls, maybe three or four years old. For some of the pictures, the visibly pregnant woman held a set of sonograms in front of her.

At least two quinceañeras and a wedding seemed to be under way. That is, we saw more than one cluster of people dressed for those kinds of occasions, out and about with photographers.Lords Park, Elgin

The actual celebrations were probably in the Pavilion, a handsome structure erected in 1898 to replace a structure that had burned down after only a few months in existence. The earlier building had gone up shortly after local landowners (George and Mary Lord) gave the land for the park to the city.Lords Park, Elgin

We didn’t go inside — events were going on, after all, and we had a dog. The City of Elgin notes in its web site: “The elegant Pavilion features a Victorian banquet facility with hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings, picket doors, large windows with scenic park views, a covered wrap-around porch, and outdoor ceremony grounds with ponds, fountains and wooden bridge.”

Well, we did see the “ceremony grounds,” as pictured above. I don’t know that I’d call Lords Park a hidden treasure, exactly, but it is obscure (unless you live nearby) and a good spot to amble.

The Dixie

We arrived in North Webster, Indiana, not long after 11 a.m. on July 3. We stopped there because the night before, I read the Atlas Obscura item about the Dixie.

“Steamboats first began sailing on the Webster Lake as early as 1902,” the item explains. “In 1914, Captain Joseph Breeck began operating a 65-foot, wooden-hulled sternwheeler named the Dixie, which today is the oldest of its kind still in operation.

“The original Dixie was later replaced by Captain Breeck with the current 76-foot steel-hulled Dixie in 1929, and he continued to operate the ship until his retirement in 1939.”Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana

Eventually, in the early 21st century, a nonprofit acquired the vessel, renovating and updating it, paid for in large part through local donations. Now it makes tourist runs on Webster Lake in the summer months. We caught the 1 p.m. sailing.

The day was clear and very warm, perfect for a lake outing. Dixie wasn’t packed, but a fair number of people rode on both lower and upper decks. Tickets were a bargain: $7 for adults. Good for the nonprofit — it isn’t out to gouge tourists.Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana

Dixie is a sternwheeler, and here’s the wheel. At the stern.Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana

A moment before I took that picture, a boy of about six was standing at the rail, looking down at the wheel. His mother encouraged him to leave, though I hadn’t said anything to her. I was ready to wait my turn.

“He’s fascinated by the wheel,” she said.

“I bet he is,” I said approvingly, but I don’t think she heard me. Managing a small child can be distracting. But if that was his first ride on a sternwheeler, I hope she made note of it on his ticket, and that the family is packratish enough so that he finds it sometime in the 2070s.

As tour boat patter went, Dixie’s taped program was well crafted — a voice talking about the ship, the lake and the surrounding land, with some interludes of peppy but not overwhelming banjo and guitar instrumentals. More actual history than you get on some tours, but not an overload. No intentionally bad jokes, either, but some good detail, especially describing the earlier days of the Dixie.

Capt. Breeck wasn’t a tour operator. He was master of a small working ship, crossing the lake in clement weather to deliver cargo and packages, as well as passengers, such as womenfolk visiting the stores in the town of North Webster. Dixie also carried groceries that it sold, and for a while the captain — clearly a jack of some trades, anyway — operated a small smithy at the back of the vessel.

His successors eventually evolved into tour operators as the surrounding farms gave way to postwar pockets of resort-like development. By now at least three generations have taken rides, including first dates of later married couples, and people taken by their grandparents who are now taking their grandchilden.

Got some views from both decks.Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana
Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana

The presentation’s detail about the shoreline is a bit of a blur — the boat docked here or there sometimes, the captain had his house at this other place, that island in the middle of the lake is owned by some notable Indiana family. The names came and went: Fisherman Cove, Miller’s Landing, Stumpy Flats, Weimer’s Landing.

But my ears perked up during the talk about the two sizable hotels that used to be on the lake. One was the Yellow Banks Hotel.

“A very grand hotel, built in 1902,” says the Dixie web site. “The original hotel and its wooden rowboats were painted yellow… This was a scheduled stop for the Dixie until the early 1960s. In the late 1960s the hotel changed owners and fell into disrepair. It briefly became an Italian restaurant (Novelli’s) in the late 1970s, but was dismantled in 1980. Dillinger and his gang stayed at the Yellow Banks Hotel, probably in October 1933 or April 1934.”

The Epworth Forest Hotel (from the web site).

The Epworth had an outdoor amphitheater. “The Dixie would pickup passengers in this protected cove on windy days,” the web site continues. “In 1955 the Dixie began hosting Epworth Forest’s production of Showboat. Once per year the Dixie became the stage for this off-Broadway play.

“By 1964 the cast and production became too large for the boat. From 1964 through 1980, the Dixie would simply deliver the cast of Showboat to this amphitheater for their annual performance. By 1981 the new owners of the Dixie had cancelled this tradition.”

Both of these hotels were cancelled, too, in the way things are usually canceled, not as the result of some moral outrage, but rather by the course of business. By the late 20th century, the economics of even a small resort area like Webster Lake meant that single-family homes, short-term rentals and condos became the norm along the shore.

Plenty of other watercraft were in the lake on that second day of the Independence Day long weekend. We got a lot of waves from passersby, and most everyone on the Dixie waved back. Us too.Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana

I was out and about throughout the hour and a half or so the tour lasted, though I spent most of my time on the lower deck. My deck companions across the way didn’t, as far as I noticed, get up and move about.Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana Dixie Sternwheeler, North Webster, Indiana

They did shift a few times, though.

In Indiana, You Take Vistas Where You Can Get Them

Our first back yard hibiscus of the summer. There will be many more for weeks to come, since the plants thrive with scarcely any effort on our part.

Before we went to Indiana this month, I got wind of the Hanson Ardmore Quarry Observation Tower in Fort Wayne. Turned out it wasn’t far from where we stayed, so after my jaunt to Lindenwood Cemetery, we took a look.

Tower might not quite be the word. It’s more of a fenced-in observation deck. But Hanson — a part of HeidelbergCement, a German building materials conglomerate no doubt controlled by shadowy billionaires — calls it a tower on the sign. The structure is at the end of a small parking lot that’s open to the public.Hanson Ardmore Quarry Observation Tower

Regardless of the nomenclature, quite a view. Hanson Ardmore Quarry Hanson Ardmore Quarry

It was a Sunday, so the place was quiet. Still, Hanson has been digging limestone at this site for 80 years, and it is a big hole in the ground. Various sources, such as Roadside America, claim the quarry is 1,000 feet deep, but I don’t think so.Hanson Ardmore Quarry

I’d say maybe 300 or 400 feet. Horseshoe Bend is 1,000 feet deep, and this is no Horseshoe Bend. Still, it isn’t something you see very often, a vista into a working quarry.

Lindenwood Cemetery & Johnny Appleseed Park

I didn’t see the grave of Art Smith in Fort Wayne early this month. I wasn’t looking for it, because I’d never heard of Art Smith. Only after reading about Lindenwood Cemetery a few days ago, and some time after I visited there, did I find out about him.

Along with a fun pic.Art_Smith_(pilot)_1915

Art Smith, early aviator, Bird Boy of Fort Wayne. In 1915, he took Lincoln Beachey’s job as a exhibition pilot at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, after Beachey carked it in San Francisco Bay. Smith himself had a date with aerial death, but that was later, while flying the mail in 1926. He’s been at Lindenwood ever since.

An aside to that aside. According to Wiki at least, Smith was one of only two men trained to fly the de Bothezat helicopter, also known as the Jerome-de Bothezat Flying Octopus, which was an experimental quadrotor helicopter.

That tells me that among those magnificent young men and their flying machines — you know, early aviators — Smith must have been especially crazy even in that fearless bunch, whatever his other skills as a pilot or virtues as a human being.

Lindenwood Cemetery dates from 1859, and is the Fort Wayne’s Victorian cemetery. It looks the part. All together about 69,000 people rest there, and at 175 acres, it’s one of the larger cemeteries in Indiana. As usual, I arrived in the mid-morning, by myself.

I did see one noteworthy burial soon after arrival. That is, the memorial itself seemed to make that claim. He founded two churches, so the claim seems to have some merit.Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

It’s a forested area, as I’m sure was intended.Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

With open spots.Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

A scattering of funerary art.Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

A chapel.Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

An occasional mausoleum. I’ve never seen one quite like this one.
Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

An apartment block necropolis? I hadn’t seen one quite like that, either. A more modestly priced option, probably, at least at one time.
Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne

Calvin Smith (1934-88) is remembered by someone. Someone who brings treats, including the North Carolina soda Cheerwine.Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne - Calvin Smith

Which brings me to Johnny Appleseed, promoter of cheer cider. Hard cider, that is, something elided over in school stories about the career of John Chapman, or at least the ones I heard.

A contemporary image.

He too is buried in Fort Wayne but not, befitting his reclusive reputation, among the crowds at Lindenwood. This is Johnny Appleseed we’re talking about. He has his own park.

When I realized I was driving near his grave on Saturday evening before sunset, I took a detour to Johnny Appleseed Park, most of which features standard-issue municipal facilities, such as ballfields and picnic tables and sheltered event spaces. But one section includes Johnny’s grave.Johnny Appleseed Grave

That’s not actually the gravesite, but rather a sign about Johnny Appleseed. The nurseryman reposes on top of the hill behind the sign.Johnny Appleseed Grave

I read the sign and learned a thing or two. I didn’t know, for instance, that Chapman was also a missionary for the Swedenborgians.Johnny Appleseed Grave

“Johnny

Appleseed”

John Chapman

He lived for others

Holy Bible

1774-1845

It took me a moment to notice the apples scattered around the stone. Then I noticed the apple trees planted around it. Nice touch.