IEAFCS Michigan Bus Trip--Day 1

After traveling the length of Illinois to pick everyone up--Mt. Vernon, Effingham, Champaign, and Matteson-- a bus loaded with 29 IEAFCS members and friends headed further north.

Lunch was at Cracker Barrel in Hammond, Indiana, and dinner was at the W. K. Kellogg Manor House Estate near Kalamazoo, MI. This "summer home" was built by W. K. Kellogg and his wife in 1925. From 1944-1950 it was used as a rehabilitation center for the Percy Jones Army Hospital, and was eventually donated by the Kellog Foundation to Michigan State University. It has been developed into the Kellogg Gull Lake Biological Station. We learned lots of other interesting information about the Kellogg family, and enjoyed a delicious meal--one of the best of the trip!

                                                                                  

After dinner, the group headed to the Western Michigan Art Glass Center. This mural on the outside wall caught the attention of some of
our former Nutrition & Wellness Educators. The wording on the large jar is: "I could have watched her hands all day, peeling the tomatoes, squeezing them to extract the last drop of summer from each one. She shuffles around the hot kitchen, trying to find the jars her mother gave her, swinging her hips with the same motion, the same full anticipation, as a ripe tomato on the vine, skin pulled tight, against the hope of preservation, the peeling down of generations, the same glass jars for each one." Meredith Adams.

Instructors at the Art Glass Center then helped everyone design a coaster or sun catcher made of pieces of glass. Some toiled very diligently on their individual works of art.

          

Others spent some of their time learning to play a Kazoo. Remember we were in Kalamazoo!

However, in the end there were many beautiful designs that were left to be fired in the kiln and mailed later. Then it was back to the hotel for a good night's rest.