On our actual anniversary, which was Wednesday May 8th, it was business as usual during the day, but later, I picked Robbie up from work, and we had dinner on the river at Morelein Brewing Company. It wasn't the fanciest restaurant around, but we wanted to go because of the views. It was nice enough to dine outdoors with unobstructed views of the river, and Kentucky beyond! The restaurant also sat on the former site of the Cincinnati Reds stadium, and there was a plaque in the restaurant of where 1st base used to be!
After dinner, we walked the Roebling Bridge. Just a few months before, they closed the bridge to vehicle traffic for repairs, but it was still open to pedestrians. I was able to walk right in the middle of it, which was pretty awesome!
We ended the night at Pendleton Parlor for ice cream, just north of downtown! They have a specialty where they incorporate cookie dough and peanut butter into their ice cream! It was a pretty great place that I can see re-visiting several times throughout our many summers in Cincinnati!
That weekend, May 10-12, was the weekend we were heading north to Holland! We left on Friday evening, and stopped for the night in Ft. Wayne, IN. We wanted to split up the drive because it was about 5.5 hours to Holland and we didn't want to be getting in super late. Plus, hotel rates in Holland were really high due to the festival. Neither of us had been to Ft. Wayne before, but the city turned out to be really nice! Our hotel was right downtown, so when we got there, we walked around a little bit, to this place called Ft. Wayne's Famous Coney Island for some hot dogs. This restaurant reminded me of a little 1950's diner, prices included! We ordered two hot dogs, two sodas, and a banana cream pie, and the total was just $8! For the time being shortly after 9pm, the place was hopping! I'd go back if I ever made it to Ft. Wayne again.
We left Ft. Wayne on Saturday morning at 9am, hoping to make it to Holland by noon. The drive from Ft. Wayne to Holland was beautiful, with it being both mine and Robbie's first time actually in the state of Michigan! Michigan was exactly what I expected, super lush and green, dotted with lakes and ponds, at least where we were traveling! We got to Holland at noon, but it took a little longer to park because of all the festival goers.
We didn't really have an itinerary when we actually got to the festival, but driving through the main "tulip area" we saw a park filled with the bulbs, so we figured that was as good a place as any to start our day!
On our way to the park, we spotted a bakery and popped in for a small bite to eat. We both had the best macaroons, and Robbie had what was called a Stroopwafel, made from 2 layers of thin dough with maple or caramel filling in the middle. They were made famous in the Netherlands, which made sense why they were here in Holland, a very Dutch city! We actually came here twice during our visit for yummy baked goods! We also couldn't pass up a cinnamon roll stand either!
We made it to Centennial Park as our first stop, and if this was the only park of the tulip festival, I would have been completely satisfied! I jumped right in, taking pictures and walking around in complete awe. These were the most tulips I had ever seen in one place, and I hadn't even seen the whole festival grounds yet! A cool thing about this tulip festival was that all the different tulips had names so we knew what we were looking at. We left Centennial Park just as the parade was about to start, but we didn't watch the parade. Just before, we had stopped at an information booth, and the lady (dressed in traditional Dutch garb) told us of 3 other spots to enjoy an abundance of tulips. One was within walking distance, and the other 2 we had to drive to get to.
We did the one within walking distance first. This park was called Window on the Waterfront. This park had even more tulips, but they were spaced differently. These tulips were more in rows of the same colors. I had more opportunities to take better pictures and really get up-close with the tulips. Also, this park wasn't as crowded as Centennial Park.
After we got back to our car, we headed to an even bigger park...nay....farm, called Veldheer's Tulips. When we arrived, there were bus-loads of people being dropped off here. We parked in a field and had to walk quite a ways to the entrance. We even had to pay to see the tulips! The lady at the information booth told us that here there would be fields of tulips, so we had an idea of tulips growing like wildflowers. We were sort of correct, but there was more organization to it. Once we paid (and after seeing a sign that if we picked the tulips, we would have to pay $100 per bulb! They take their tulips very seriously around here), we saw acres of tulips, in rows, much like the Window on the Waterfront park, but MUCH bigger in size! When we paid, we were given a map and told that if we wanted to purchase bulbs, each row of tulips would have a number assigned to them, and if we liked them, to write the number down and order the bulbs at the end with a sales person in the barn. Ok! When we got back into the pasture of tulips, it was such an overwhelming feeling! Here we stood in front of all the tulips one could ever imagine being in one place; I hardly knew where to start! Robbie and I browsed the rows of tulips and jotted down the numbers of the one's we liked, including, of course, red and yellow, which were our wedding colors! After a while, Robbie decided to sit back and let me frolic amongst the tulips myself and take photos to my heart's desire. I went all the way to the back of the farm, enjoying all the rows of tulips, and even adding more numbers to our order list! It was such a fun way to spend the day!
After exploring this farm, we were going to go to the 3rd park, but it started raining towards the end of our 2nd stop, so we just decided to call it a day. The 3rd stop would've had us seeing the largest working windmill. We were in Holland for a good 5 hours, and we thought we saw a lot in that amount of time.
That evening, we had a hotel reservation in South Bend, for much of the same reasons we stayed in Ft. Wayne on Friday night. We wanted to head further south that night, and hotels in Holland were still astronomical in price. We drove out of Holland in a rainstorm, and it followed us all the way to South Bend. We had a hotel in downtown that night as well, and it was nice to get there at a decent time and have the rest of the evening to relax.
The next morning before we made the rest of the journey home, we stopped to take a self-guided tour of the University of Notre Dame. UND is right in South Bend, so it was really easy to get to, and not out of our way at all. Let me just say, this campus is beautiful! It reminded me of what I think an Ivy League school would look like. All the buildings looked so pristine, and the landscaping was top-notch! We believe that finals had just finished and most of the students had already moved out for the year, so it felt like we had the whole campus to ourselves!
Football Field
Sports Complex. We were hoping to see the basketball arena but they wouldn't let us in there.
Views of and from the library!
The beautiful chapel!
The Tulip Festival was the best way to celebrate our anniversary this year! It was so awesome to be there and see all the beautiful flowers blooming in abundance! I'm so glad our wedding flowers were tulips, and that we try to incorporate them into our celebration of love each year! Next year is double-digits already! Sometimes I can't believe that we have been married that long, but at other times I feel like time has just flown! Life and love is surprising like that!
"I'm much more me when I'm with you." -Unknown
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