(bright music) - Hello, everyone.

Here's what's coming up on this episode of Destination Michigan.

A journey of light, culture and wonder is waiting at John Ball Zoo in Grand Rapids.

We'll take you inside the dazzling display that's been lighting up West Michigan.

Next from lantern lights to light speed, we're taking you to Detroit for a Star Wars popup that is out of this galaxy.

Then they're a feast for your eyes if you can spot them and bellies, we go hunting for morels and explain the secret to finding this elusive fungus in our state forests.

These women skate fast and hard.

We'll bring you an inside look at the wild world of roller derby with the Central Michigan Mayhem.

And the water temperatures might be low, but spirits are high in Osceola County.

We'll take you to the icy tradition making a splash at Center Lake.

- [Narrator] Support for Destination Michigan is provided by the CMU Bookstore.

(upbeat music) T-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, maroon and gold memories, and an official outfitter of Adidas apparel at the Central Michigan University owned and operated CMU bookstore.

Online shopping seven days a week @cmubookstore.com on campus at the University Center and Game Day locations at Kelly/Shorts Stadium and the John G. Kulhavi Event Center.

(bright music) - Hi, and welcome back.

After a long winter spring has finally sprung here in Michigan, the flowers are blooming, the birds are chirping, the bugs are flying, and summer will be here before we know it.

In Grand Rapids, something magical is lighting up the night, a walkthrough the Lantern Festival at John Ball Zoo is like stepping into a story glowing with energy, art and conservation.

Jamie Mankiewicz takes us on a stroll for an up close look at the incredible illuminations.

(light music) - [Jamie] As the sun sets in West Michigan, most of the John Ball Zoo animals call it a night, and that's when the grounds transform into an after-hours world of culture, community, and connection.

(melodious music) - The zoo is always looking for new ways to get people to come to the zoo and enjoy the zoo and while they're here, learn something about conservation and all the work that we do to protect our animals that we have in our care and their natural habitats and hopefully feel inspired when they go home.

So we're really looking at a way to utilize the zoo when we weren't normally open, so we knew we wanted to do a nighttime event.

- [Jamie] The gates open and guests wander into a world of wonder as zoo grounds light up with these stunning glowing displays.

Giant butterflies and flowers illuminate the path.

Nearly everything you encounter feels alive.

- It was a really great fit to bring Tianyu Arts and Culture, which is our lantern festival partner inn.

They custom design all of these lanterns and build them into our site.

It's really custom-made and special for us at the zoo here, and it's a really great way to engage people to get them to come during a time that they normally wouldn't come to the zoo and experience the zoo in a whole new light.

Literally.

- [Jamie] When we arrived, the sun was still setting, but the scenes were still stunning.

It gave us time to get an up close look at the artwork.

Even with a little daylight left as we walked along with the crowds, the sunlight grew fainter and the colors became even more incredible, with people from all walks of life soaking in the experience.

- My favorite part of this event is that it's really something for all ages.

I see so many families coming in, bringing their kids, thinking their kids are gonna have a great time, but then I see the adults acting like kids again and really letting loose and having fun, which is really fun to see.

And I have senior groups that come in and I have college kids, I have first dates.

It's really something for everybody and I think people are pleasantly surprised at how much they can play with when they're here and hopefully it provides a little bit of escape for people and maybe they can tap into their inner child a little bit.

- [Jamie] This one mile pathway is a one of a kind event and the only place to see these custom handcrafted works of art in Michigan.

- [Darcy] We have new themes, we have lots of mythical creatures, we always have the Chinese culture section.

You can find your zodiac and your animal counterpart and learn all about the Chinese culture.

We also have our insect section.

We have a jungle section this year.

So it's great that it changes up every single year.

- [Jamie] This incredible display does not happen overnight.

It takes months of meticulous planning and countless hands working together to create.

Each unique piece is crafted by hand and placed with purpose.

- Setup takes about six to eight weeks.

We start by loading in probably 12 to 15 semi-trailers full of lanterns.

And then from there we map everything out.

Before that happens, we take months and months of planning with everybody in the zoo, making sure we check with animal care teams to make sure all of the animals are unaffected by where we put things and make sure that the route flows well for guests.

And once the lanterns are actually on site, we unload all of them from the semis and then from there the team starts loading them into the zoo.

We make sure that we have everything in place before they start doing that so they know exactly where each one is going.

And then they start to build these beautiful works of art and bring all of these lanterns in and it happens so fast.

- [Jamie] From Asian tradition to Michigan's great outdoors.

There are nods to even some small, but also very important members of nature.

- We actually had a custom lantern built for us that is a Poweshiek Skipperling, which is a species of rare butterfly that the zoo is actively working to restore back to it's natural habitat.

- [Jamie] The displays are carefully crafted into the natural landscape.

New this year, a bat cave that's carved into the zoo's unique location.

- We're built on the side of a hill and we've got lots of cool natural landscapes and really feels like you're not in the city.

It feels like you're out in nature walking these winding paths.

So I love that they built that into some of our really cool unique features of the zoo.

- [Jamie] While this year is full of hundreds of new lanterns, some crowd favorites made their way back into the experience.

- If you came back year one or year two, year three is completely new.

It's a brand new experience.

There's a couple lanterns that are back by popular demand like our angel wings, the photo ops, and some of the light up swings and the playground.

But for the most part, these are all brand new.

- [Jamie] From the glowing lanterns to the sparkling lights, a swirling disco ball, interactive dance display and nightly performances inspired by Asian culture, it's enough to leave your head spinning.

And the animals, turns out they're pretty interested too.

- They're kind of curious about what's going on when they see 'em in place, and it's always good to be changing up what they see in their natural habitats and it really acts as enrichment and gets their brain kind of working and thinking, and maybe there's new smells in the area.

So it's actually a really great way for them to kind of see something new and have something different introduced into their environment.

- [Jamie] A festival of art, a lesson in conservation, and a reminder of what's possible when people truly work to light up the world.

- You can enjoy these beautiful lanterns, but then hopefully it kind of brings it all around and you can learn about the really meaningful work that we do at the zoo every day.

And then the hope is that you'll wanna come back to the zoo during the day, see our animal friends, and then hopefully take some of those good habits and bring them home with you and wanna learn more about what you can do at home to help wildlife and wild places.

(upbeat music) - Jamie, that looks amazing.

The festival runs Tuesday through Sundays through mid-June, and if you're worried about the crowds, they've got it covered.

Time to entry keeps everyone comfortable and exploring at their own pace.

To learn more about when you can check out this event and the many more experiences offered throughout the year, check out jbzoo.org.

All right, ready for the Skywalker, Solo, TIE fighters and Tatooine.

The Star Wars universe is full of vibrant characters and impressive planets, and we're taking you to a galaxy far, far away kind of.

Christ Ogozaly makes a jump to hyperspace and takes us to Detroit for a Star Wars popup called Space Dive.

- I was of that generation that saw the first film before it was called A New Hope in theaters when I was six years old and it's first run.

I knew then that it changed my life even as a 6-year-old and sparked my imagination and I just fell in love with it, fell in love with specifically the Cantina.

- [Chris] Saying John loves Star Wars is a galactic understatement.

He has a background in art, and when you infuse art with his imagination, there's no force, imperial or otherwise, that can slow him down.

- From that, I think, just as a journey of who I am led to me becoming an artist, becoming a maker, a creative.

I think realizing what it takes to put on a film like that and all the artists behind it was inspiring in that way.

Created other immersive theater before immersive theater was even a phrase.

- [Chris] John and his rebel alliance of volunteers and friends turned the Tangent Gallery in Detroit into their own space space, including that famous Cantina from episode four, A New Hope.

It certainly is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and hard work.

(saw blade humming) (upbeat music) - Stepping foot into this bar some 20 years ago and just being the type of nerd that knows the Cantina blueprints by heart, I saw it as a space where I'm like, "Oh, I could transform this into the Cantina.

I could figure out a way to create an illusion that creates the horseshoe effect and the specifics of what the Cantina was."

- [Chris] Constructing, painting, coordinating.

They aren't building the Death Star, but it feels like they could.

- Because it's an operating bar, we had to wait till their last event and then started building around the clock the last three days, we never left the building, we didn't sleep.

I was plastering and painting, it's all an Adobe construction and everything is modular and that's kind of become the crown jewel of this entire environment.

But ever since then, we still have to break everything apart, take it apart, store it, and then put it back together, replaster and repaint every year.

And then since then, we add new stuff every year and that stuff ends up having to be replastered, repainted.

The scale and the scope of the project has grown immensely and it's grown because of all of the people and the crew that have come to it and been a part of it and rallied behind it because it's incredible to see this transformation of this space.

We wouldn't be able to do it without the fact that this crew showed up.

There's no way that 12 of us from the beginning would be able to make this happen if people just didn't pour in and lend their hand and whatever expertise they have.

(drill buzzing) It is a shoestring budget to deal with something on this scale.

There's really, nobody is doing any kind of popup on this scale anywhere without sponsorship, without some kind of corporate backing.

This is us putting on credit cards every year in hopes that enough people show up to at least pay that off.

- [Chris] Imagining, creating, improving, all so your senses tell you you're on a Star Wars planet, on the edge of the galaxy without leaving Detroit.

- It was meant to be an unknown experience and it's a little disorienting.

It's like you're traveling to another world and you, while you enter even, you enter the event, it's like you're going through customs and processing.

And as soon as you pass through that gate, even that is a part of this immersive experience.

And as soon as you pass through the gate, you're now in a bustling market.

It's full of vendors.

They're all in costume characters selling in-world goods, or street musicians playing otherworldly instruments.

There's food vendors cooking up ornate and exotic meals that feel like they came from this world.

And the people cooking are in costume.

And it's been so much fun to not only build it, but then live in it and then see people's reactions to it and then seeing the creativity that it inspires in others in the same way that Star Wars has inspired so many people.

- [Chris] Now, costumes are mandatory at Space Dive, but it doesn't have to be Darth Vader or the Mandalorian.

In fact, you're encouraged to grab garb that fits your imagination of the everyday galactic citizen and be ready to explore.

- There's adventures to go on while you're here.

You can go looking for parts to help out an A-wing mechanic.

We have a full size A-wing starfighter.

There's a gambling den on the edge of town where you can play Sabacc, the card game that Han Solo won the Millennium Falcon in.

You can check out a show with bands and other worldly performances.

There's four stages.

There's DJs, there's a couple of outdoor market stages that are very in-world.

There's a main stage in the full imperial hangar that we've built.

It's an imperial base with multiple connecting imperial hallways.

I've been doing an immersive theater for 25 years and it's always, there's always a transformation in people.

There's always a transportation, but I've never been a part of anything that we see so many people smiling like they're transported to another world and they feel like a kid again, it is magic.

- Space Dive has specific timeframes for attendance depending on whether you're over or under 18.

And of course the popup is usually planned around May the fourth.

All right, well, spring is in the air and fungus is on the ground, but there's one type of celebrated and coveted mushroom that has thousands of hunters foraging our state forests each year.

Those elusive morels.

This year, I joined in on the hunt on alongside two of my favorite friends and none of us left disappointed.

(leaves crunching) Oh found one.

When it comes to those secret morel mushroom spots, mums the word.

- You can steal my wife, you can steal my bank account, you can burn my house down, but you cannot give away my mushroom spot ever.

(moderate music) - Words of wisdom.

- [Stefanie] Meet Corey and Stephanie Adkins, morel mushroom hunters.

They know a thing or two about where to find what you're looking for in the woods this time of year.

- All joking aside, and we are jokers, we do come out here with safety in our heads and thoughts, because I've been lost once in the woods.

She's been lost a couple times in the woods.

We've had somebody really lost in the woods.

We started to come up with a plan where we have a compass, we drop a pin at everywhere we go on your phone so you can actually find your own way back.

We've learned to follow the sun.

We bought walkie-talkies so we can always stay in contact with each other.

If your battery goes dead, we have a jump box.

If we're stuck out there in a storm, we have a chainsaw.

So those are just things.

If you are going out into the woods, down two tracks, there's some places we go eight, 10 miles down these things, we've needed almost every single one of 'em at one point.

- Truly hunter safety, just being in the woods, I think a lot of people you think, "Oh, I grew up here my whole life, it won't happen to me."

And then it does and it's terrifying.

- [Stefanie] With safety in mind, the sun shining bright, we've entered into the trees, dodging sticks and low branches as the leaves rustled beneath our feet.

- [Stephanie] That's a good one.

- [Stefanie] And it wasn't long before something caught my eye.

Now, as many of you know, morels are pretty picky about where and when they grow.

- The woods we were in today were maple and popple mixed.

So you wanna look for that mixture.

We have maple and popples behind us, but it's a little swampy.

It's a little too swampy.

So you want mix of soil temperature, maples and popples and they'll grow.

We've had a horrible winter the last three years and this winter, as everybody knows, was fantastic for mushroom hunters because we had a lot of snow cover.

- Holy crap, there's at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

- [Stefanie] Corey and Stephanie are no strangers to this beloved Michigan pastime.

They have spent years searching for the best spots.

- We walked in what we call a honey hole, and then we walked out of it.

And then if you go 20, 30, 40, 50 more feet, you might find another honey hole.

I have a Native American friend up in Petoskey, his name is Nate, who I went out with him one time and he's like, "If you find one, follow the river.

Stop, drop, look down and you'll find more."

And we followed the river a lot today.

- We followed the circle.

It's like a grid, it's like a search grid.

And I think there's so many people too who they kind of say, "Well, how do I know where to look?"

And sometimes you literally, like us, you just have to put in the work.

You gotta get out into the woods and just go walk around for an hour.

If you don't find anything, try something new.

Move on.

And that's, a lot of people just, they wanna walk into a spot that's handed to them and pick.

Just put in the work.

It's like a little adrenaline hit.

And then there's another one and there's another one.

And it's like all of a sudden you just get amped up and it's like you could be having the worst day and when you get out to the woods, it all just falls to the wayside when you start finding morels.

And it's just so fun.

- [Stefanie] How do you know what are not good ones?

- So these have a hollow stem.

- And the other ones don't?

- And there are false ones we say that have, the stem is fuzzy.

It's like solid.

I haven't seen any of those out here today, or I would've pointed them out.

- After a solid haul, it was time to eat.

Morels can be broiled, fried, or in our case, sauteed on a grill, on a tailgate to celebrate our tasty treasures.

Also dehydrate them and freeze them, or sell them and they aren't cheap.

Which of course makes these spots so secretive.

Corey and Stephanie, your secret is safe with me.

All right, well, switching gears now.

From nature to roller skates and event centers and roller rinks across the state, women come together to engage in what they proudly call sanctioned aggression.

We catch up with the Central Michigan mayhem to dive into the fast-paced, full-contact world of roller derby.

- Out, hold, holding out, and rotate.

- The world is changing, but women still, by and large, there's a huge expectation, right?

That we're calm and we're cool and we're collected and we're kind and we're nurturing and we're supportive.

We have just as much frustration and energy that needs to go somewhere.

When you don't have that athletic outlet to get that out and to have it somewhere, it gets kind of pent up.

And so I think that's where a lot of the draw comes from for us, for the most part, it's just that freedom to be powerful.

And everybody is rooting for you to be powerful.

(whistle blows) - [Stefanie] Flat track, roller derby, a mix of athleticism, theater and aggression.

It's full contact and the skaters love it.

- [Pepper] It's not done in a mean or violent spirit, it's done in a competitive spirit.

It's the expectation all on wheels.

The word is getting out about some of these things and about the community of roller derby and the supportiveness and the empowerment and the acceptance.

And it's okay to be pretty and powerful.

It's okay to be any body size or body shape, or any of that that you have because it all works and it all fits in this space.

- [Stefanie] Born on 1920's bank tracks, roller derby sped from punishing pileups to spirited scripted TV in the 1980s, then skidded toward oblivion.

A Texas crew yanked it back in the early two thousands, ditching theatrics, writing flat track rules and handing control to the skaters who still drive the sport today.

- Texas roller girls actually said, "This is an athletic sport, we can do something with this."

And they got together with some other folks in the WFTDA, Women's Flat Track Roller Derby Association, kind of was born.

And that was 2001.

And by 2010, roller derby was in 15 countries.

It just, it took off like wildfire.

And in the last few years here in the states, it really, really has grown.

- [Stefanie] Pepper went roller derby in the Mayhem, because her New Year's resolution was simple.

Try something new.

One night on skates was all it took.

She rolled out battered and bruised, but with a brand new community at her back.

- Roller derby community is just so encouraging.

I mean, I would get out there and I'd be falling flat on my face and people would still be saying, "Get up, Pepper.

You can do it.

Keep going, get back up.

You've got this, you've got this."

- [Stefanie] Players must master certain skills and learn proper techniques like falling to gain a roster spot.

Once they get that spot, they're given a derby name, an alter ego for the track.

Pepper becomes Cayenne Calamity.

- You create a persona for the track, right?

You let part of you that doesn't get to see the light of day kind of come out.

I'm a college instructor and a high school teacher.

We have a physical therapist on our team.

We have someone who has a home daycare, we have a tattoo artist, nurses.

There's a lot of walks of life.

- Roller derby can definitely look like a ride on wheels.

But the beauty is that you don't need to know every rule just to enjoy about.

On Saturday night, the hardwood at Pins Bar and Grill crackled with energy as the Central Michigan Mayhem clashed with the Synergetic Sweethearts in a duel that had the crowd on it's feet from the first whistle to the final jam.

Momentum swung back and forth, penalties mounted and the Mayhem even lost players to ejection.

But the Mayhem held off a late push and squeaked out a 132 to 124 victory.

The real draw is the energy in the room, seeing a community of women giving it their all and leaving it all out on the track.

(group cheering) - And when I get on the track, I can hit people and I can knock 'em down.

I'm allowed to be strong and confident.

It's a place to find that confidence that you don't give yourself permission to have.

And everybody knows you're gonna get hit and everybody's cool with getting hit.

The harder you hit, the better.

And people high five you and say, "Man, that was a really good hit."

Even if it was them that you just knocked on the floor.

Some people walk away saying, "I don't know how you guys do that.

That is crazy.

Good for you."

And some people walk away and say, "I will be at your next practice, 'cause I think I wanna try that."

(group cheering) - So flat track roller derby is gaining a lot of momentum with teams and clubs emerging across the state.

The Central Michigan Mayhem welcome anyone curious about the sport to check out about, or better yet, stop by a practice.

They've got extra skates, safety gear, and plenty of encouragement to keep you coming back.

All right, well, finally tonight, no matter the season at one lake in Osceola County, a growing group of brave souls are diving into something that's part tradition, part thrill, and all hard.

Jamie Mankiewicz takes the plunge to show us why.

- [Jamie] Cool, calm, and collected.

They come from all walks of life to strip down into swimsuits and wade into center lake.

- We call it a celebration, because we found out that a group of polar bears is called a celebration.

I'm like, "That's perfect 'cause we're celebrating.

We're kind of polar bears."

- [Jamie] The group has been dipping in the icy cold water since February of 2021.

- [Shea] I do it because it feels good, it makes me happy.

At first it was just kind of something crazy fun to do.

It was 2021, we were still kind of coming out of COVID.

So it was a fun thing we could do with our friends outdoors.

- [Jamie] The tradition started as a way to step outside their comfort zones and build connections.

Now, it's about mental clarity, courage and comradery.

- I do it for mental health.

It gives you a boost of, what is it, dopamine, or it gives you those happy feelings and stuff.

When you come out, it feels like electricity in your body.

When I'm having a stressful day at home, but when you get here and you get in that water, you have to breathe, so for me, it totally relaxes me.

It helps drain my stress away.

And then afterwards, you just feel alive.

- [Jamie] Plungers chase a five minute goal.

And sometimes they have visitors.

- Things that we've learned about the lake, we've seen creatures that we never knew existed before.

Just in this little lake.

There's freshwater jellyfish here in the summer if it gets warm enough.

Things like that.

Just seeing different plants and nature is kind of one of my favorite things, yeah.

And we like to explore different bodies of water and it's just so fun to see the different things.

Different beaches, rock, sand, different temperatures.

So kind of the learning part of it.

- [Jamie] When the lake is this cold, you've gotta commit.

And as this group showed me as I waited in with them, once you're in, there is no room for anything but the moment.

(water splashes) (group cheering) - Beforehand, everybody thinks we're crazy, but then they come and do it and usually they end up coming back again, 'cause they love it.

They see they can do it.

And maybe the first time they don't go in as far, but then the next time they will.

- [Jamie] From first timers to the regulars, everyone here dips for their own reasons.

- It's a special connection, a special bond, something that we have in common that's special, unique.

And we trust each other.

Like I said, we don't care about seeing each other in our bathing suits and stuff.

Nobody's looking at that.

We just come together and we smile, we laugh, we talk.

We have funny conversations in there, we're serious, we've cried sometimes.

So it was very bonding.

Come watch us, see how much fun we're having.

See if you might wanna try it sometime.

And this lake stays cold for a long time, so I mean, if you come anytime before June, it is gonna be considered a cold water dip.

(chuckles) (upbeat music) - Now, the Mayo Clinic says cold water plunges can actually increase circulation, ease muscle pain, and elevate mood.

But if you have a cardiovascular condition, or health risks, of course you should always talk to your doctor first.

And most importantly, don't ever go for a dip by yourself.

And if you'd like to join the group, just check out Calm, Cool, and Collected, a celebration on Facebook.

Well, that wraps up our show for today.

Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you again soon for another edition of Destination Michigan.

(upbeat music)