So where did I leave off? Crochet, pictures, snow and craft beer… Well I did finish the baby blankie and for the record I took over 900 pictures while in Michigan. So let me tell you about the Big crescendo of our trip, a concert! Not any concert…I’ll just cut to the chase…BOB SEGER!
This concert took place in Grand Rapids at the Van Andel Arena, what a great time! Bob Seger totally ROCKED the house AND he is 73 frickin years old!!! Can you imagine? He played for over 2 hours with 2 Encores!
Before we went to the concert we went to the BOB which stands for the Big Old Building, just an incredible place! Now, After the concert, we walked to (what is now our most favorite place) Founders Craft Brewery. Let me pause here and say, these are my opinions and NO ONE has asked for or paid me to say these things. Now back to the FUN…
If you EVER get a chance to visit Grand Rapids, DO NOT pass up the opportunity you will have a fantastic time. It is a College town (which happens to be the rival of our favorite Michigan team) so there are lots of Craft Breweries, Pub grub and Restaurants to enjoy.
So we end up at Founders after the concert. I am not a big beer fan but I do like dark beer (think Guinness) or Hard Cider especially if it has nitro. So our very nice waiter suggested (on our first trip there LOL) one called “Rubaeus” which is a raspberry ale. Side note on the Ales with and without Nitro, to me, if it has Nitro its not as heavy.
Also, there is a place called Hop Cat and they have French fries called “Crack Fries” (that name might be changed, because SOMEONE got offended…), Dear God, do not pass these up and for heavens sake do not order anything else except a beer. Crazy Good Stuff!
As always we had such a good time and I hope that we get to go back in the winter, I rather enjoyed the snow, even if I had to wear 8 layers!
The first thing I thought of was this guy, he’s been part of our family for a very long time. He is a bit worse for the wear but Go Blue!
While out using my big lens, lol not sure of the technical term (if there is one) for it yet, and took these; I can’t decide which I like better. Which do you like?
Just want to share some pictures I took. I am fascinated with my new (first) camera, Nikon D3500. I can’t wait to take some night sky pictures; I just got a Tri-pod! 😄💗📸
I would really like to hear your thoughts tips and suggestions; I am totally new at this.
Well I’ve found another fun thing to do, can you imagine? If you’ve read my last post about Rose from “Titanic” you’ll understand that I have many interests.
So I’ve been a big fan of Ansel Adams, who is a famous photographer and for Christmas i received a pretty fancy camera. Pictures to follow…
But first, this is the first installment of this adventure which started early the friday morning after Christmas. We headed to the airport a bit later than origannally planned. We ended up taking a tour of long term parking (The Hubs was driving) only to end up in short term parking. 😁 Then we took the new tram from the parking area which took us to the right place. But we needed to check our bags which meant we needed to go down stairs (anxiety is starting to mount, we are not late but…), there was a Disney sized conga line so we hightailed it outside to curb service to check our bags. Of course this is where we realized we should have dropped our bags first lol before taking the tour of the airport parking areas. Lol so, we made it to our gate after getting gropped…flight takes off at 6am then we had a little layover and made our final destination by 1pm.
So we are in Western Michigan and there is snow on the ground. Suddenly i am a kid again, i havent seen snow since 1980…so we headed to a craftbrewery for some libations. Now if you’ve followed my Harley Vacay posts you know this is the usual for us, but this is the first time we’ve come in winter. I am loving it! Even though this girl has about 8 layers on, which isnt fun when you have a hot flash! Let me tell you, having a hot flash while wearing this many layers gives you a real honest to God incite on a Turkey in a basting bag at Thanksgiving! 🤣🤣🤣
In a 3 day period i have taken over 500 pictures with my new camera and i am in Love with the Night Vision setting. Please let me know what you think, heck maybe you have some suggestions….I have a crochet project to work on now.
I hope you all have had a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year to come❣
This is the final installment of the 2018 Vacay with our Harley’s.
The first few days are spent relaxing, doing laundry and etc we did take the bikes out but weather is again an issue so to play it safe we alternate between the cage (aka truck) and the bikes.
Chilling out with this guy…check out those beautiful trees!
Let me just say Western Michigan is one of the best places to ride a motorcycle. First, the roads have a tendency to be wider and I suppose it’s because you have to have a wide shoulder to plow all that darn snow. However, I do not recommend any riding on the interstate system the potholes are numerous and deadly. All that being said, if you get a chance to drive the Eastern rim of Lake Michigan, do it!
of the roads we traveled were: M63, The Blue Star Memorial Highway and US 31. You will sometimes see Lake Michigan, which totally looks like the Ocean. If you don’t see it, you will smell the clean air; not sure if that makes sense to you. There are areas you can pull off and look out at the lakes vastness of which you cannot see the other side, which happens to be Chicago. There are parts of the road that are tree covered and if you are not from these parts better have a jacket of some kind because it gets chilly. Yup no kidding, it gets chilly when the fog is rolling in off the lake.
The other things you see a lot of are farms and orchards; I know that’s not what you think of when you think Michigan. I might have mentioned how cool it is to actually see an orchard of Cherry Trees full of cherries in last year’s blog post; I just find it really cool. The Western side of Michigan you have lots of historic places, Beach towns, sand dunes, farms, orchards, wineries and craft beer. We will focus our time on this trip visiting family and Craft Breweries. Did I mention there might be some libations? LOL
During our last two vacays my hubs (aka Fred) and his cousin (aka Barney) have made it their mission to sample as many craft breweries as possible. I think their count at the end of this trip is about 24 and can you guess how many there are in this area; 136! So we will have many more to sample for the next 10 years! So Betty and I road along to about 9 of these places, we tasted several different things and enjoyed most of them. Here is a list of the ones visited this time around: Lucky Girl Brewing, Latitude 42 Brewing, Silver Harbor Brewing, Three Blondes Brewing, Brix Corner Oven, Arcadia Brewing, Red’s Sports Bar, 5 Lakes Brewing and Bowling Alley (The Cherry and Apple Cider was my ultimate favorite), Paw Paw Brewing…
One of the most incredible places we went to, twice, was Cranes Pie Pantry. OMG, so darn good! It’s a 150 year Family Farm and Orchards and they take their fruit from their orchards and make fresh PIES! Ok and they also make wine and cider; you can go for lunch or just dessert.
Getting it Started!
Fancy drink with Pop Rocks! Yummy
Lake Michigan
For July 4th we went to visit family in the area but our daughter and son in-law made a quick trip to Chicago (from Dallas, Texas) and in doing so they made a side trip to see all of us! So exciting! They took the train from Chicago over to Michigan City and we picked them up, so cool!
Waiting on our kids…Anticipation…They’re Here!Family Discussions…hanging out, I Heart these people!
Now we are heading South to visit my most favorite person, my Aunt in Rome, Georgia. This place is so special to me I cannot put it into words properly…this place has gone from sleepy little industrial town to an amazing Baseball, Tennis and College town. I follow this place on Facebook because I don’t want to miss out on all the revitalization they are doing downtown.
When we hit town we look for a couple craft breweries I know that are popular. The first place we go was just a cool family atmosphere with all kinds of Georgia wines and craft brews on tap and for sale (I am not being paid to make these statements, I am just telling you my thoughts) called the Foundry Growler Bar. I wanted to make a stop at a winery in Southwestern Georgia but guess what this place had the wine I was after and YES I made a total ninny out of myself when I spotted it too! People stared! I grabbed the last 2 bottles on the shelf! LOL
We went downtown and made a stop at the Rome City Brew house Music & Grill, now this place is COOL! So here’s a bit of history about this place: The original structure was an Opera House and was built in 1880 which was the principal center for entertainment for the Dresden, Boston and New York Symphonies! Of course there’s more to this story, it burned down and was rebuilt and has been everything from the Opera House to a 5 and Dime store back in the 50 and 60’s. When you walk into this place there is just a feel of a lot of history and the old wooden floors tell a story that you can’t help but to speculate about.
One of the coolest places in downtown is the Masonic Lodge, the story on this place is basically, when the union troops burned through town they had to burn it down but they felt so bad (the masons of the Union) took up a collection and sent the money to the Masons of the Confederacy to have it rebuilt! Did I mention this place was special? So anyway, our next stop is to Johnny’s New York Style Pizza, which has become a bit of a regular stop for us. I always share a drink with my Aunt here, lol. The building is old of course, and they have a band inside which makes it a bit loud to have any convo with people who are hard of hearing but its just wonderful people watching through the giant windows.
The next day we go visit my Great Aunt Bernice aka Bunt, she will be 99 at the end of August! I had a college History project about FDRs plan to put people back to work, I asked her about it and she told me that’s how she ended up in Rome from Alabama. She convinced her mom and dad to leave the farm to work in the “city” at the cotton factory. Yeah, did I mention this place was cool? I think I said that already… And then it’s time to leave, headed home to Florida and I just hate leaving this place, just hurts my feeling something awful.
Do we kinda look alike?
That’s a Wrap – What an Adventure, I want to send special thanks out to our friend that saved our vacation by allowing us to use his beautiful new truck (you know who you are) and to my Caveman for doing all the driving, I am the luckiest gal!
