Flintown!

Well, Ira and I have been in Flint now a couple of days. All along the way, after hearing we were headed toward Flint, people kept asking if we had our guns with us. I know it has a rough reputation, but Flint is actually a cool town. Run down of course, but not as crazy as people think. There are some rough neighborhoods, but a lot of the area is pretty rural, like where my parents live. Here is great photo of a yard near my parents house.


An old tree stump becomes a buried cowpoke. Awesome.

After first getting to Flint, my sister, her fiance, Jason, and some or our Flint friends were immediately off to the Frankenmouth Beer Fest in Frankenmouth MI.

My sister and I enjoying some beers!

They call this town little Bavaria, and because of their strong German heritage they love beer. Ira and I went last year to their Octoberfest and we highly recommend it!! Their beer fest also did not disappoint. Collected in one building were 50 different breweries all displaying their various brews for sample tasting. The breweries were mostly local Michigan and Great Lake states microbrews, but there were other national and a couple of international breweries present (Unibroue, Hofbrauhaus, Guinness, Newcastle, etc). Beside the general tasting area, they also had a small pole barn off to the side in which they were conducting two different classes in which we enthusiastically enrolled. Beer 101, and Beer and Sausage Pairing. Both were incredibly informative and delicious. The sausage in the second class was supplied by Kerns, a local sausage company. It was so good even Ira (everyone prepare yourselves) tried some. (Ira is a vegetarian for all you who don't know). Overall we had a great time. Lots of beer was drunk. Of course they only give you four ounces at time, but after 20 samples the ounces really begin to add up. My favorites were the Unibroue, a brewery from Quebec, Dragonmead Mircobrewery from Detroit, and Founders brewery. Bells was there of course, and we enjoyed drinking old favorites like Oberon. They were sampling their more common beers. Luckily though, we stopped by the brewery in Kalamazoo on our way here and enjoyed excellent hospitality and a few crazy brews which were excellent and not so common. Ira enjoying his Bells brew (in Kzoo) with our incredibly cool bartender, Wade.

After leaving the beer fest that night, we were still itchin' for some excitement so we meandered back to Flint to the Dakota Lounge for a little bit of bull riding. None of us were able to stay up long. Ira gave it a good try, but he kept complaining his Chrome biking knickers were slippery because he kept sliding the rear end of the bull before falling off. I was a bit surprised considering he purchased those pants a month ago and has worn them every day and not laundered them. They should have been gritty enough to hold him on.

We've spent most of this week just relaxing around my parents house along with a little bit of yard work. I don't know why, but I really think this picture of Ira with the weed whacker is a little sinister, but to most of you out there, it's just a guy with a weed whacker.

We helped my dad open the pool this week to get ready for some lounging on Memorial day weekend.

On Tuesday we hit the open road again. To the U.P.!!!!!