It's Like We Know What We Are Doing

July 6th, 2013 And so we come to the end of the trip. Where we just drive home and snuggle back into real life... Psych!! There would really no reason to have a post then would there?? As we drove to Michigan, we looked all around for "sights." Reasons to pull over the car and hang out. And we really...didn't find much. That's not a slam against the mitten. We rarely find things while on the road. But then we drove through Holland. Since Elias and I just got back from our jaunt to the Netherlands, we chatted about Dutch things and how it was funny we are driving through Holland. It turned into a running joke. So basically, we had to stop in Holland on the drive home. Holland, MI was only an hour (at the most) from our hotel. So it was not really a middle-of-the-trip stop. But it didn't matter. It ended up being a really great end to our trip. Wait. Should I have put a Spoiler Alert?? Dang it... Last night, we looked at the options for ...

July 5, 2013 Originally, we would have just gone home today. We went to the park, got some food and slept away the night. Our job here is done. But one day in the office, I was talking about how we were going to go to Michigan to the park. Robyn casually mentioned another co-worker was going to the Cherry Festival in Traverse City. My ears perked up as I heard about the sweet sound of cherries. So a little research was in order. The National Cherry Festival is held every year in Traverse City, Michigan. My first thought was, "I'm sure Traverse City is right around the corner from Muskegon. I mean, how big is Michigan??" Sometimes, I'm not that smart when it comes to geography. Traverse City is 2.5 hours from Muskegon. But I would not be deterred when cherries are involved. The idea was floated to Mom and she was in. Elias?? Well, he would be fine wherever we decided to go. And if he wasn't, well...he didn't have much of a choice. Normally...

July 4, 2013 The trip, like all trips, started off simple. I had a shiny new card in my possession and I needed a quick amusement park hit. Plus, we had a four day weekend coming up. The universe was basically telling me I needed to hit the road. The only decision needed was where to go. I called Elias. The choice was Cincinnati or Muskegon. He hadn't been to either. And the drive was only 3.5-5 hours (depending on the location). As we talked about the options, I asked if he'd like Mom to come along. Or I just asked Mom if she wanted to come along. Either way, to my surprise, she said yes. Mom and Elias talked. Michigan was the winner. Worked for me. It was less time for me to drive. The final road trip question was answered in a way I didn't expect. A few days before we were heading out, I asked Elias to start putting together some CDs for the car. I made a reference to Mom and Dad's Camry. Mom responded, "Oh, I thought we were going in you...

June 19, 2013 The decision was made to try breakfast at the hotel again.  After last time's buffet debacle, we could have written off the breakfast at the hotel.  But we knew we could have breakfast a la carte.  So we tried it.  Elias got eggs and bacon.  I had croissants and jam and cheese.  They did pull the food directly from the buffet table, but it got the job done.  And for the same cost as one buffet breakfast. I gave Elias a job.  He was to search out a place to go to see windmills.  He found Kinderdijk.  Kinderdijk is just southeast of Rotterdam and is known for windmills.  Kinderdijk had a very light entry in the Rough Guide, so I couldn't do too much on the research on the go.  I knew in general how to get there, but much of this day was going to be winging it. The morning started out easy.  We knew where Amsterdam Centraal was.  We can definitely figure out how to buy tickets.  After that...we w...

June 18, 2013 Last night, on our way back for the museum area, we were hanging out at a tram stop and spotted a restaurant that looked like it might be a cute place for breakfast.  Imagine our surprise when it was a breakfast place and it was rated highly on TripAdvisor.  The only thing we had to do was figure out how breakfast would work with our plans for later in the morning.  We had an 11a start at the Van Gogh Museum, so breakfast shouldn't be too hard. Greenfields was touted as an English Breakfast, Lunch, High Tea and Dinner place.  They opened at 930a and that's right about the time we got there.  Elias didn't want to sit outside and eat (what's wrong with this kid??), so we went indoors and had some breakfast.  The place was nicely wood paneled (not in a 1970's way) and cozy.  Elias ordered a full English Breakfast (but not with blood sausage) and I ended up with an Eggs Royale.  It was like an Eggs Benedict, but with salmon instead o...

June 17, 2013 When the plans were being made for this trip, I figured two and a half days in Amsterdam might be too long.  So I had two days set aside for day trips.  I wanted to go to Brugge.  Elias found a place in the Netherlands that had tons of windmills.  Today was scheduled for one of those days.  Yesterday, we were at dinner or lunch or something and I asked Elias if he wanted to do a day trip tomorrow or if we should just keep hanging in Amsterdam.  He voted to hang in Amsterdam.  Which was honestly fine.  I think we are both slowing down.  Scratch that.  I KNOW we are both slowing down.  So we figured we could keep ourselves busy in Amsterdam for one day longer.   Since we didn't have very secure plans today, we started off easy.  And we decided we needed a Starbuck's treat for breakfast.  I mean, it's been 8+ days since Starbucks, so that's enough time to suffer some chai withdrawal.  Our 9 Tram would ...

June 16, 2013 I don't know who we are anymore.  We are sleeping in and leisurely moving around.  We NEVER do that!!  Then again, we are on Day 7, with one traveler who has never been on a trip this long and another traveler who hasn't been on a trip this long in a while (not to mention said traveler is getting older and may not be able to travel at such high speeds for as long as they have done in the past).  So that is our new normal for the rest of the journey.  The alarm goes off, we sleep a little longer.  And it is glorious. Elias was hungry for breakfast this morning (shocker!!) so  went downstairs to the hotel breakfast.  Now, I thought this breakfast was included in our room. It wasn't.  I wasn't jazzed about spending €17.50 for a breakfast buffet, but Elias was actually hungry and it was a Sunday, so I sucked it up.  We got downstairs around 1045a.  Nothing too crazy.  The waitress asked if we wanted the buffet or a la...