Every heart beats true

[austin_dern]

[ Sorry to be late; we were off having adventures. ]

Grand Ledge, Michigan, we figured out I had been to before on a letterboxing trip. But I hadn't been to the town proper until a week ago last weekend; we just didn't have reason to. bunny_hugger's mother pointed out they were having a parade at too early for us, and fireworks at just the right time for us, and that'd be great. We went off in the early evening, not precisely sure where the fireworks would be since the town's web site didn't bother making that too clear. But bunny_hugger took a fair guess, and we found some decent-looking parking and crowds of people gathering, so we couldn't be too far off.

The town's an attractive-looking place, complete with its own Sun theater in the midst of a street block (showing The Fast And The Furious 6, which I'm not sure is a first-run movie, or necessarily a movie) and quite a few shops promoting Yankee Doodle Days and a Mudge's Folly local variety show at the high school. The town also has a bit of amusement park history, as on a series of river islands it once hosted a amusement park including what might be Michigan's first roller coaster, or at least prototypical roller coaster. We didn't have the chance to explore the islands much as they were roped off for, well, fireworks preparation.

We hadn't eaten, and looked for supper in a bar that we chose because it had a great 50's style sign outside; they had a guy playing guitar with an iPod backup and a roster of songs nearly all of which bunny_hugger knew well enough to sing along to. As we waited for supper we worried we were going to miss the fireworks, scheduled for 10 pm, and we did start wolfing down the french fries and (veggie) olive burgers. Some kind soul explained to the singer that the place hadn't emptied out because of him, but because everyone was out looking at the fireworks about to start; apparently he didn't know, or was feigning ignorance.

But we did finish eating and get out in exactly the right time. We were just able to get to the main bridge, roped off for pedestrians, and to have a great view of the fireworks show in the twilight glow.

When the fireworks ended (and we talked about the fireworks shows we saw growing up), we walked back to the other end of the bridge to a beautiful old-style ice cream stand and got dessert just ahead of their closing up for the night.

So it was a lovely town, a great show, and split-second perfect timing on our parts.

Trivia: No one celebrated when Babe Ruth broke the lifetime home run total in July 1921: it was unnoticed that Roger Connor had 138. Source: The Numbers Game: Baseball's Lifelong Fascination With Statistics, Alan Schwarz.

Currently Reading: Ocean On Top, Hal Clement.

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Letterboxing?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It's one of dear bunny_hugger's hobbies. A box, containing a stamp, is hidden somewhere ... well, anywhere, really. From one of the letterboxing web sites you get directions to it. This might be straightforward (``take forty paces along the River Trail and look for the trees fallen in the shape of an E''), or it might be couched in riddles (``find where the street named for a stove crosses the street named for a President''), or it might be utterly baffling blend. When you find the box, you take the stamp and mark it in your journal, and you make your stamp in the box's journal, and enjoy the hike to wherever you are, and the discovery of the secret hidden thing, and the stamps of other finders, and the like.

It's a cousin to geocaching, though letterboxing expects more that participants are going to create their own stamps, and the exact location of the target is more of a puzzle than in geocaching, where participants are expected to swap little tokens with the target box and the exact location is given and finding your way there is the puzzle.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Pride demands that I point out that letterboxing is about 150 years older than geocaching.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

It is, certainly; I hadn't meant to suggest anything about relative ages.