My Summer Vacation (2002)
photos and commentary by Victor Fitzsimons
with some pictures by Brian Fitzsimons

Ah, summer vacation.  Don't have too many of those nowadays, eh?  It's understandable.  As people get older they have more obligations: making money, getting educated at a higher level, keeping themselves busy so they don't go mad.  But don't you remember when you were a kid and you could do as much or as little as you wanted for about three months every summer?

Yes, it's a summer vacation, and I'm pretty sure I just had my last real summer vacation.

Not having a job for a summer is both a good and bad thing.  Well, the bad things are that you don't get any money and you don't have anything to do.  But the good thing is that you don't have anything to do, so you can do whatever you want (assuming it's within your financial limitations).  Well... I suppose the things I did this summer I could have done any weekend... but hey, it's what I did this summer, so I'm going to tell you about it.

Well, what could be better than the annual Festival in downtown Grand Rapids?  It's a fun time: you can walk around and eat, walk around and talk to people, sit around and listen to music or various other performances, and leave after spending all your money.

Ah... I call that one "Kevyn in the Big City."  Although Grand Rapids isn't a really really big city, it's bigger than many, and definately bigger than Mt. Pleasant.  We got to the festival about an hour before the festivities started, so we walked around GR and enjoyed the crowd-free environment until we could enjoy the crowded environment.

I just thought that these pictures looked nice.  I mean, come on, doesn't the bottom one look like moody album art for some alternative rock and roll band?  Well, anyway, at least they give you a sense of setting.  Ah, before all the crowds, of course.

Ah, yes... Festival is a great chance to sit around and check out the performances.  I believe these pictures were taken at the Rosa Parks Circle Theatre or whatever it's called.  Actually, there wasn't much going on there.  We sat through some dance school's performances.  They had a couple of good dancers but it was pretty standard tap-dance-to-popular-music and stuff like that.  And I do remember that we heard some good classical guitar in the art museum, which was definately the highlight of the performances we saw.  Oh, right, and we even got our cameras confiscated.  I mean, we went in the art museum the first time without incident--somebody at the door just said we couldn't take any pictures.  But the second time somebody ran up the stairs after us and grabbed our cameras.  Well, whatever.  Not like there's much to take pictures of besides people's heads in that auditorium.  And we did get our cameras back.

Later in the day we saw this guy and a couple others exercising their 1st Amendment rights.  Hey, whatever.  I deal with people like that all the time at school.  It's all pretty harmless.  I just thought it made an interesting picture, that's all.  I think we tried to make it to one more performance, a band called Donkey Punch or something like that, but there was a Jimmy Buffett cover band playing before them and either the stage was running late or that band was running late.  Either way, we didn't have time and needed to leave, so we left.  Ah, what a fun day, eh?

Ah, who are those two big fellers up there?  Anyway... I'll explain all that later. The point is that we made a kind of ritual run across the Michigan-Indiana border to buy some fireworks that aren't allowed in Michigan, and made some other stops along the way.

Brian, putting gas in our cruiser, a Ford Windstar minivan.  Yeah, that's right: a minivan.  Hey, don't knock it... it's not so bad to take road trips in minivans.  There's plenty of space, it's a reliable car (since neither Kevyn's, Brian's nor my car are trustworthy for very long drives on account of their ages), and if you need to you can take a nap in one of the back seats.  Anyway... Brian did the driving.  We drove past the Indiana border talking about whatever it was that came to mind... me probably talking about Kerouac since I'd just read "On the Road."

We stopped at a tourist information place inside the Indiana border, where we bought a map (or took one, I can't remember if they were free or anything) and tried to figure out how far we needed to go down the road.  Brian and Kevyn took smoke breaks while I stood on a picnic table and took pictures of them smoking.  Ah, and after seeing the middle photo, Brian realized that there was something silly about where his left hand is.  But I suppose it wasn't intentional.  Anyway, I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out if you look at it hard enough.

Anyway, we thought we were going the wrong way to the fireworks place but it turns out we took a back way in.  We bought all the things that satisfied our pyrophilia (but I didn't buy anything... I'm not keen on exploding stuff I guess) and ate at Chili's in Michigan City before heading back to Michigan... where we made an unscheduled stop at Holland State Park for a walk on the beach.

Ah, what fun.  As you can see, we walked out onto the pier where we sat around and watched people, boats, and the lake, and then walked down on the beach where Brian and Kevyn got wet pants.  But not me: I was wearing shorts!  Well... I got wet shorts.  And we all got sand-crusted feet.

Walking around on the beach is pretty hot work, and that would explain the big shirtless fellers a few screens up.  Ah, it did feel good... regardless of whether it looked good or not.  This trip inspired another trip the next weekend to Grand Haven State Park for a day dedicated to increasing our chances of skin cancer and goofing around in Lake Michigan.   Yes, I did get a nice sunburn on my back for all that, but it's all right: it was a fun day.  I remember that after all that we saw a Rampage game, where sitting the the Van Andel Arena's seats set my back on fire.

Ah, but that was a different weekend.  After checking out Holland we stopped at a mini golf place (called Sundae Sundae Golf Golf or something like that) and then back home, where it was time for a nice shower.

Later on, an amateur observatory out by Cascade had an open-to-the-public night which was a lot of fun.  It was a decent distance from most of the city lights, so there were plenty of stars to look at, but afterwards Kevyn was tired, so we dropped him off and went on our first visit to Easttown, where all the hip young kids like to go in Grand Rapids.  That night was probably the best night of my life: we walked around Easttown and at 1:00 AM, we got into The Intersection for free (either because Brian gave the bouncer/guy-at-the-door a sought-after unfiltered cigarette, or because it was 1:00 in the morning and how much money are they going to make after 1:00?  A band called 8-ball Grifter or something like that was playing a pretty rockin' show, and all the people in The Intersection (not much more than two dozen) were having a great time.  And it was a great time.  After all that I treated Brian and myself to a late meal at Denny's, because we hadn't eaten in 12 hours by then.  And I went to bed thinking that this was one of the best days of my life.  And, all things considered, it really was.

It was a hazy Friday morning when we left for a night in Ontario.  Looking back, I don't know if I had fun or not, but I know it was definately an experience.  Anyway, I suppose that explains the parking stub at the top of this feature.  It may look like we went to London, England... but we didn't.  Although, there is a Thames river in London, Ontario.  I guess it was a place where nostalgic British Canadians could try to recreate their former home town.  Who knows... all I know is that it's closer than Toronto and in a foreign country.  Oh, and it's a city of comparable size to Grand Rapids in the middle of a vast range of farms.  I mean, it's like they're playing a joke on people like me: coming out of these farms you suddenly see fairly tall buildings in the distance.  How could a city that size just spring out of nowhere?  Well, maybe it has something to do with the highways it's near or something.

We got hassled at the border going into and out of Canada, and I guess I can understand.   I mean, two kids driving to London for one night, with nobody to stay with... kind of sounds like we're going to buy some drugs (or sell them, whatever) or smuggle something.  Well, our vehicle was searched at the Canadian customs/immigration office, and they asked us some questions inside.  Too bad they didn't search our persons... it would have been more exciting to get our first pat-downs.  Anyway, what I learned from all that is: proof of citizenship is either a birth certificate or a passport, and without those you'll get hassled.  I also learned that while I may be able to purchase alcohol in Canada, I'd rather not drive all that way just for that.  I guess the next time I go to a foreign country I'll try to make it someplace interesting.

So, we finally arrived in London.  We got there kind of fast because we followed Canadian drivers who drove close to 90 mi/hr... which is something like 40 km/hr or so over the posted speed limit of 100 km/hr (60 mi/hr).  I figured out later that 140-something km/hr equaled 30-something meters per second.  That's pretty fast, eh?  Anyway, we drove around town but decided that we'd better find the first hotel that has a double room for a reasonable price.  And I guess it didn't get much more reasonable than the hotel we found.  I think it was called the American Motel, and a double room for two people was $60 a night (Canadian dollars, mind you).  I think the pictures do most of the talking.  The only that I didn't like was the flies.  There were no roaches (phew!) but there were some flies, and when I'd try to sleep they buzz around my ear or land on my arm and it was quite annoying.  We where thankful we found a room, and we were tired so we wanted to take a nap before the night's activities, but couldn't stand to stay in that room for much longer so we went back out.  Brian got a haircut (see photo below) and I bought my first six-pack of beer while he was getting groomed.

Lessee... after Brian's haircut and my purchase of Beck's, it was time to explore downtown London on foot.  We parked a bit of a walk away from downtown (see parking stub at top of feature) and ate at Casey's.  It was pretty good food.  Brian had a beer.  I had a root beer.  We both had sandwiches and fries with gravy (the Ontario way I guess).  It was good food, but we wanted to find a nice place to hang out and kill time.  We walked around downtown in search of a worthy establishment, and finally found one just across the street from Casey's (which we forgot to check out I guess).  I can't remember the name of the bar, but it was a quite a nice place.  I had my first Guiness beer--like a meal in a glass, it's so thick, and as black and nearly as bitter as coffee (except, well, it tastes like beer, not coffee).  We would have had a lot more fun, but we were both too tired to stay until the place got really busy.

So we trekked on back to our car and the hotel farther down Dundas street.  On  the way to our I got into a prolonged converstaion with some guy on his way downtown to panhandle for cigarette money, and Brian talked with some cracked-out lady who took his orange soda from him (you'll have to ask him yourself to get the whole sad story).  Apparently the guy I was talking to was going through cancer treatment somewhere else (and he really did look like he had cancer), was down to his last two ciggies, but his welfare check didn't come until Monday and he needed another pack.  He kinda told me his whole life story.  I listened considerately.  In the end, though, all I had was 30 cents to give him.  We eventually left and got back to our hotel room, where we tried to sleep.

Of course, I mentioned I purchased a six-pack earlier that day.  Well, since I didn't want to take it back across the border I decided I'd let Brian drink in the bars and I'd drink in the hotel room.  And drink I did.  I think I drank five beers in probably less than an hour.  I was knocking them down, to be sure.  But it really wasn't a good idea.  After finishing my five beers I tried to sleep.  I think I slept for two hours and woke up at around 12:30 AM thinking it was time to check out.  But it wasn't: I had another 11 hours to go, and I couldn't get back to sleep.  So I watched some Canadian TV.  Did you know that CityTV (I think it's a Toronto channel) has soft-core porn on in the early mornings?  It might have just been on weekends, but in any case it was... entertaining.  And there were also crappy cartoons on later... well, one of them wasn't so bad.  The "Spawn" cartoon is all right, but the others they had weren't good at all.  I think it was before 5:00 AM that I started feeling a bit urpy and stood over the toilet for a while, wondering what was going to come out.  But in the end, nothing came out, which is just fine with me.  I think I was able to sleep after 5:00 AM, which means I got 5 hours of sleep.  At 10:30 we checked out and it was time to drag ourselves back home.

Boy, look how sleepy I was... well, we were both pretty sleepy.  We ate breakfast at Tim Horton's and brought a half-dozen bagels with us for road food, got gas at a full-service station (which I don't like because I like getting my own gas) and drove back across the border.  We had to answer questions going back, too, but they didn't make us get out of the van.  They did ask us to recite the "Pledge of Allegiance," though.  Anyway, the point is, they let us back in and only confiscated an apple we took in to Canada that Brian didn't eat.

Well, in the end, I don't know if we had fun in London or not yet.  But it was an experience: we stayed in a seedy hotel, bought some alcohol, had fun at the border, and, well, drove a lot.

These were the main events that occured this summer.  Oh, sure, there were a couple other things: watching the downtown GR fireworks and getting yelled at later by complete strangers; a couple visits to Easttown, one of which ended the best night of my life, the other ended at a party somewhere in the west side of GR; and all the other things I did but can't remember right now.

I think I'll end this feature with just a random picture of a cow.  I mean, everybody likes cows, right?  Click on the cow to go back.  And remember: HAGS!