Walking to the Bitter End

In my travels for work, I've spied a quaint looking little coffee shop on West Fulton that I have always wanted to check out. A couple of coffee shop junkie friends of mine, Len and Joanne Baron, had told me that this is one of their favorite haunts. So with some time on my hands and an eagerness to spend the morning with my daughter, Abbey and I were off to explore, by foot and by stroller, by 9:15 this morning.

It was a grey day, but very warm for late September in west Michigan.

We left our house and headed down Sweet Street hill to Plainfield Avenue, and followed the Avenue south, passing lots of other pedestrians along the way. Saturday morning seems to bring out more walkers.

We hooked a right at Leonard Street and walked over to the east bank of the Grand River, where we turned south along an abandoned railroad track. At the south end of the track is Canal Street Park, a nice, linear park that follows the east bank of the river for almost a mile. When we got to the park, Abbey popped out of her stroller and walked along side of me.

Part way through the park we stopped at the "ground" that Abbey spied. Since the slides were all wet, and Abbey is a finicky kid, we didn't spend a lot of time there. But I did dry off one slide of her choice with my bandanna so that she could get in a little sliding and some climbing around on the play structure.

From there, Abbey continued walking by my side to Sixth Street, and across the historic Sixth Street Bridge. I was impressed that Abbey had walked a little more than a half mile straight on her short, little legs.

At the west end of the bridge, we came across an elderly couple from East Grand Rapids that were looking for the fish ladder. We invited them to join us, as we were on our way there. We followed the walking path along the west bank of the river south and stopped at the fish ladder along with dozens of other folks. While lots of salmon were trying to breach the dam, there were few in the ladder itself.

We continued following the walking path south along the west bank of the river past the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum and around the elevated walkway that gets a good glimpse of the "horsies" on the carousel inside the Grand Rapids Public Museum.

Once at Fulton Street, we headed due west for seven blocks to our destination, the Bitter End coffee house.

The coffee house certainly has character. The outside has an attractive facade, and the inside has wood panelled walls with lots of curiosities hung upon them. While the atmosphere was very nice, I wouldn't say the same about their product. My latte was stirred, flat and had mediocre taste, and the baked goods were severely Saran-wrapped, generic fare. Abbey's steamed milk lacked any froth.

Perhaps the brewed coffee is better, and maybe the espresso suffered from the lack of passion exhibited by the withdrawn, sleepy barista who prepared it. I'll give it another shot some other day before I write it off as "just another coffee shop."

The other curiosity was that more than half of the dozen or so tables were filled, each with one person (most male) clicking away on their laptops. Nobody talked to anyone else. It was almost like being in a library.

Abbey and I sat outside, and we had a nice little chat with a high school age girl who plays the flute.

After our coffee was gone, we buzzed back to the east on Fulton Street to the downtown GVSU campus. In the quiet courtyard, I let Abbey out of her stroller for some more walking. We enjoyed the fountains and colorful flowers in this protected area.

Abbey found some wire benches and asked what they were. I explained that they were for sitting, so she had to try one out.

Then it was back in the stroller, under US-131, and across the river on the blue pedestrian bridge. On the east side of the river, we stopped for a while to watch a crane lift girders up to the top of the new Marriott going up downtown.

Then we followed the pedestrian pathway on the east side of the river north behind the Amway Grand, DeVos Place and the post office. North of the post office we passed lots of people fishing and even a DNR Conservation Officer checking licenses and creels. One party had three salmon lying on the sidewalk. Abbey suddenly got a sad look on her face and said "They're not moving!" I offered up a quick explanation about how the people are catching the fish to take home to eat, and realized by the look in her eyes that I have a tree-hugging daughter who still has to come to terms that the fish she eats was once a living creature.

Just a little further north we came across something unique enough to take our minds off of the motionless fish. A man sat at a picnic table in Canal Street Park playing a penny whistle.

We stopped to listen for a while before he introduced himself to us. Dave Stuart O'Neil plays an assortment of Celtic instruments. He then pulled out a small, single-drone bagpipe and played Ode to Joy for Abbey. He wound up our little mini-concert by playing a song on a beautiful wooden whistle he said he uses mostly for weddings.

From there we rushed home--up the east bank of the river to Monroe Avenue, Monroe to Leonard Street, then up Taylor Avenue to Grove Street. Grove took us to Plainfield, which we followed back to our neighborhood, taking a detour up Hanover Street to Forest Avenue to Sweet.

Abbey was glad to be back home with her Mommy, and I was glad to prop up my feet after a six and a half mile urban hike.