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At the bend in Wealthy Street at the Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling plant (right edge of the photo) the biking/walking trail can be seen passing along the boundary of the former Butterworth Landfill to the left (south) of the pylons. The City of Grand Rapids proposed added trails across the buried waste in their 2010 pdf planning document. More recently in the early Covid years the planners surveyed city residents about other possible uses for the open space. Building a solar farm has risen to the surface as the central government of the city aims for reducing carbon pollution by government vehicles and buildings, but also to support small business and industry, as well as households to do so. The mid-September city hall newsletter says a grant for infrastructure relating to a solar farm was received by the State of Michigan. Construction begins spring 2026. This mid-morning view Monday morning early in September shows much of the expanse. It continues to the left, nearly to the banks of the Grand River, and it also continues a short distance left of the photo (east).
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With early morning shadows stretched so long, the view rising to the treetops is simple but also dramatic. The divided highway running in parallel to the Grand River is US-131. The video clip pans from north to west to south, where a few of the multi-story buildings of downtown Grand Rapids mark the skyline.
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Highways are such a common experience in 2025 for most people that the concept, design, creation and maintenance of them is taken for granted; as if they always have been here and will remain this way forever. So it is hard to imagine or appreciate the first generation of highway drivers - going beyond the posted speed limits of smaller roads.
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This view from the 2nd baseball diamond is pointed to the northwest. So most of the school play equipment along the back of the school is visible under the canopy of leafless trees of late April. The grass is marked for different age categories of youth soccer leagues - bigger fields for the older ones, smaller for the younger ones.
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Launching from the parking area of the elementary school around 8:30 this morning, this view shows the north boundary of the Fair Plains Cemetery [equivalent to Elysian Fields in English?], operated by the City of Grand Rapids. The L shaped patch of rough grass is a few years of an experiment to plant native short-grass prairie to allow insects, birds and other small creatures to find food and shelter in the city limits. It is mowed at the start of the growing season, but otherwise requires little maintenance, unlike the neatly cropped lawn throughout the rest of the grounds, shaded by leafy trees.
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The picture lacks detail due to the vibration of the quadcopter and low lighting. Best results come with abundant light, but this view gives a glimpse of the whole of the boardwalk wetland in middle September as annual (mostly nocturnal) bird migrations taper off.
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Bridge Street changes its name to Michigan Street at the left edge of the photo where the bridge reaches the riverbank and the main Post Office can be seen stretching left and out of the frame. The prominent building at the center is the convention hall, Devos Place.
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For the Holystone hd175d hobby drone the launch sequence is to pair the drone to the handset, then do the compass rotation on both the horizontal and the vertical axis (shown here), and lastly await nearby cellphone tower signals to lock the GPS position. When all lights are green, then the handset is ready to unlock the rotors and the launch.
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First it is treetops that feel the sun's light. Down below semi-light makes the scene visible. Very soon the sun is above the horizon altogether and very long shadows are cast toward the west.
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Two of these TR918 aircraft were produced but N5916A (s/n 9180) crashed on 5 April 2006 and was not repairable.
Patuxent River Naval Aviation Museum
Lexington Park, Maryland
Before the bypass opened in the 1980s, they say that US-27 ran from Florida to northern Michigan with only 2 or 3 stoplights. One of them was in St. Johns at the intersection of M-21 and US-27. So the heavy traffic of Memorial Day and again for Labor Day, possibly Thanksgiving, too, there would commonly be traffic backups for 1/4 a mile, sometimes longer. In 2025 those lines are a thing of the past. But the passing business was a great loss to the small businesses along the highway, too.
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Among the Japanese the rising sun is worth waking early to see since it is the first glimpse of what the day may offer. In this way of thinking, the setting sun may dazzle with changing colors, but it ends in darkness - the end of the day's promise. But for the residents and vacationers along the west shoreline of Michigan, as the sun sinks and the colors begin to show, the rich display is a sort of reward for the day that now is done; all work (or play) now finished and the time of rest and refreshment about to begin.
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Moving multiple lanes of business and pleasure travelers across the city, this big road fills the photo at mid-morning, long after the surge in commuter traffic has dissipated. With very little rain accumulation since spring, the river is low today.
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Hovering above the towers of Harrison Park school, this view also shows several cars parked in front, maybe with others out of sight in the rear of the property. Although teaching staff follow a school calendar similar to the students, there are a number of administrative and office staff who report to work all year.
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The first few daylight hours offer calm flying conditions for the drone camera. By 10:00 the wind was strong enough to send old leaves skittering on the street and flags on poles to flap.
This view at the north end of the long, narrow Riverside Park along the east bank of the Grand River is looking north. The traces of ice a week or two ago have melted and the water level has risen steadily with upstream meltwater joining the river's course to reach Lake Michigan.
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Shortly after 7 a.m. this launch from the parking lot near the ball fields at Riverside Park, opposite the Veterans Home, shows the many trees, the slow-moving and low-water of the Grand River this summer, and the stream of traffic on US-131 beyond. As the lens swings around the circle the old (brick) and new (clapboard) premises of the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans comes into view along Monroe Avenue, too.
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Just a short distance from the bay of Lower Herring Lake the long view to the north shows the curving shoreline that reaches just beyond the breakwater at Frankfort after which the lakeshore veers back to the north-northeast to the lighthouse at Point Betsie and onward.
At the top right corner of this photo some low-hanging fog lies still due to the cool air hovering above the warm ground. Now that summer resorters are gone and deer hunters have not yet appeared the big lake and little lake, both, are quiet and the migratory birds and the spawning fish can go about their annual business with little interference.
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Using the drone's camera, this hand-held video clip shows the size of the earthmoving operations preliminary to the foundations and the erecting of the buildings here at the northeast corner of Leonard Street and Lafayette Street in the northeast quadrant of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Up goes the drone camera to altitude for a series of shots, rotating 20 or 30 degrees before each exposure to form an overview of this position, just north of downtown Grand Rapids above Monroe Avenue. The brick building along the right edge of the photo has large white letters near the street, "600" for its block numbering.
In between the giant rainbows painted on the ground of 555 Monroe, an outdoor event location, the giant white letters are visible to curious drones and from passing aircraft (and the satellites 60 miles above that supply Google Satellite views).
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Aberdeen Street runs along the right edge of the photo. That will be the primary access for cars and buses to pick-up or drop-off students. So the removal of some of these trees and the old building will be one of the last stages of the building project.
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This view from about 100-feet above ground level shows some of the trails and former gravel mines now filled with water. The city center of Grand Rapids is to the left of the photo about 4 to 5 miles away.
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It has been a couple of months since the westbound lane from Alpine for 1/4 mile has been removed and utilities replaced. Soon the lane will be restored and then the eastbound lane will be the one blocked, forcing drivers to detour around the workzone.
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508, Hermes 450 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), Singapore Airshow, Changi Exhibition Centre, Singapore
The Friends of Watts Meadow commissioned a drone flight to map the woods - great to watch a really impressive bit of kit and find out what it can do.
The big, long Grand River flows along the valley bottom just beyond the line of large buildings in the distance. These are part of the health care in the city of Grand Rapids. Now nearing the last days of March, many trees have buds ready to flower and then leaves to grow out to capture solar power into biological energy by means of chlorophyl and photosynthesis. Once the tree canopy fills out, most of the buildings in this 100' view will be hidden.
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Thursday, September 4, was a quiet start. Only a couple dozen vehicles filed into the parking area to the left of this drone photo. Many of the early morning visitors came with strollers and preschool children.
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Sometime before 1900 the rocky ledges forming a series of rapids in this mile or so of the river led to the construction of a canal to bypass the hazard and allow vessels to rise or fall to the surrounding water level. Later this land came to be today's "Canal Park" seen in this video clip as crews prepare the site by leveling the old park to make way for a new design.
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The evergreens in the lower right corner of the photo are easier to imagine by looking at the shadows, rather than seeing them from altitude and looking down on them.
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5357, Heron 1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), Singapore Airshow, Changi Exhibition Centre, Singapore
By accidently pressing the video "record" button before launching the aerial drone, about a minute of useless video was captured. But part of the segment was the actual take off. This excerpt from the longer digital file is just the seconds of leaving the ground.
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The most recent period of glaciers from 10,000 years ago flattened much of Michigan's surface. It also rounded the rough edges of stones and bulldozed sand into long lines of deposit that modern excavators dig up for mixing into cement, among other things. This view from the drone's lens shows a vast pit now accumulating water from snow melt and rain storms, year after year.
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Young trees line the curbed entrance and exit lanes of the parking area now nearly complete. In the top left of the photo is what seems to be a water feature, maybe a wetland pond theme with small creatures and the authentic mix of native plants suited to shallow water like this.
Near the super-sized dump truck at the right, there is still a box-shaped fence to protect the mature tree from being bumped and, by extension, to protect its roots from being crushed by the heavy equipment moving around nearby.
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Several people have come to greet the river, see the fish ladder in action, and possibly catch sight of a late migrating fish on its way up the river. According to the city webpage for the park late April to late August there are few fish moving. Things pick up at the end of August as first one species and then another travel up the river. See also, www.grandrapidsmi.gov/Directory/Places/Parks/Fish-Ladder-...
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Along this west end of the school property the sports fields should still be in use. But at the opposite end there will be a shiny new 2-story school that is able to teach the young people from two locations - today's Palmer Elementary and the one visible at the right edge, Aberdeen Elementary.
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Pearl Street stretches from the drone position sloping westward to the bridge across the Grand River and onward to the rising land of the far side of the river valley.
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Drones initially are conceived for military use, these Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have gained prominence for their commercial uses, from mapping, video, and photography, to crop monitoring and protection.
The Future Of Drones
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Extending into the distance is Diamond. The street intersecting it near the baseball field in the middle is the east-west Dorroll Street. On the horizon near the corner of the photo is the city of Grand Rapids downtown with its multistory buildings rising above the horizon.
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The series of pits, east (here), center (behind the camera), and west (even further along behind) lines the north side of Butterworth Street SW as it runs from Grand Rapids to Walker and points west.
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Unlike the careful cultivation of short grass on the putting green and tee locations, as well as the rough grass outside the route of the golf course, the same land now is taking on a wilder look ever since coming into the hands of the Blandford Nature Center nextdoor.
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