When I left Iowa for Detroit it was raining. When I returned back home a week later it was raining. When I saw the clouds disappear about 50 miles out, I saw rivers over their banks and covering some roads. Flooded out Center Point, parts of Iowa City and Kalona. Welcome back home, I hate June in Iowa and the Goddammed highway of storms we get. Out of the 15 days, 12 of them we had rain. Fucking ridiclous.
Getting back to the trip, I noticed that Michigan had some heavy rains up north around Hale but around Taylor, the motel where we both stayed at, we encounted sprinkles instead.
We only did two FYE stores due to the mercy rule. I didn't think my GF would be that all up for hitting all of them. It's a shame that the Southfield FYE closed down but the Taylor FYE is still open. Unfortunly, the FYE stores had pushy help, who bothered me and Nicole and the Taylor FYE and Ann Arbor FYE stores had the same fucking songs played over and over. The problem with music stores is that they have music piped in and that nobody plays choice cds. But I did find a couple things at both stores so it was at least worth the effort to go there.
I got to finally meet Nicole's grandparents and Uncle Doug up in Hale. Hale is about two and half hours from Taylor. I counted something like 105 McDonalds stores on the way up there. Hale is out in the middle of nowhere, about 20 miles from Tawas City, located on Lake Huron. I would have loved to spend more time on Lake Huron but we were pressed for time. Nicole's Grandparents are in their 80s and are super kind and sweet. Grandma, like my mom tends to ask if we had enough food to eat and to take this and that on the way home. If you like to fish and hunt and go boating, Hale is the place to go but if you like to bargain hunt for music, you're out of luck. I guess if you really want to look for music its either Wally World or whatever Saginaw or Flint has to offer.
Ann Arbor, was the day that was chosen for the CD bargain hunt and getting there was a bitch. The GF hated driving into that town, she says that she never been there and have no intention of going back again ever. It is a college town and although I have seen my share of freaks at Madison or Iowa City, Ann Arbor has the most freaked out fools ever. Almost got into a fight with some cumsucker at the mall when he almost ran into me without saying anything and I called him a fucking idiot and threaten to throw my shoe at him. Inconsiderate cuntman. Downtown in the college part, had some ricesmoking fool making a circle around me and Nicole as we crossed the road and I gave him a look to suggest that he should quit smoking old shoe laces. We didn't go to PJ's Music due that they closed but I did make some time to stop at Wazoo's across the U of M and it was nice but it was Encore Records that made the trip all the worthwhile. It's been a long time since I've seen a record store stockpiled with so many albums and cds that 2 and half hours wasn't enough to really sort through it all. If Nicole would have left me there, went home and came back I'll still be there looking through all that music. If I had a heart attack and died on the spot there, it would be a nice place to spent the afterlife there. Encore basically blows all the stores away in terms of inventory. Worth going again if I return there.
The Michigan Trip was more about spending time with Nicole and her family and I think we accomplished that. Her mom and step dad were gracious and friendly and opened up the house so I could do some computer things and OD on Bejeweled. We played a bit of minature golf to which I won one game and Nicole won 3. Plus I got chewed up by about 5 mosquitoes in the process. We also ended up going to see 3 movies in two days at some place called Emagine. It had some nice seats. Got to see Marmaduke, Shrek 4, and The A Team which I'm sure Roger Ebert hated them all. I think I liked Marmaduke better than he did and The A Team had a empty headed plot but it was entertaining to say the very least. And Shrek 4, I liked better than 3 but it paled in comparsion with the first two. But I think Nicole liked them all.
The first four days I was saddled with either jetlag or a bad reaction taken the Waldram to combat motion sickness on the plane. The only place I came across from 35 years ago was a trip to Frankenmuth. I remembered the old Carling Brewery but on the return trip we didn't find it so maybe it was a thing of the past. But we stopped at the Frankenmuth Microbrewery and had some Chicken Parmasen instead. In Hale, we some great pizza from the Bear's Den. We went to the Lumberman's Monument and walked over 220 steps to get to the lake and had to endure a busload of kids who did the steps as a exercise. I didn't have much of a problem going up and down, but Nicole nixed the idea of doing that ever again. And plus what's a Michigan trip without having a bottle of Vernor's to drink? Even had a bottle of Faygo Cola when I got off the plane after arriving. Think I perfer Faygo myself.
Funny thing about vacations is that they're over in a hurry and this one was no exception. Again a big thank you to Nicole, her family, her relatives and everybody else for their hospitality. It was fun.
