From Canton to Amish Country to Paris to Chicago and Back
As we headed into the last third of the year, I was afraid that finding new experiences to do monthly would be difficult. It did not appear so for September and October!
As a last hurrah for summer, Sophia and I headed to the Fun Garage in Canton, MI. Described as an entertainment center, we played laser tag, bumped and spun in the Spin Zone and tackled the Ropes Course. Sophia tends to go to a Ropes course yearly with Girl Scouts, but I realized that I had never been to one. New experience – check!
What did I learn from this? I’m not afraid of heights and you should not wear espadrilles to a ropes course. Despite this, fun was had by both of us!
From there, my friend Jamie and I were off to Berlin, OH, the Heart of Amish Country, for a half marathon. While the half marathon was it’s own adventure ( https://adventuresinbucketlisting.com/2019/09/09/holy-hills/ ), the new experience of the trip was an Amish Buggy Ride! It’s hard to comprehend that this mode of transportation and way of life is still the norm. It was a little too slow-paced for me, but after 13.1 miles, I was happy to be sitting down!
My next new adventure was in Paris, France. After a few days of sightseeing and 36K in races in 3 days, we had 2 more days in Paris before heading home.
Loving Van Gogh, I persuaded my Mom and Jamie to go to the Atelier des Lumières to see an exhibit. We arrived at warehouse type building with a large line of people – Google Maps had not failed us. Described as:
The new digital exhibition in the Atelier des Lumières immerses visitors in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), a genius who was not recognized during his lifetime and who transformed painting. Projected on all the surface of the Atelier, this new visual and musical production retraces the intense life of the artist, who, during the last ten years of his life, painted more than 2,000 pictures, which are now in collections around the world.
The exhibition explores van Gogh’s numerous works, which radically evolved over the years, from The Potato Eaters (1885), Sunflowers (1888) and Starry Night (1889) to Bedroom at Arles (1889). The Atelier des Lumières highlights the Dutch painter’s expressive and powerful brushstrokes and is illuminated by the bold colours of his unique paintings.
I was super excited, Mom not so much, but we headed in and it was amazing. Surreal, all encompassing, consuming, are all words that sprung to mind. It was beyond anything I had every seen or experienced before!
Not to be outdone in October, we were off to an ACE Comic Com in the Chicago Area. Not being a huge super hero fan, this was definitely a first! I enjoyed the people watching, meeting Tom Holland and Taron Egerton, but definitely did not like the long lines and the fact that nothing was on time. It was a long day, a unique experience, but unless Jason Momoa or Tom Hiddleston shows up, probably not something to be repeated.
2 more months of 2019 Experiences to go, can you guess where my experiences will take me?