[10-12 November, 2022]
I’ve written about Ryan before (see this post), and this past weekend, he, his dad (also Eric), and I drove up to the western side of Michigan for a campus visit to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. Being that it was his dad’s alma mater, WMU had made it to his list of colleges to consider for a degree in Business. And having not been to that part of the state, I tagged along for a fun road trip.
On arrival Thursday mid-afternoon, we walked about the main campus and made a few stops in several buildings (student services, bookstore, rec center, etc.). The main tour was on Friday morning and we wanted to get an early peek at the newest notable additions to campus (at least since his dad went there in the early 90’s).
Dinner that night was at Principle, a nice classic American restaurant tucked away in an old renovated brick building in downtown Kalamazoo. Food was good, but not unforgettable; a solid 7.5/10.
On Friday, after a quick stop at Maggie’s Cafe, an old campus haunt with an impossibly long breakfast menu, it was time for the main campus tour: an enthusiastic dog-and-pony show complete with an hour plus-long, 2-mile hike across campus. It was capped by a detailed introduction to the Haworth School of Business, which was what interested Ryan the most. Overall, it was a fruitful visit, Western was an excellent school, and I think a good match for Ryan. Was it the one for him? That remains to be seen.
The trip’s bonus for me, though, was what happened afterwards. Eric’s brother, Jason, invited us for a tour of the Holland, MI seat plant operated by his employer MillerKnoll, famous for its midcentury modern classic line of home and office furniture by Herman Miller and Knoll. Anyone who knows me (and has been to my house) knows that being at a MillerKnoll showroom is like me being a kid in a candy factory, When even the factory’s men’s room is furnished with the George Nelson platform bench, I know I am in the right place!
After a quick but informative tour of the company’s seat assembly factory, Jason took us to the Company Store where several price-discounted company products were sold “as-is”. Unfortunately, I didn’t find either of the couple of things I was looking for, and ended up leaving empty-handed.
It was sushi dinner at the end of this busy and very exciting day back in Grand Rapids where we had booked an overnight stay before the drive back home on Saturday. But not before a stop in Ann Arbor, my own favorite Michigan city, for an obligatory pilgrimage to that temple of fine foods, Zingerman’s. But we ended up just buying a few sweet treats to take home; the wait for deli sandwiches was at 100-110 minutes, perhaps due to the home game that day, and a bit too much even for a die-hard Z fan like me. So it was Korean lunch for us instead at Miss Kim, a Zingerman’s-owned restaurant next to Kerrytown.
In the end, it was a fun-filled, packed, multi-faceted weekend road trip with good friends, all 700-plus driven miles of it. Hopefully, it was as memorable and rewarding for Ryan, wherever his future college plans may take him.
