The Last Three Days

The last three days of my trip have been this incredible whirlwind. I'll be able to write in more detail later, but here's the basic gist:

On Sunday afternoon, Robin and I drove from Lansing to East Jordan, MI, her hometown. It's BEAUTIFUL there. Like, really beautiful. Not to mention, everyone there was ridiculously nice. On Sunday night, we watched the sun set at a lake beach in town with Robin's cousin Kristina and her two kids. Incredible.

The next day, we drove up to Mackinac Island (the C at the end of Mackinac is silent). It's an island that can be reached only by ferry, since no automobiles are allowed on the island. That means that the island is covered in pedestrians, horse poo and bicycles. The photos I'll post do a pretty good job of showing that. Mackinac Island also has a fort that sits atop it. I'll try to link info about the fort. Before we got there, though, we visited the fort's original side on the mainland side of Lake Michigan, Colonial Michilimackinac (pronounced Mish-a-la-mack-in-aw). There are photos from both.


Monday night, we drove from Mackinac to Grand Rapids, MI, to stay in her cousin's apartment. Why? I needed to catch a 7:35am train to Chicago there. We rolled in at about 2am, which didn't give me much time to sleep, so Tuesday started out that much better. I was sad to leave Robin behind, too. I had a wonderful time traveling with her, and I felt really special to get to meet her family and visit her hometown.

The train into Chicago was delayed, which was pretty lame, since it was FREEZING and I was hungry. Poor Rachel had rented a Zipcar to come pick me and all my shit up from the train station, and had to extend her reservation by 30 minutes because of it. But once she picked me up and we dropped my stuff off at her place, guess where we went for lunch? You better effin' believe I went right to Chipotle. Chipotle, suckas! Don't hate. The manager talked us into getting margaritas there.

And the journey began. Rachel and I stopped at this cool little T-shirt shop called Strange Cargo. She needed a Cubs jersey and I got a Chicago T-shirt (unfortunately, the band, not the city - I didn't know!) for $5. We needed them for the Cubs-Orioles game we went to at Wrigley Field. After telling a friend about being at a game at Wrigley, received the following text message:
"What?!! I have an idea... why don't you do more amazing shit. Wish I was there."
Me dos, pal. I'm having the time of my life.

After the Cubs game, Rachel and I met up with two of her fellow improvisers. We went to iO to see some of the students do improv. Interesting stuff. Anyway, I got to hang out late night at iO, which is where a lot of the comedians from Saturday Night Live got their start - Tim Meadows, Tina Fey, Chris Farley. There's a pretty blurry photo of me in the greenroom there. SO COOL.

Then we caught a cab back to one of Rachel's friend's apartments, and got ridiculous. I've got photos, but am trying to figure out how to post them in a way that requires a password, since my kids are keeping track at home, too. Sorry kids. I know you all think I go out and dance on bars (absolutely not true), but I'd like to leave your image of how I have a good time exactly that way - imaginary.

Anyway, this ended up being a long post, not a quick update. Ask me more about Michigan if you're interested, I suppose. I'm going to add in maps later, too, and upload the photos onto Picasa for slideshows. Right now, Rachel and I are going to go grab lunch, head down to the beach, and wander around the city before her improv show tonight (she's so talented. Aw.).

Take care, readers. I love you!