Patriot's Day in Michigan

The school children at Waukazoo Elementary School do this every September 11. Each class sets some American flags into the ground near the school to remember the victims of the terrorist act in 2001 that took down the World Trade Center towers. There must have been about 500 of them. We stopped here on the way back from a walk by Lake Macatawa early this afternoon.  It's a nice way to commemorate the event that took place eleven years ago today.

PW and I went to Howard Dunton Park to walk about, see some new territory, and perhaps catch a whiff of the pickle factory across the lake.  Unky Herb and Santini took the opportunity for a bike ride through the countryside.  Dunton Park is one park I had not visited before, but it was a pleasant experience walking along Lake Macatawa on quite a windy afternoon.

On windy days like today the gulls face into the wind, even when the wind is coming from the Heinz pickle factory in Holland.  That's a huge pile of coal in the background that will be used by the local utility to generate electricity.

After a dinner of take-out Chinese vittles we were able to get most of the tribe to take a walk to Tunnel Park.  It was my third trip there in the last two days.  The trek to Tunnel Park got us to the top of the dune where all the running up and down can be done.

Most of the same group clowning at the top of the dune at Tunnel Park.

There was some running up and down the dune and even a sprawling face first dive by Nikki, without damage, before we made our way back to the cottage on the mountain where we meant to watch another sunset.  Even I, as the oldest member of the group, ran down and then up the dune again as I had earlier promised.  The run up was quite a bit harder than anticipated, but it encouraged Nikki, Nancy, and T.J to duplicate my run.  No one got hurt.

We made it to the deck in time for sunset and for some photos.  The sunset photos were pretty good, but I don't think as good as last night's.  I left them on the cutting room floor this time.  Instead I like this shot of our hostess sitting on the deck just a few minutes after sunset.

It was a fine day in southwest Michigan on one of my many vacations from retirement. I'll be playing tennis again soon.