So over the weekend, Rand and I traveled to Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Why Ann Arbor? Well, Rand wanted to get away for his birthday, and Ann Arbor is a cool town, and I’d never been there. It’s not too bad of a drive (about five hours if you drive through Canada), and so it was off to Michigan for us.

Before heading out, we visited with Rand’s brother in Batavia for a bit. We had bagels, and juice, and ping pong, and pleasant conversation, and then we were on our way. Before we left, I snapped this photo of sad little daffodils covered in snow.

The drive wasn’t too bad, and we made decent time except for the last little bit of the trip. It started to snow hard enough to make it difficult to see. By the time we got to the hotel, I was a cranky Erin.

Our room was a little bit cold, so we first fiddled with the heater. Then I set off in search of a bottle of water. I checked every machine, and every machine was out of water. Wah. Cranky Erin heads back to room and leaves again to get ice. Room is not any warmer. In the meantime, Rand has unpacked our things.

We wait a while, and upon realizing the room is not going to get any warmer, Rand calls the front desk. Someone comes up to look at the heater and determines that the compressor is broken. He offers to get us a space heater for the night, and we think that sounds fine. We’d worry about moving to a different room in the morning.

The front desk calls back and says they want to move us to a new room…there’s an open one just down the hall. Sigh. Fine.

We get to the new room and start to unpack, and I realize the minifridge isn’t working. (since we knew there was a fridge in the room, we’d brought some snacks and drinks with us) I thought maybe it just needed to be plugged in, but alas, I was mistaken. Rand calls the front desk again. They offer to move us yet again.

Sigh.

We wait. And finally, the guy shows up with keys to the third room, which thankfully seems to be in working order. And then to bed.

On Saturday, we headed out to explore downtown Ann Arbor. One of our first stops was at the Dawn Treader Book Shop. This was great fun, and we both found a couple of little treasures.

We also visited the original Borders and two or three other book shops.

We had lunch at Totoro, a Japanese restaurant.

They did not have chicken tempura, which made me a little sad, but Rand seemed to enjoy his meal. (my chicken teriyaki was just okay.) And since he was the birthday boy, that was the important thing. 😉

Later, we had ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s, coffee/chai at an independent shop, and bought way too much Pocky at Wizzywig.

Saturday evening, we were invited to have dinner with Tom Smith and Leslie at her house, which was about 20 minutes from the hotel. Leslie cooked, and everything was wonderful. Afterwards, we sat around and chatted for a while, which was also nice. 🙂 We talked about music and the muppets and life, and, well, lots of things!

We checked out on Sunday a little before 11 (and nothing from the clerk regarding our musical rooms situation, by the way. Not even a “how was your stay?” I was livid. I think I’m writing them a letter.)

We stopped at a Bob Evans for brunch, and then had a rather uneventful drive home. When the border guard checked Rand’s ID on our way into Canada, she wished him a happy birthday. Those Canadians are so nice… 😉 On our way back into the US, the border guard looked more punk rock-ish than border guards generally do. So that was fun… 🙂

I hope you all had a pleasant weekend and a Happy Easter! 🙂