Scidmore Park Petting Zoo
140 W. Michigan Avenue- Three Rivers, MI 49003
- (269) 273-1845
- Website
A few years ago, someone told us about a free petting zoo in Three Rivers. The annoying thing we found is that there is almost no info about this place online. Whenever I did a search, I’d come with stuff from 2010 and newspaper articles talking about the zoo falling on hard times.
Earlier this month, I somehow stumbled on Facebook page for the Friends of Scidmore Park Petting Zoo. At least I knew it was still open, but again, there was very little information and no information on when it was open.
We really wanted to check this place out with L, so I put a message on their Facebook wall and got an answer pretty quickly. The good news was that it was open Saturday and Sunday from 10AM to 5 PM.
Three Rivers isn’t all that far from Kalamazoo, so heading down there before I had to go to work on a Saturday wasn’t going to be an issue. J woke me and we got out of the house by a little before 11:00.
We arrived at the large park on the corner of Michigan Avenue and Spring Street just to the west of downtown. We found a little parking lot off of Spring Street which is situated between the petting zoo and a really nice playground that we let L climb on for a while before we left. Read more…
Boardwalk Subs – Wyoming
901 Gezon Parkway SWI hate getting dinner for co-workers. I do my best to sneak out at dinner time. It’s because I’m a jerk..well, maybe a little, but I just hate the hassle. Multiple credit cards, only having a $20, odd requests…I just freakin hate it.
The other night, I had to run an errand on my dinner break and a co-worker knew it. He was insistent that I pick him up dinner. I did everything I could to be nice about it, but he just wouldn’t let it go. I finally just got blunt. He still didn’t care. After I left, I got bombarded with text messages telling me what he wanted from a place I wasn’t even sure I was in the mood for. I finally relented and just did it to shut him up.
My travels took me out to the Menards in Wyoming. Near the intersection of Clyde Park and Gezon Parkway is a little sub shop. That’s what C.W. was asking for so after I made my quick stop at Menards, I headed through the Target parking lot to cross Gezon.
Boardwalk Subs isn’t new to me. I’ve eaten at the Standale location several times and really like the place. It’s similar, although not the same as Jersey Giant Subs. I didn’t realize there was one in Wyoming though so when C.W. started talking about it, I thought he was going to make me go to Byron Center. I was a little less annoyed when I saw that I was actually going to be close to one. Read more…
Taqueria San Francisco
691 Capital Avenue SWYou know that old saying “When it rains, it pours”? Yeah….that’s been my week.
Our roof has been leaking for a while and we are just finally getting someone to fix it. I’ve tried a lot of different things to stop the leak, but I’m really not that handy, so it took my fifth or six try, a week before the roofers were finally coming before I got it right.
On Saturday, I wanted to get my lawn mowed, so once I got up, I headed outside to tackle the lawn before I went to work. I opened the shed door to get the lawnmower and out ran a chipmunk. I didn’t think much of it until I pulled the cord to start the mower and it was running really rough. I thought maybe if I just let it run, it would work itself out, but a few steps in, it died on me and I couldn’t get it started again. As I just explained, I’m not handy, so we loaded the mower in to the back of my truck for a trip to Battle Creek.
I always seem to have pretty good luck when I deal with the Battle Creek Sears store and since my mower is a Craftsman, I wanted to bring it back there to get it fixed. J and L decided to take the road trip with me with the intention of stopping somewhere for lunch.
As we were were leaving Sears, I asked L what she wanted to eat. She emphatically yelled out “Quesadilla.” J’s first thought was Nina’s Taqueria, but, of course, I had another place I wanted to try.
Taqueria San Francisco is near the corner of Capital and Columbia on Columbia a block or so north of the intersection. It’s a small building along a busy street that shares a parking lot with an office building next door. Read more…
The Lunch Box
232 E. Bard RoadIn my line of work, sometimes you go without a dinner break, sometimes you get lucky and find a gas station with a sub shop. Luckily for a co-worker and me, we found the latter the other night.
We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere in Muskegon County with no chance for a break where we could go find someplace to eat. On our drive, we passed a gas station near the US 31 Exit at the Russell Road exit which is somehow still a Muskegon address. We did have time to make the 10 minutes trek back that way. We both needed to find a bathroom and at the very least, grab something to drink and a bag of chips.
I went inside the McCormick Food & Gas on Bard Road, I noticed a little hallway which led in to another room. A sign on the door said “The Lunch Box.” I had no idea what that was, but after grabbing my Pepsi, I headed back down the hall to see what was there.
The Lunch Box is a small “build your own” sub shop attached to the gas station. They’ve only been open a couple weeks, so we got real lucky. We were both resigned to a big bag of chips being dinner, so I don’t think it really mattered what kind of sandwiches we were about to get, it was going to be better than our other options. Read more…
Wagoner’s Deli – Mattawan
24064 W. McGillen AvenueEvery time I write a blog about chicken there is someone who sends me a message saying I must go to Mattawan and get chicken from the grocery store. I always say, sure, I’ll keep that in mind and honestly, I always do….but how good can grocery store chicken be?
L and I spent every morning this week in Mattawan for a soccer camp at Mattawan Middle School. After camp on Wednesday, I decided to stop by the store and pick some things up that J had been asking me to do all week.
Wagoner’s is the main grocery store in the small community of Mattawan. It’s on the corner of McGillen and Main just to the north of downtown.
Wagoner’s is a small grocery chain with other locations in Lawton, White Pigeon and Bloomingdale. The Mattawan store is fairly large for a small grocery store.
After picking up the few items I needed, L and I headed back to the deli. The hot food case is pretty small, but I saw a pile of chicken sitting there. It was just after 11:30, so I figured it couldn’t have been sitting there too long. They also had some of the usual sides and chicken tenders to go along with the fried chicken. Read more…
Main St. Pub – Mattawan
52879 N. Main StreetSomehow, L has been watching a lot of British cartoons on Hulu. Her favorite recently has been something called Peppa Pig. She loves that show for reasons we can’t figure out. One of the things that come up often in that show is soccer…or as they call it, football.
Before she ever got in to the show, J suggested I sign L up for a soccer camp. It’s about the only sport we could find for her age group and even though I’m not a huge fan (or really a fan at all) I decided to go ahead and do it.
Last Monday, we started soccer camp..which L called football for half the week through Kingdom Sports. The camp was at Mattawan Middle School and only lasted about 45 minutes. J was really excited to see L run around and play soccer with other little kids, so she made the holiday weekend a little longer and took the day off so she could go the first day.
The camp ran until 11:30 so it was right about lunch time when we were packing up and heading home. J suggested we find something along the way. I knew there was a Main Street restaurant back near the Interstate and we’ve always had good luck with their other restaurants in the past.
The Main Street Pub in Mattawan is in a small strip mall on Main Street just north of the I-94 interchange. It’s in the back part of the development that also houses Chin Chin Asian Bistro and NaDene’s Coffee and Bakery. There is a little room to park along the side and in front of the building, but the large parking lot in back also has an entrance in to the pub. Read more…
Maude’s Taphouse
117 E. Allegan StreetLong weekend means we need to get out of the house. J took an extra long weekend for the Independence Day holiday so she didn’t have to get up for work bright and early Monday morning like she usually does. Without the worry of having to go to bed early, she suggested we take a little road trip somewhere.
We came up with just going to Grand Rapids and taking L to the John Ball Zoo. It has been four years since J and I have been there. We took my niece back before her little sister was born….so it’s been quite a while.
L tired out pretty quickly at the zoo. We made it through most of the exhibits before taking the Funicular back down to the entrance and heading home. J asked if there was anything we could pick up to eat in the car, but anything I could think of wasn’t open on Sunday.
It’s a good thing we just got moving, before we even made it to the highway, L was passed out. She was exhausted. J and I were both hungry, but we weren’t going to wake L just so we could eat. I decided to give it some time and she how long she stayed asleep.
On our way to Grand Rapids, J had noticed a billboard around D Avenue for Maude’s Taphouse in Otsego. I had looked at it online a few weeks ago and they weren’t open for lunch at that time. By the time we made it close to the Otsego exit, it was after 3:00, so I assumed they would be open. I asked J if she wanted to pull off and get dinner. L had been asleep for about 40 minutes at that point and I assumed she would be waking up soon.
Maude’s Taphouse is in downtown Otsego on Allegan Street (or M-89) just to the east of the intersection with Farmer Street. We pulled up to a parallel parking spot on the street and the open sign was flashing in the window. Unfortunately, L was still asleep and my attempts at waking her up were pretty pointless. She shrugged me off twice and turned over essentially telling me to go away. Read more…
Giuseppe’s Pizza
106 W. Superior StreetIt is rare that I get to work a shift during the day. Really rare. In fact, I haven’t done it since L was born 2 1/2 years ago.
This past Friday, Independence Day, I was scheduled for a day shift. J could have worked, but she decided to take the day off, so I didn’t argue with being scheduled during the day. I was scheduled to do a job I don’t normally do and I assumed it was going to be a pretty easy day.
Near the end of the shift, J sent me a message and asked if there was anything I could pick up on my way home for dinner. I had a couple ideas, but there was a pizza place in Wayland I drive by often yet have never stopped at.
Giuseppe’s Pizza is on Superior Street in downtown Wayland right near the corner of Superior and Main Street. It’s a small building that is about 90% kitchen. There are two small tables along the long hallway that leads back to the cashier area.
I called in my order before leaving Grand Rapids and when I walked in the store in Wayland about 25 minutes later, the two pizzas were coming out of the oven. I had ordered a 16″ thin crust cheese pizza for J and L plus a 14″ Inferno Pizza for myself. The cost was just under $30 with a large chunk of that coming from the specialty pizza. Read more…
Captain Sundae – Holland North
365 Douglas AvenueHow awesome is it being an adult? I mean, you can eat ice cream for dinner and no one can you not to.
Earlier this week, a co-worker and I were in Holland waiting for our next appointment. We had about 45 minutes to kill when she asked me how close we were to Captain Sundae. I looked on the map and saw we were only a few minutes away. We were going to go pick up dinner….like actual dinner, not ice cream dinner…but what fun is being an adult if you can’t have ice cream for dinner every now and then?
Captain Sundae has three Holland area locations. We were closest to the Holland North location on Douglas Drive. This location is actually pretty awesome as it’s on the route you would take to Holland State Park.
It was kind of a cold and dreary Wednesday night, so there weren’t many people in line for ice cream. The shop is a pretty typical summer ice cream stand with a walk up service window and outside seating. As the name suggests, the theme of the shop in nautical. There’s even a big boat behind the shop where you can enjoy your delicious treat. Read more…
Wing Kingz – Wyoming
1802 28th Street SWMan, why won’t any of these wing places expand down this way? I was driving down 28th Street in Wyoming this past weekend on my way to work when I saw a familiar sign.
Wing Kingz is just another addition to all the confusing chicken wing places in the Grand Rapids area that sell the same things yet all call themselves different things.
The Wing Kingz stores are the newest addition to the wing landscape and the Wyoming shop is on 28th Street just to the west of Burlingame. The small store shares a building with a party store and it used to be a Shark’s Fish and Chicken.
After eating at the Wayland location a few weeks ago, I knew what I wanted, so I called in an order as I was driving back on 28th Street towards 131. The man who took my order said it would be about 20 minutes. I would have been a little bit early, so I ran an errand while I was waiting for my wings to cook.
When I walked in the small shop, my wings were waiting for me. The restaurant is tiny. It’s mostly carry-out with two tables squeezed in.
The cost for 12 wings and a pound of fries was a little over $10. I paid with credit then continued on to work to enjoy my lunch. Read more…
SW Michigan Dining 
