Before heading down to Bloomington for the Weddingstravaganza, John and I decided to take a little trip to Ann Arbor. We realized that we'd taken very little time off since the holidays except to wedding plan, and that wasn't very relaxing. Ann Arbor is on the way, and we've enjoyed visiting there last Christmas and last summer.
It was going to be perfect: three nights in a town we love, good food, good beer, fun thing to see and do.
And then I got the random summer stomach flu that was traveling around London at the time. It wasn't pretty. I tried to eat like a normal person for the first day, and that ended poorly. We spend the end of our first night in the hotel, John eating pizza while I ate a microwave cup of rice, some applesauce, and sparkling water. We booked a room at the Microtel Inn and Suites, expecting it to be fine but nothing special, especially for the bargain price of $60 per night on Priceline (score!). But due to a scheduling issue on their end, we were upgraded to a large suite for the same price. Considering I had to spend more time than expected in the hotel room, I was grateful to have such a nice place to drink my carbonated water.
After lots of meds and the BRAT diet, I was able to at least walk around like a normal person the next day. We hit up some of the Ann Arbor sights, like Comet Coffee for espresso.
Comet Coffee is in the Nickels Arcade, a pretty, covered shopping/eatery strip near campus.
That afternoon we eventually made it to Ashley's, a tap room with tons of stuff on tap and in bottles. We've visited before and I wanted to see if there was some not-too-bitter beer that my stomach would agree with. I was in luck!
This time of year I always want to try fruit beers, but I'm often disappointed by their syrupy sweetness. Samuel Smith's, however, is delightful. It tastes sort of like strawberry ice cream. I'm on a mission to try their other varieties.
Not sure what John ordered, but probably a Michigan beer with a high ABV, judging from the above photo.
Above: Ashley's just turned 30 (like John!). To celebrate, they commissioned beers from various Michigan breweries. I think John enjoyed the cherry black ale (if I'm remembering correctly) from Dark Horse.
Below: John is fascinated by construction sites. He continuously marveled at this whole in the ground.
Nearly every restaurant/bar in Ann Arbor seemed to have a fun happy hour special, so we took advantage of the one at Seva, a vegetarian restaurant we both love. Since we'd already had some beer, we enjoyed the 1/2 price bottle of wine special and some small plates.
Happy Place.
One evening we decided to go see a movie after we noticed Blazing Saddles on the line up. It was showing at a beautiful old theatre downtown.
Afterward we headed to Blue Tractor for a basket of biscuits as a late night snack. I was lucky that my stomach could handle biscuits and beer by this point.
Not shown: we also went for a run at a park near the hotel, but since I'd been out commission for several days with the flu, it was sort of a meh run from my perspective.
Let all this discussion of sickness and less than stellar runs, as well as adjusted expectations, serve as foreshadowing for the weeks before and after the wedding. Oh boy.
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