Vacation: The Mitt — Holland (Part 2)

Prior to our trip, I had reached out to a couple of friends who live in Michigan. After having “known” them online for over 4 years, I was pretty excited to possibly meet them in-person.

I wasn’t certain what we were going to do with each other. Like, an activity to be a distraction in case we totally hated each other. First time in-person meetings can be a little scary, you know? Tony doesn’t bother with that kind of social nonsense, he just assumes everyone loves him. Which is great, because then I can go along with that mindset and pretend like I felt that way all along, all confident and happy and stuff (not neurotic and worried, nope).

So, after we landed and we were following the directions my friend (we’ll call her Amanda) sent me via text to avoid the road construction as we headed toward our hotel in Holland (but, you know, could TOTALLY have been directions to the nearest funny farm), and I said to Tony, “I sure would like to get a swim in.” Tony casually suggested we invite my friend, Amanda, and her family over for a get-together at the hotel pool. It was the perfect solution. I mean, who doesn’t love a pool party? And, if you hate each other, just dunk ’em, mess up their hair and post it to social media. If you love ’em, have your 4 year old splash ’em, mess up their hair and post it to social media. Awesome!

As it turned out, the hotel pool was pretty nice! They even had a private yard outside the pool that has trees and green grass and a side of BBQs, picnic tables and a couple hammocks to go with it. (Look! A silly selfie I found on my phone that Tony took of himself in one of the hammocks!) And, even better, the impromptu pool party invitation was well-received by my friend, Amanda (and her two kids) and they came over to the hotel to play! Also, my friend’s 4 year old son is going to be the next Thomas Edison, so he was enthralled by the light in the pool and spa which changed colors. I pretended that every time it changed color it either zapped or tickled me, but he wasn’t buying my silliness.

I guess our first date went well, because my (now) in-person friend invited us to meet her husband at Windmill Island the following afternoon for a picnic. We were so excited! The first thing we did after Amanda left us was to locate the local WALMART and shop for picnic stuff! Plus, if you know anything about us, you know we love to explore WALMARTs in any new location.

Our visit to Windmill Island was just as fun as our pool party was the evening prior. We got to hear their organ play (the 4 year old people in our party covered their ears because LOUD), we toured their windmill (they even started the windmill because there was a breeze), we had our picnic, played on their playground and the kids rode the carousel. And then, when our picnic was done, we hugged several times (because once wasn’t enough) and I silently cried inside that we had to leave each other.

After Amanda and her family left, we hurried to our car (after visiting the gift shop, using the bathroom, taking pictures, tracking down wayward family members who went in the movie room, herded everyone out, took more pictures) and got on the road. We passed 8 mile road, 9 mile road, 13 mile road, 18 mile road, 19 mile road… seriously, Michigan? What is with the roads that are in increments of miles? I kind of wanted to buy a 100 mile road and name it Million Mile Road, just to confuse everyone. That would be funny, right?

As we drove past all the mile roads, we somehow ended up behind a road painting truck that everyone was scared to pass, or maybe it is illegal to pass them? Or maybe they were afraid of somehow injuring the road worker and having to pony up to pay the $15,000 fine for seven years that the road signs threaten. I’m not sure, but everyone stayed behind that truck and … well, if I were the painter on the truck, I’d kind of be annoyed at that and would probably get performance anxiety and then all my lines would be crooked and I’d start painting in Morse code or something. The whole thing kind of made me laugh because “TRAFFIC JAM” in Michigan, people!

We did finally make it to our next stop on our road trip, albeit, a few minutes later than anticipated. Because TRAFFIC!

–To Be Continued —