Bay City

We left the history museum and next headed for the Midland Historical District of Bay City.  The above picture sums up our afternoon pretty well.  We started at one of the largest antique stores in the area.  The stuff in that store is amazing; massive Flemish furniture with wood carvings and stained glass, old organs and pianos, as well as copious dishes of every shape and color.  I informed John that should I see anything I like,  I will purchase it and we will have to stop our gypsy life.  It is difficult to look at all that beautiful antique furniture and know that there is no way it would fit in our motor home!  Laurent Brothers candy store is across the street from the antique store ( it is the tallest building in the picture above), that did seem to be our next logical stop- we were in need of an afternoon snack.  The candy company (aka the "nut house") started roasting peanuts in 1904, and since then has moved on to homemade chocolates and other candy as well as ice cream.   As we found out, they do make excellent treats.  The fountain pictured above is located at where the Third Street Bridge use to be.  The bridge was the major crossing between east and west Bay City for many years.  It was a wooden swing-span bridge which, in July 1868 alone, the city recorded a total number of  2,689 vessels that traversed up and down the Saginaw River.  It had been replaced once and restored several times over the years. In 1976 it "spectacularly collapsed" (information obtained from the interpretive sign at the wharf).  I took the picture below  from that area looking toward the Liberty Bridge.

Liberty Bridge and Veterans Memorial Bridge are the two bridges which now serve the city.  We crossed both bridges and wandered around a bit before we located Veterans Memorial Park   The city is not all that big, so we didn't have to cover many miles in our search for the park.  At the park we noticed a stand of bleachers near the river's edge.  Apparently boat races are a big event in Bay City, as well as a fire works display on the fourth of July which can be seen from both sides of the river.  From Veterans Memorial Park it is possible to see Winona Park and the downtown area of Bay City. The white oval in the picture is a fountain placed in the park to commemorate Bay City's community spirit of friendship and giving.  We also walked around that park.  It was a nice ending to our day in Bay City, a city which has a lot to offer a tourist.