Road Trip Weekend

Mike and I hit the road this weekend. The nice weather had Mike feeling restless and when he picked me up from work, he wanted to hit the road, drive all night and go somewhere. We went home and tried to decide what we wanted to do. St. Louis? Minneapolis? Mackinac Island? Memphis? After much investigation and contemplation, the answer was none of the above. We decided against leaving that night, deciding instead to get an early start in the morning.



And about 2 p.m., we pulled into the outlet mall in Birch Run, Michigan. It was not our final destination, but we had a little bit of extra time and decided to try and do our part to stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, we didn't see too much that we had to have. (A fact I mentioned several times). And soon, it was 3:30 and time to head off to our real destination.


FRANKENMUTH!

And world famous chicken at the Bavarian Inn.

The best part was that since it's only a couple of hours north of Detroit, Mike's Mom and Dad joined us for dinner! This would be Mike's Mom's third trip to the Bavarian Inn in....like...a month.

There was cole slaw...

...navy bean salad...

...cranberry stuff...

...chicken noodle soup...

Fried chicken that I inexplicably forgot to take a picture of...mashed 'taters and gravy...stuffing...and, of course!....German Beer!

There were occasional shenanigans. And some chicanery which involved little plastic wooden German boys in lederhosen.

After dinner, we wandered the shops a bit and Mike bought me a couple of ladybug cookies.

And the coolest overnight bag EVER!!!

That night, we spent the night at the Quality Inn in Bay City. Just a note - you can cross this hotel off of your list. Although, as Mike's sister told me today, "You booked a room at the Quality Inn, not the Classy Inn." If I'd paid $40 for the room, I wouldn't complain...but for what we paid, we got ripped off. Still, we spent an enjoyable night watching the Game Show network and eating snacks that we'd had to search for...seriously. Apparently everything in Bay City closes at 8 p.m. and we had to wander the streets until we found a Walgreen's open until 10.

This morning, it was up not-so-early and on our way back home. We stopped in Saginaw to take pictures for my dad, who always used to play and/or sing that Lefty Frizzell song, "Saginaw, Michigan" to me when I was little. Once we arrived, we tried and tried to find City Hall or something with the city seal on it. We drove around for about a half an hour and were just about to give up, when we ran across something! The fire station.


I had really high expectations, but unfortunately, a lot of Saginaw now looks like this.



Mike and I discussed how sad it was, because Saginaw was probably once a really nice, little town. (I just read that Saginaw has double the crime rate per capita of L.A. It's ranked the 14th most dangerous metropolitan area in the U.S.) Mike said that it's all tied up with the decline of the auto industry and that if Saginaw made me sad, he'd take me to Flint and watch me start crying.

It's not all ugly, though. There are some really nice buildings in Saginaw. Like the Castle Museum.

After Saginaw, it was back to Birch Run for a second run at the Outlet Mall. We'd only seen about half of it yesterday, and we decided to stop and see the other part. (Incidentally, after we stimulated the economy to an embarrassing degree at the stores on the other side of the outlet mall. As we were packed up and leaving, Mike said, "Pea, I'm so sorry that you couldn't find anything you liked at the Outlet Mall." Smart alec.) But before we shopped, a stop for lunch...at A Halo Burger that was a bank in its first life.

Mike's Halo Burger.

My "Kickin' Chicken" sandwich and some awesome french fries.

Mike decided to buy a Halo Burger t-shirt, which got us started talking about the time Mike went with Scott and some friends (they were in college at the time) drove all the way to Grand Rapids for a Marge's Donut Den t-shirt. I asked where his shirt was and he said that it'd finally gotten ripped or something and he'd had to throw it out. I suggested that we go home through Grand Rapids and called Scott to find out where Marge's was.

For anyone who's interested, it's at 1751 28th Street SW, Wyoming, MI. And it's totally worth the drive. Yum Yum.


Before we headed the rest of the way home, Mike had a hankering for Mexican food and we stopped at Lindo Mexico restaurant down the street from Marge's.

Where Mike had some steak fajitas and I dined on quesadillas.

According to Mike, the true test of quality is the number of gringos eating there. He speculated that the food was going to be great because we were the only gringos eating there at the time. In this case anyway, he was right. The food was really, really good and the service was fast and friendly.

And now we're back in the Windy City. Mike's asleep, the cats are happy to see us and I'm bummed because I have to go back to work tomorrow. Too bad they don't make weekends a little longer.