Lansing

Our adventure for the day was a trip to Lansing to see the state capitol building. It's an imposing building that looks like many of the capitol buildings we've seen. Elijah E. Myers, the architect for this building, went on to design the Texas and Colorado capitol buildings too.

First we watched a very instructive video about the history of the Michigan capitol building. This is the third one; the first was in Detroit. The second, when the capital moved to Lansing, was a "temporary" wooden building. The cornerstone for the current building was laid in 1873, and the capitol was dedicated in 1879.

Our tour started on the glass floor under the rotunda. The guide invited the children (and anyone else who cared to) to lie down and look up at the starry sky represented at the top.

One of the highlights of the tour was this portrait of President Gerald Ford. Although he was born in Nebraska, Michigan claims him because he grew up in Grand Rapids and played football for the University of Michigan (go, Wolverines!).

We also saw the house and senate chambers and the governor's office and the old Supreme Court chamber, now used for meetings of the Appropriations Committee.

One of the things we found most impressive is that the building--both originally and in its renovation in the 1990s--featured common materials like pine and plaster dressed up by the artist's hand to resemble walnut and marble. Many of the walls are meticulously hand painted, and the wood is hand grained. The result is an appearance of opulence without unnecessary taxpayer expense.

When we finished our tour of the capitol building, we noticed a sign advertising Plowshares into Swords, a special exhibit at the nearby Michigan Historical Museum in honor of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War. Our guide gave us a map and pointed us to the museum. When we got there and parked at 4:15 p.m., we found that the museum closed at 4:30 p.m.--but they started closing from the third floor down.

So we hurried to the third floor and worked our way though some fascinating exhibits on Michigan history, finally finding the Plowshares into Swords exhibit on the first floor. It was actually 4:45 p.m. when that exhibit was closed, so we got a quick tour of the entire museum. If we had done our research in advance, we'd have gone earlier and had more time, but we enjoyed our brief visit.

On the way home we stopped at a roadside stand and got some delicious Michigan peaches and green beans.

We had been planning to go to Ann Arbor tomorrow to visit the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. Unfortunately it turns out that although the library is in Ann Arbor, the museum is in Grand Rapids. Most presidential libraries have both components in one place. Oh, well. Now we know what to do the next time we make it to Grand Rapids.