Spring is in the air...

...and that means it's time to start thinking about Summer 2011. It will be tough to top 2010; the House on the Rock is still haunting my dreams.

What should we add to the list?

Financing the project

Lindsay and I want to road trip to The House On The Rock in August. Both of us have other trips that month though, and we're planning a big trip in November to the YALSA conference. This means we'll have to be thrifty on our road trip, and try to find some ways to help with the costs.

I'll finally be taking back all my empties (the local grocery store doesn't have a bottle return thing for glass, and I mostly have empty bottles of Miller High Life around), and rounding up all of my loose change (I seem to leave a trail of it behind me). What suggestions do you all have for ways to make a few bucks here and there?

The Tale of Sarah Town-Mouse

I waited too long to write this post, so now I'veforgotten much of our trip to The Farm! Luckily I have some pictures to help me out.

Firstly, Farmer Boy insisted we take his tiny red car instead of my giant orange car. This meant poor George was stuck in the way back. He seemed pretty happy, though.















Here's the car, parked at one of many rest stops we stopped at along the way because I have to pee more often than a pregnant woman. Would you drive for 8 hours in this with another person and a dog?










Over the next few days I met ALL of Farmer Boy's family and a few friends. Everyone seemed to like me except for who I most wanted to befriend:

The barn cats. On my first trip into the barn there were about four kittens romping playfully. The rest of the times I went in they were all in hiding, except for one time when Mama Cat came out and stared me down long enough for me to get a picture.








Here's a local animal who WOULD come out and play with me. To take Lee's dad's dog out for a walk, you get in a go-cart thing and drive like crazy. He runs in front. Great for lazy people!










We spent our first day there hanging around the farm, and the next day in St. Louis. Lee spent that day hanging out working on a car with some friends, while I sat inside by myself reading and playing with the homeowner's pets. It was a good day.

Our second full day there was the 4th of July. The WHOLE FAMILY came by to gawk at me. It was a little weird but it was okay. His grandma was very charming and didn't even try to hide that she was there to see what I was all about. After everyone had left, we went up to the top of one of the grain bins to watch some fireworks.

Almost time!













Ooooh, Ahhhhh.




























Some general farm scenes:

View from the grain bin in the day time














View of Lee's butt while he foolishly climbs to the very top of the grain bin, which was very high up and also burning hot.















Butterfly! This kind of photo is what makes me wish I had a "real" camera instead of a point and shoot. There were lots of beautiful sights around.








The weird formatting of this post is a result of my posting the pictures first, from home. Now I'm not at home and typing this. Anyway, this is the only picture I have here from our drive home, because I accidentally deleted the rest. They were mostly charming shots of me and George at The Cracker Barrel. It is a given that you must stop at The Barrel on any road trip. I hope Lindsay agrees, since we've got a few days in a car together ahead of us!


Creepy giant cross

oh boy...

I've got a heck of a first coming up this holiday weekend: meeting the parents.


That's right, we're headed to the farm today for a weekend of family togetherness. Not only have I not met Lee's parent's before, but I've never actually had to formally meet ANY boyfriend's parents. My last significant ex never told his parents about me (charming, right?), so even though I met them it was never as his girlfriend.

ACK!

Have I mentioned that I'm a liberal vegetarian and Lee's dad grows cow food for MONSANTO? Should be an interesting weekend.

An interesting take...

...on the sporting event. Andrea wants us to blow off some steam, or maybe relieve patron related stress, by fighting to the death. With cardboard tubes. Check it out: http://yasfnews.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/inspirational-cardboard-tubes/

Greece, at your age, you and that Jane ? It's obscene !

If you are not Lindsay and can name the movie the title came from, you'll get a gold star for the day!

I'd already done everything we did this weekend before, but it's always nice to take someone new around. I remember going to Greektown as a kid with my family. I liked the People Mover, but I didn't like the lemon rice soup. It was a much different place then, in the pre-casino days.

I had the same thing as Lindsay for dinner, Vegetarian Pastitsio. I would like to point out that I ordered it first, and she is a total copycat. I thought it was great and inhaled nearly all of the huge plateful. It is true though that after flaming cheese everything else is boring. I plan to insist that all my meals be served flaming from now on. I like the restaurant we went to, but I will always miss Hella's and the man with the handlebar mustache. (That sentence had two words that I always misspell in it! And I spelled them both wrong.)

The walk to Campus Martius was perfect, since we'd all eaten about 10 pounds of food. It is such a beautiful space. I never think to go there when it's nice out, I've only been there to ice skate in the winter. Now that there's a new cafe, I might be tempted to take my laptop (free wireless!) and hang out. I really like how Lindsay chose to post the picture of me twirling my ponytail when this completely normal picture existed.


Casinos are pretty boring, which is why I initially suggested we just pop in to gamble $5 or so. My family always goes to them for minor holidays...and last year we actually went for Thanksgiving. I put my money into a slot machine and almost immediately won $30. I took my voucher out and was done gambling for the evening. I watched everyone else lose and then drank my free Pepsi ( I never knew about the Pepsi. We're definitely going to have to spend more time hanging around the casino) while everyone else had a public smoke.

There was a lot going on downtown, so the People Mover was actually crowded. I'm used to having a whole car more or less to myself, so it was annoying not to be able to sit in the seats with the best view and move around at will. Still, I love the people mover. I hope they extend it someday so it can be useful.

The Farmer and I went to Greektown on our third date. We did most of the things that we all did last weekend, with one extra bit of awesome: we went to see a psychic. She asked what we wanted to know, and I told her we were on our 3rd date and wanted to know how she saw things going for us. She pretty much said that I'm a bitch (she may have said something more along the lines of opinionated or used to getting my way) and he's a pansy, so it would probably work out. She was right!

Greek Town Adventure: Part 2

From Campus Martius we proceeded to Greek Town Casino, which I can't show you pictures of because they're very stern about that sort of thing there.  I hadn't to a casino since my single foray to the one in Windsor during my obligatory 19th birthday Canada trip. (A rite of passage for all young Michiganders!)  The casino was fun, but also disconcerting. The old people hooked up to the slot machines with those cards on the lanyards that look like umbilical cords are disturbing.  Also, you can smoke in there!  It's only a little over a month into Michigan's smoking ban, but this already seems weird.  And then, what did I discover on the second floor? Free Pepsi. That's right....FREE.  There's a fountain on the wall, you can just help yourself.  I felt like I'd stumbled into an alternate reality.  I don't get how they keep people from just hanging out there all day smoking and drinking free pop, especially since it doesn't cost anything to get in.

The actual gambling went by pretty fast.  I lost $12 on slots in about ten minutes, and then I was bored. I have to say, I don't really get the appeal of gambling.  In the movies it always looks kind of glamorous and sexy.  To me it just felt like I'd been very gently mugged by a vending machine.  Nobody there looked like they were having a fantastic time or anything, mostly they just looked grim.

And then, (at last! at last!) I had my very first ride on Detroit's People Mover.  It was... hot.  And a little smelly.  But Thrilling!  We went in a little circle from Greek Town, around downtown and back.  It does give you a pretty nice view of down town, including a particularly cool glimpse of Tiger Stadium, which was all lit up and full of fans as we rode by.

And that concluded our Greek Town Adventure!  We meandered back to our heavenly parking place, far above the casino, and fought post-game traffic from Tiger Stadium all the way home.  Truly Detroit is a magical, magical place.