Note: This is a "blast from the past" post as we work our way backwards to catch you up on our previous destinations. We recently hit the road again and are working our way toward Denver by way of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and New Mexico. We will not be doing any "real time" posts until early March when we visit Kansas. Kansas will be the first of 19 new states that we will visit this year in the final leg of our adventure.
Visited July 26-30, 2020
By Janell
As you might've guessed by its name, Holland, Michigan owes its existence to Dutch Americans. It was settled in 1847 by Dutch Calvinist Separatists who were escaping persecution in the Netherlands.
As of 2017, the state of Michigan had the largest Dutch-American population in the country; accounting for more than 10 percent of the 4.5 million Americans with Dutch ancestry.
Holland, like its namesake, is very much into tulips. They have a Tulip Time Festival each May. This festival was started in 1930 when 250,000 tulips were planted. Now there are six million tulips throughout the city! It's really too bad that we weren't there in May -- I bet it's a sight to see! But what I'd like to know is, who counts all these tulips?!
In 1988 the city of Holland rebuilt 8th Street (the main street in their business district) and its sidewalk system, installing a thermal snow-melting system! 168 miles of tubing coiled beneath the concrete make it the largest publicly-owned snowmelt system in the U.S. (A number of countries in cold climates have similar heated streets/sidewalks, but Holland seems to be ahead of the game in the U.S.)
One last fun fact about Holland: it boasts the world's largest pickle factory. The H.J. Heinz Company opened their factory in Holland in 1897 and currently processes over 1 million pounds of pickles per day during pickle season.
We visited the New Holland Brewpub on 8th Street (of course we did!)
"Do these make my feet look big?"
Hey, those aren't tulips! They look like zinnias to me.
Holland is very near Grand Rapids and very near where Marty's nephew Brian Hooker and his wife Lynette live. Brian and Lynette own this sailboat (below) that they keep in a slip on Lake Michigan, and they were kind enough to invite us for a day out on the lake. And what a beautiful day it was too!
A perfect day!
A couple of the other little cities that we liked near Holland were Saugatuck and South Haven.
This sign was outside a corner eatery in Saugatuck.
(Of course, this sounds best if you sing it to the tune of "We Will Rock You", by Queen.)
The following three pics are from South Haven:
Really?!
"And who might you be?"
