Ed Dunneback and Girls Farm Market, 3025 6 Mile Road NW, Grand Rapids MI 49544 ~ August 27, 2021

The farm is much more than a sunflower field but the field is magical. We visited initially on August 13 when things were just starting to bloom.

The goats are always ready for you, however.

Edwin Dunneback bought these 170 acres back in 1922 and it has continued to be family-run. His son, Edward, met his wife Helen here at a dance in the barn. Together they had three children. When their only son Michael was killed in Vietnam, the "and son" sign on the barn was changed to "and girls" and it's been that way ever since.

The farm is a wonderful place to visit, and when the sunflowers are in full bloom, areas are mowed, staged, and carved out for all of your photo opportunities. Here are a few of them, some stranger than others 😊

Someone swung a little too hard.

The flowers themselves are the stars of the show.

The temperature was 85 degrees and there was no one else in the field until we bumped into John Gonzelaz shooting a video of the farm. I asked him if he was doing a news story and he answered "yup." That's him in the red shirt in the distance.

(We ended up being in his video for a few seconds and here's a screen shot from that.)

We have it on good authority that he did not pay the required $5 fee to walk the field but he will be providing free advertising for the farm so we won't quibble 😊

We paid our fee afterward because we were already at the field when we saw the sign requiring payment at the market. As we paid a very kind woman asked if we had cut our two sunflowers, and we had not because we didn't know we could. She loaned me clippers and back I went.

Keeping with the girls theme, there's a lot of pink around here. Pink Barrel Cellars is also part of the farm, producing beer, wine, cider and seltzers.

Food, ice cream, produce, live music, and so much more is available at this Farm Market so stop in if you have a chance and experience this historic family farm.

The Farm Website

Meijer Gardens ~ 4/22/21

It's cherry blossom time at Meijer Gardens and its time is brief. Already today the path and the ground under some of the trees were littered with spent blooms, displaying a beauty of their own.

Redbuds, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, and Magnolias were in various stages of flowering.

But overall, the cherry blossoms held sway over the day.

Take a look while you can.

 

Rosie's Diner, 4500 14 Mile Road NE, Rockford MI

October 20, 2023 Update:

At least one of the cars has been sold (one article said two cars were sold leaving the old art studio still waiting for a buyer). Chuck and Dawn Perry from Missouri will be moving the diner next spring and the "Rosie's" sign has already been moved. They plan on restoring the diner and reopening it as a restaurant. So you still have time to view the old wrecks if you want your last look.

July 6, 2023 Visit:

It's been two years since we last visited Rosie's Diner so today we went to see if anything had changed. It's just worse. Nature is slowly taking it over and there are additional no trespassing signs in the windows. But the deterioration has continued.

The faded sign still stands. We'll check in again next year 😔

March 17, 2021 Visit:

How far you have fallen 😔

Beginning life in 1946 as the Silver Dollar Diner in New Jersey, the diner came to national attention as the set of a series of commercials for Bounty paper towels featuring Nancy Walker as the waitress, Rosie. The commercials began in 1970, and sometime during that decade the diner was renamed in honor of its most famous waitress.

Purchased in 1991 by Michigan artist, Jerry Berta, the diner was brought to Rockford and opened for business. Two additional diner cars eventually joined Rosie's and a new owner took them all over in 2006. In 2011, the businesses were all closed and the neighboring Koehn Chevrolet bought the diners at auction. Now they sit abandoned and in ruins. Here are photos from yesterday.

All the diners have been vandalized.

Broken glass lies everywhere.

It's hard to believe there are really security cameras at work.

This side door was broken and wide open. We did not step inside but took photos through the broken windows.

Behind the diners, we found a hole bashed into one of the walls and an old miniature golf course.

The dinosaur looks forlorn.

Before the place was shut down, we visited several times and here are some photos from those better times.

Now it is just a sad and somewhat perilous place to be. The old charm is gone and the magic has disappeared.