Brickyard

This past weekend my guys & I continued a relatively new found tradition -- the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. G's family is gracious enough to allow us to buy their tickets off them so we can go. Jake, G, Cobb & I have done this for the past 4-5 years & its a BLAST!

We have pretty dang good seats in between turns 1 & 2 right in the middle of the short chute.

Our day started at about 9:30am with Jake making "scrambled pancakes" then we loaded up the coolers & headed to the track. Sometimes I wonder if Cobb thinks he's in actually IN the race when we drive there -- but yeah. We have a pretty easy route to get there -- its not packed, its cheap & we park close enough to walk but far enough to not get caught in the traffic....although we walk about 2.5 miles to our seats!

We hang out, have fun, talk about the race, catch up on each others lives, & poke fun at each other (like G bringing South Beach bars to the track...yeah. We cheer on our individual favorite drivers, talk trash, then when the race is over, we trek back to the car.

I gotta say, these guys are 4 of my best friends. We've known each other since college & we have a great time whenever we hang out. I cant think of a better group of guys to have as friends & the only thing that could make it better is if Cheever could roll with us.

So guys, if youre reading this -- Thanks for being great friends. It means alot to me that we've been buds & here's to many more fun times to come.

Michigan: End Game

Sorry all, I got home & things got busy...not work related, mind you. Just met up with family & friends so heres the much anticipated, long-awaited closing to our Michigan trip:

So we got up & did make it back into South Haven. Mainly, we just wanted to swing by this nice little bakery to grab some home made fudge for Mel's parents -- they dig it. Kinda funny about this place, the lady who helped us cut off a piece of fudge (we asked for 1 lb.) She put it on the li'l scale thing & it came up to 1 lb. EXACTLY....I'd had never seen it before & maybe I'm really losing my mind, but I was rather impressed by that. Not .97 lb or 1.02 lbs. -- 1.00 lbs. is what the scale read. Pretty cool, so anyways the lady went on to say that it'll be a good day cuz she cut a perfect pound of fudge AND that her "mooching boyfriend" was moving out! HAHA this lady was about 55 yrs old & that comment just fell out of her mouth, AWESOME.

After that we made our way south to a few other stops, I believe Van Buren beach was one -- not too bad, except for this beach was the ROCKIEST beach I'd ever seen. I dont mean like pebbles between the toes, I mean like the size-of-my-fist-hurt-you-walking-around-on-the-beach rocks. We didnt really hang there for long, but we did manage to find a li'l spot to soak some rays.

After that we headed to St. Joseph. Pretty neat little town, about 25 minutes south. We ate at a restaurant called Schu's. It was nice, we ate outside & just enjoyed the day. Next we kinda drove around St. Joe's a bit, got a look at the beach which was kinda crowded, but we just drove by -- you could come pretty close to driving ON the beach, as close as any we had visited.

After St. Joseph, we headed to our final stop -- Warren Dunes. This place was pretty cool -- had dunes, although not as cool as Silver Lake, but this is where Mel FINALLY accomplished her mission: To swim in Lake Michigan & feel as though she was at the ocean. Not only did she do that, but she managed to get me to do the same thing! We swam in the lake for about an hour straight & I must admit, it was AWESOME!

We stuck around there for a bit then loaded up the vehicle & made our way home.

Goodbye for now, Michigan -- its been real!

Michigan 2.0

Day 3 led us south to Holland, Michigan. There wasn't really a whole lot going on that we saw in Holland -- except for a few HUGE houses that backed up to a lake. We did go to Holland State Park & checked out a pretty cool beach. The water was really active with waves -- not big waves, but lots of rolling waves. It was almost like we were watching the lake perform for us -- really neat.

After Holland, we went to Saugatuck/Douglas. Saugatuck had a great harbortown with shops & restaurants. We found a little bar & grill called Wally's. It's a nice little place, kind of a hole-in-the-wall type bar atmosphere. After lunch, we headed down the street to the docks & walked around looking at all of the huge yachts. (more on that in a future post)

We took off out of Saugatuck to find the Saugatuck State Park -- which we found with ease. What we DIDN'T find was the beach. We started up a trail that was actually a pretty good hike. However, we never got to the beach because we kept going UP the trail -- not many beaches I know are UP a trail, usually they're down a trail. We stopped, turned around & took off....we were so tired because of the walking & the weather (another overcast/dreary day)

So we headed down to South Haven -- one of our last stops on our trip. We found our hotel to check in & relax. That ended up being a little nap & cleaning up before we headed for dinner. Luckily, we're right down the road from South Haven & we found a great Italian restaurant called "Tello's Trattoria". Okay, this place wasn't great-- it was UNBELIEVEABLE. Mel tried a new dish, Gnocchi Verdi -- & she claims it was one of the best Italian dishes she's ever had. I had Spaghetti e Polpette. Basically, spaghetti with italian sausage. It was amazing! We walked around a little longer then back to the car.

We ended up calling it a night & headed back to the hotel. We plan on heading back to South Haven tomorrow to get a better look at things.

Until next time!

Greetings From Michigan!

Yep -- you heard me right, we're vacationing in Michigan. Mel's spent the last few weeks (since shes off work) planning out a quick getaway vacation. So here we are!

Yesterday we took off around 9am & drove up to Silver Lake. This is a destination that Mel's been to a number of times before & she wanted to share it with me. There are HUGE rolling sand dunes that separate Silver Lake from Lake Michigan. We had to climb an extremely steep graded dune RIGHT after we got out of the car. I thought this task was gonna be tough, but not impossible. Half-way up, I realized that this was next to impossible. We drove about 5 hours then climbed this hill -- my legs were BURNING! After a short break we walked around some more up & down dunes as well as along the shores. Boats were lining the shore as well as people out swimming & riding jet skis. There couldn't have been a more perfect day.

Mel & I found a spot on the beach where we just sat, talked, & enjoyed the sun....so much so, that I got a li'l crispy on the right side of my face.

After that -- we checked into our hotel. The hotel was very nice & unique in the fact that there were 7-8 rather large turtles in the middle of the hotel. This area was similar to an exhibit you'd see at the zoo. It was fenced off to guests, but is open to see them. Although this was unique in itself, we witnessed one male mate with a female! Interesting to say the least, but even worse was when we went back to check 'em out & he was mounting a different one?! Weird.

After we got cleaned up from the day, we went to dinner in Pentwater -- a nearby harbortown. We ate & walked around. After walking around, we headed back to the hotel but stopped by a local putt-putt course. This place was great! Kinda like the courses you'd find in Florida -- winding around in the trees with waterfalls, hills, etc. It was probably one of the best courses we've played.

We headed back to the hotel & relaxed -- even swam & hit the hot tub!

Day 2 began with breakfast at the hotel then back to Silver Lake to check out a cool lighthouse followed by lunch at a local joint in town. The weather wasn't nearly as good as yesterday. Overcast, even sprinkles throughout the day. So, we decided to make our way down to Muskegon to go through some parks & check out various beaches. We found our next hotel, then headed to Grand Haven which, we must admit, we like ALOT. The long boardwalk of restaurants & shops was awesome. Its a nice harbor-type town with lots of people walking around & neat boats to look at. We hung around for the World Famous Musical Fountain show, then we headed back to rest for the night.

Tune in tomorrow for more of the Michigan Road Trip!