A Walk Through the Creek

I was home for the week and enjoyed a walk down memory lane in Battle Creek.  I'll comment on the pictures as they go by.  Almost all of them were taken from basically the same vantage point, only changing which direction I take the pictures.



 This WAS Cereal City USA.  I never entered the building, but I did pass by it about a thousand times in the bus, on foot, biking, and driving.   You can see they are gutting it out in this picture.  Soon it will be the Battle Creek Mathematics and Sciences Center.  So when I visit my old teachers I'll have to get used to this new location.

 This is a picture looking West-ish.  I've always thought he weeping willows look really cool at this distance. 

 This is a view that is almost 180 degrees from the other one.  Another weeping willow draped over the river.  Both pictures were taken from a bridge.  On either side of the bridge it looks like city, but along this stretch of river it's really pretty.

 This is just to the right of the other picture (the same pine trees on the left).  It's Kellogg's HQ and it's a very interesting building in downtown.  I've been through the place a couple times back when Rob worked there.  One time we stopped there on a road rally to grab a laptop with a card that could grab internet from satellites.  Now most people have access to it on their phone.  Just one more thing that changes.

 The river.  I think they like to put rocks alongside of it because they're prettier than this scraggly stuff.  I kind of like this though.  I remember riding my bike as fast as I could down the path on the left (just above the rocks) and under the bridge.  Then it would turn out that the river was high and there could be as much as 3 inches of river passing by.  I used caution after that.

 The Cereal City building is just to the left of this picture.  You can see a construction barricade in the picture.  I like the stone work they did on that pipe.  Made it stand out in a good way.  Like someone might have made it centuries ago. 

 This is a bus stop.  Not the pillar in the middle, but at the first light post in the background.  Now the road just loops off of Michigan Avenue (the main drag) and then around back onto it.  When I took the bus it had access to the other main road in town.  It's kind of odd to have the road just stop in the middle of town.

Another angle of the bus stop.  I remember waiting here many times.  It felt safer than some of the other bus stops I could choose from.  It was also a good place to work on my skateboarding tricks.  Which consisted of riding my skateboard.  I could go down curbs well, but I could not ollie to save my life.

 This is the building across from the bus stop.  It used to be Rapid Eye Art Studio or something like that.  Now it has no markings on it and it looks generally abandoned.  I know my dad brought me here a couple times to get my brother some nice art supplies. 

 And this is Pizza Sam's.  My youth pastor works here on the weekends and I spent some time chatting with him while he swept and mopped.  Funny how much it's like camp.  Late night chatting while sweeping and mopping. 

Other highlights from the trip include a road rally, installing a hose hanger on the side of the house, cleaning up the gutters a little bit, and the Water Festival.  I should explain the Water Festival a bit.  It's sponsored by local businesses and several levels of government as a way to teach kids about water.  All kinds of lessons about water from where it goes when you flush, how we affect it with our construction projects and landscaping, and how to conserve/preserve it.  I went to the first one in 2002 as a high school junior, and now I help coordinate the high shoolers.  It's just a bit of running around Kellogg Community College along with some slight problem solving.

Blogging may hit a snag as summer catches on.  Two more weekends of retreats.  Pray that we finish preparing camp for the summer months.