Friday afternoon jebra and I went up to Houghton Lake to spend the weekend with his parents. Friday night we went out Chinese, did some shopping, then came back to the house to watch CNN, and (in my case) knit.
Saturday we got up earlier than we anticipated as jebra's cousin, his wife, and their two girls had also come north for the weekend and stopped in. We had a nice time visiting with them, ate a late breakfast, then went to Arnie's (a locally-owned craft store) and the Tractor Supply Company for some recreational shopping. When we came back to the house, jebra's mom cooked dinner, Gabe did something on his laptop, and I knit another Jayne hat. After dinner I finished the ear flaps on another pair of Jayne hats and read a book.
Sunday we slept in (although me moreso than jebra), ate a leisurely breakfast, packed the car, and started the drive home. We decided we'd go via Mt. Pleasant and have lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant (Taco Boy). When we arrived in Mt. P we embarked on a driving tour, trying to find the places were we'd lived. This was a challenge because we left town some twenty-five years ago and we couldn't remember the house numbers, or in two cases, the name of the street. We did pretty good, finding five of the places where I used to live. I knew from a previous visit that my old place on Mission had been torn down and I'd heard that the place nearest campus had been demolished to make room for more student housing. As it turns out, that one was still there, but the first house I lived in when I moved off campus was gone.
After completing our tour we went to Taco Boy as planned, only to discover their building was once again empty. I noticed a sign on the door and we pulled into the parking lot. Happily, the sign indicated they'd moved up the street. Unhappily, once we found the new location, we discovered they were closed for Father's Day. We continued down Mission, hoping to find something that sounded good, but nothing did. When we reached Alma, we thought the Braveheart Pub sounded promising, but we soon discovered it was closed. We thought we'd end up having dinner in Lansing, but as we continued along the two lane roads we were traveling, I noticed a place with an amazing number of parked cars. We quickly recognized it as a restaurant and concluded that the food must be excellent to draw such a crowd. We stopped. The food was everything we hoped for.
After dinner we decided we were having so much fun taking the old state road that we should take them the rest of the way home. This stretched what would have been a three and a half hour trip to one that took eight hours, but it was relaxing and we saw some neat stuff.
