August 1, Three Rivers Farmers' Market

An Amish family (old order, horse-and-buggy people) that sell their produce at the Farmers' Market tie up their horse in the shade of some big oaks by the St. Joseph River. Across the water is a park and the local canoe livery. This area has a very large Amish population, not on the usual tourist track.

Best-preserved Victorian Streetscape

Passthrough showing the fountain and the north mural (the other one is on the south side) looking toward the intersection of Portage and North Main.

HISTORIC DISTRICT
The Downtown Three Rivers Commercial Historic District has one of the best preserved Victorian streetscapes in southwestern Michigan. Three Rivers, settled in the 1830s, grew with the development of local water poser and a railroad in the 1850s. St. Joseph Street (North Main) and Penn Street (Portage) formed its business center. The district's oldest structures, built on North Main in the early 1850s, are the Kelsey building (39-43) and the Crossett-Spencer-Millard building (40-42). The district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

At the bottom it says

Bureau of History, Michigan Department of State
Registered Local Site No. 1315
Property of the State of Michigan, 1986

Riviera

The Riviera Theater downtown, a completely refurbished 1920s movie theater, now showing all sorts of old and new films -- and opera! "Aida" and "La Traviata" so far.

Crop Circles

Just outside of town is a large park, Meyer-Broadway Park, a great place to dogwalk and a nature area preserving many native trees, wildflowers, birds, butterflies and animals. In the winter, several steep hills are great for "tubing". Recently the park has become riddled with patches and paths for an enormous (and constantly expanding) frisbee golf course.

This section of oldfield is part of the course -- but it looks more like a crop circle!

Mural

A passthrough with a fountain links the downtown with the park. There are large murals showing local scenes on both walls, initially created by Conrad Kaufman in 1999.

Idealized; I've never gotten so close to a blue heron! However, I have paddled right up to sandhill cranes. They are pretty fearless.

Waymark for the fountain and murals: N 41° 56.727 W 085° 38.088

A Little Whitewater

Canoeists negotiate the small dam and whitewater section of the Rocky River in the park behind downtown. They made it through but the next group got hung up on the rocks! This is just past where a race channel was diverted from the Rocky. The race goes under an old power house that now houses a coffee bar. The power it would have provided is no longer used, but boats cannot pass under the building. The race and the river channel go under Michigan Ave and join the St. Joseph River in Scidmore Park.

Shadows

An old fire escape on the back of one of the buildings downtown casts a complex shadow.