Cool Rockford

Today we left "The Bus" in the Elkhart Campground and drove the Blazer to Rockford, Michigan, just North of Grand Rapids, about a two hour drive from Elkhart. Our good friends and former neighbors in Kansas, Fred and Gayle Merz, moved here a few years ago.

This is their home in Rockford. That's Carole and Gayle upon our arrival "hamming it up" in front of the garage door. They have a beautiful new home on the edge of Rockford, which is a small town, very clean and orderly.







We had lunch at Red's On The River, a really nice restaurant in downtown Rockford. We all had a delicious shrimp chop salad for lunch on the outside deck overlooking the river. That's Gayle, me, Fred, and Carole getting ready to dig in.











After lunch, we walked around the downtown area. Rockford is such a "cool" town. Carole says the downtown streets and shops look like they are right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. A river runs through the downtown, where there is a dam surrounded by a very attractive park with beautiful gardens and quiet benches on which to relax. And all of this is right downtown where you can easily walk from store to store, many of which are quaintly restored shops.







Below on the left is Fred leaning on the fence along the river. Below on the right are Gayle and Carole relaxing on one of the many benches along the river walk.

















It was nice to spend the afternoon with good friends . . . and Rockford is indeed a "cool" town. In fact, I think Carole would move here . . . but I reminded her that in the winter the snow gets pretty deep around here.

So we left "Cool Rockford" in the late summer afternoon and headed back to Elkhart in time to arrive at "The Bus" before dark.