Hotel Hopping

This weekend was awesome! Our second son, Dan, had Carrie up to his dorm to stay with him over the weekend for Sibling Weekend. It just so happened that this coincided with celebrating our 24th anniversary. Wahoo!

We started the weekend in separate cars, because we had to bring Dan's car back up to school for him. It was sitting idle in the driveway unable to start for the past month and a half. One day son#4 and I decided to go smack it around a little bit before we had it towed to Norm (mechanic par excellence). Lo and behold we got that puppy started and it's now running like a gazelle. This is always a good thing.

Anyway......after depositing Carrie and said car with Dan, my dearest and I headed back to the tropical and exotic (okay, I'm lying) Lansing, MI. There is a fantastic bed and breakfast there (not lying) that we have been to before for our anniversary. The rooms is tucked up in the top of the house with our own enormous hot tub in the little roof alcove. The B&B is within walking distance of lots of restaurants, an art gallery, and yes.....a Barnes & Noble. We love our bookstores, the Mr. and I do.

We enjoyed our time there immensely and decided to spend the second night right up by Dan's school just in case Carrie couldn't handle another night away. We trotted back up the highway and thought to our frugal selves, "hmmmm, there is a new casino there. I bet(no pun intended) we could get a really nice room extremely cheap!". A lot of times these places offer rooms fairly inexpensively because they make their bucks on people pumping every last dime into the slots and such. We don't gamble so we figured we'd just get the good deal on a nice room. So we popped in the front door. How depressing. This new place reeked of smoke and was lined up almost out the door. I called the desk instead of waiting in line and EVERY room of this place was filled. We were glad. It was gross and depressing. So we took our non-gambling, unsmokified selves and took a look at the other options.

Seeing that we had already spent enough $$ at the nice B&B the first night, we thought we'd go 'budget' the second night. There was a Microtel that looked like it was brand new. I popped in while DH was checking his email. I started reading the signs behind the registration counter. I wish I had snapped a picture. They said everything short of 'your probation officer must register for you'. It smelled in there. Looked gross. There was a sign right over the breakfast buffet counter that said, "You must wear your shirt and shoes to have breakfast". Alrighty then!

I went back out to the car, made a phone call to a lovely hotel in Midland where they had an abundance of rooms and a lack of six-pack-toting mobs of people who had just lost way too much money playing KENO. Midland is a neat little town, past it's real prime (hey, so am I) but very charming. We've stayed in that hotel a few times with the guys. The park behind it is at the confluence of the Chippewa and Tittibawassee Rivers and there is a "tridge" over the whole thing. Very cool. Take a look, here. It's hard to see exactly how this three-way bridge is situated but in the fall it is just beautiful. There is a neat skateboard park behind it that holds lots of fun memories for our family.....all of our boys used to skateboard non-stop. Now Jeff is the lone skater. I don't think he'll stop until both wrists have plates and screws in them (one already does).

We put our things in the hotel and decided to walk for our supper. There were 4 choices(meaning places that served food and were actually open) within walking distance; a fifties diner that closed in 10 minutes, a restaurant/bar that had deemed itself the 'Party Headquarters' (no thanks), a sports bar(nothing says romance like 'sports bar'), and a place called Molly's. We walked into Molly's and found that we should have had reservations. Who knew? This was Midland not New York City. Anyway, Molly said she'd take care of us and to be back in an hour. We did and she did. Dinner was amazing. There was a piano, some drums, and a big old stand-up bass that were all played beautifully. Wonderful dinner music. Great atmostphere. And no sweaty guys trying to eat with their chest hair and toenails exposed.

It was a wonderful anniversary. We had a great time. Carrie had something fun to do. Dan made a lot of fun memories with his sister. Dave and Jeff enjoyed having the house to themselves (and yes, it is still intact and it was cleaner when we got home than when we had left.) The cat missed us (she'll get over it). I didn't think about the diet once. (that's a good thing for a change) and I'm thrilled and thankful to be married to such a great man. I will spare you all the mushy details.

I know this isn't my typical post but it's what been up in this neck of the freezing cold woods.