Back from vacation! We spent last week in Holland, Michigan, in a
rental cottage near the beaches of Lake Michigan. I’ve
blogged before
on my love of Michigan’s west coast, so I won’t belabor that point.
Suffice it to say we added Holland to the list of Michigan towns worthy
of a return. It’s got beaches, dunes, and a quaint downtown.
We took a day trip up to Muskegon to frolick among the roller coasters
of Michigan’s Adventure. In my boyhood, the great theme park to which
people in my area pilgrimaged was Cedar Point, in northern Ohio. I’m
very glad Michigan has its own adventure to rival the mighty Cedar
Point. I much prefer the smaller, more intimate setting (an "intimate"
theme park: ha!) with smaller roller coasters and, best of all, smaller crowds forming shorter queues for the rides.
I’ve been a roller coaster hater all my life, and as a kid always
experienced Cedar Point visits with deep ambivalence. My misanthropic
tendencies are stimulated by such places, although now in mellow middle
age I’m much less offended by the sight of thousands of slovenly-attired
thrill seekers passing docilely through livestock chutes. My son, Der Drübermensch, seems to be an apple falling not far from the tree.
He also showed a dislike of roller coasters, and was somewhat irritable
all day. Fortunately, we finally did find a water slide ride that we
could all enjoy, and that gave us an upbeat ending to our day.
As we were leaving we stopped at a Dippin' Dots ice cream stand. The
aural environment had been dominated all day by pop music, with a bias
toward the most inane and nostalgic, but suddenly, to my great surprise,
Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man blasted majestically (superfluity
alert! Can FFTCM blast in any other way other than majestically? Okay,
I guess
it can)
from the loudspeakers. A kind of retrograde ennobling of
the entire day’s activities occurred in a flash. Our experiences with free
fall and g-forces became heroic tests. Good for us.
Labels: Holiday, local