November 21, 2008 by pam.

By Guest Blogger, Bev Gengler

A few weeks ago my friends and I went to Saugatuck for a weekend getaway. We stayed at the Ship ‘n Shore Motel conveniently located in town within walking distance to the shopping and restaurants district. It was a fabulous day of walking, eating, browsing, photographing, walking the shoreline of Oval Beach, playing cards, talking, laughing and drinking wine.
We had been given recommendations on restaurants, so in the early evening we set out on foot to have dinner. We came upon two places that had peaked our interest, but the wait was too long or the line was out the door onto the sidewalk. Eventually we came to Chequers, a quaint and cozy little place, described on their website as a Gastropub, a British word for pub with good quality food and known to have a relaxed atmosphere. Upon our entry, we noticed that is was small, warm and felt yummy. We noticed the couple that we’d talked to on the street seated at a table for two and even though they hadn’t arrived too long before us, they were sipping on drinks. After the hostess told us there would be a wait, I suggested “what about the long table for four that was open, and put a chair on the end for the fifth person in our party”. She replied with “that doesn’t leave room for the waitress to get around”. We were good with that and decided to belly up to the bar, and have a cocktail while we waited.

Five minutes passed before we, the only people sitting at the bar, were acknowledged. After observing there were only two of the eleven tables that could accommodate our party, we asked if we could eat at the bar. The seemingly disheveled lady server sort of mumbled a yes and took our drink order. About ten minutes later, and before our drinks arrived, the man server led us to a table that has freed up. So obviously there hadn’t been any communication between the man server and the lady server that we’d discussed eating at the bar. The lady server brought us our drinks within five minutes after being seated, gave us our menus and walked away. At this point there was very little talking between our group and the server. No “welcome, how are you doing” or “these are our menu features”. We decided relatively quickly our choices from the menu, and gave the order to lady server on her next visit. We were having fun in the dark corner where we were seated, sipping our drinks, but forever went by before we were served our food. At about this point I noticed that the couple that had come in just before us was finishing up and paying their bill.

Some of us were nearly finished eating before lady server sort of leaned around the corner and asked in passing if all was well. Meanwhile the “couple table” had two new people with drinks in hand and lady server was chatting it up with them. Lady server finally came by with our check, never asked if we wanted anything else, coffee, another cocktail, or dessert. I asked if she could split up the bill because we had two debit cards in our party, and she said “no, I’m in the weeds and don’t have time”. Although we felt slighted on service, we left a 20% tip on our $100 bill. As we were leaving I noticed the new people at the “couple table” were just finishing up and waiting for their check.

In summary, Chequers maybe needed another server working that night, maybe a bar tender would’ve served the bar better, lady server didn’t like working a party of more than four, lady server assumed our food was delicious, and that we weren’t really thirsty, and $5 in tips would have been more accurate. We did find cocktails, coffee’s and desserts elsewhere, and fun was had by all.

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November 10, 2008 by pam.

The online photo group I belong to (Photo a Week) has started something new … Theme a Month. November’s theme is Uniformity. I started shooting two weekends ago and got a few shots while in Saugatuck. My photo buddy, Bev, has also joined and as we wandered the town shooting we were digging the assignment. To see what’s there for the month of November so far go here: http://www.pixelgary.com/PAW/Theme/index.php?x=browse

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October 1, 2008 by pam.

Tomorrow I take off for Pittsburgh where I will take the first step to becoming a certified yoga teacher. After I pass this level I have another assessment (either this time next year or the year after) to be officially certified. I feel prepared, strong, and supported for the three part/two-day test.

I especially feel supported. Sunday night I realized I feel like that Verizon guy on the commercials with ‘his network’ behind him. I feel like I’ve got my network of support behind me: my family, the love of my life, my students, coworkers, friends, and especially the Advanced Yoga Posse. The posse has been coming to my dining room for two years, doing yoga with me, giving me feedback and becoming an even more ‘advanced’ yoga posse. They let me try out poses, sequences, and instructions that sometimes get a physical response and other times get burst of laughter. I’m looking forward to more of those yoga laughs.

More when I get back from Pittsburgh.

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September 4, 2008 by pam.

Just outside of Harrodsburg, KY is a past settlement of a group of Shakers. We got there about lunch time so we had lunch in the restaurant and poked around in the gift shops. The Village is open to visitors for a fee - we skipped wandering around from building to building. It was stifling hot and it didn’t seem very inviting.

The Village is run by a non-profit, since there aren’t any Shakers around. From reading a little bit on wikipedia, the Shakers came from England, a spin-off religious group from the Quakers. The Shakers didn’t believe in sex so they recruited additional members and adopted children if they wanted to have family. Not surprisingly, their numbers dwindled.

The did make great furniture, though. One of the buildings had some pieces of furniture, made in the Shaker style, for sale and they were quite nice. Simple, clean lines, functional.

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September 4, 2008 by pam.

The Bourbon Trail runs (generally) between Lexington and Louisville with many of the distilleries in the same town or quite near each other. We visited the Wild Turkey distillery, which makes bourbon. Bourbon is federally regulated having some specific requirements - must be made with at least 51% corn, stored in new barrels, and can’t have any additives. Bourbon is a type of whiskey. Whiskey is NOT federally regulated.

They don’t make bourbon in the summer. The tour guide gave us a verbal explanation of how bourbon is made and took us inside one of the several warehouses where thousands of barrels of bourbon are aged. Each barrel holds 53 gallons of bourbon. Some barrels are aged 6 years, 8 years, 10 years, and others 12 years. The bourbon is transported in tanker trucks to the bottling facility in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

The gift shop is full of Wild Turkey swag, bourbon, and there was even a turkey caller. They don’t have a tasting area so there we didn’t get any samples. They did have chocolates - bourbon balls - so we had a taste of that. And, we had bourbon when we got back to the condo.

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September 2, 2008 by pam.

Abraham Lincoln seems to be everywhere down here. His birth place and boyhood home are not far from Lexington. Mary Lincoln Todd’s birthplace and home are within a block or so of our condo. Mom and I went to the Lexington Public Library this afternoon and in their Gallery, there was a display of Lincoln’s presidential history. He is highly thought of as a president for the abolition of slavery. It seems, though, he struggled in his personal life. Mom was telling me that he and Mary were an odd match and that he might have been happier being a country lawyer. It also is clear he wasn’t necessarily happy being married to her. He was quoted today on one of the carved pieces of art in Berea as saying, “Marriage isn’t heaven or hell. It’s purgatory.”

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September 2, 2008 by pam.

We spent most of the day today (Tuesday) in Berea, KY. Berea is about 35 miles south of Lexington and is an arts and crafts town. It’s full of artisans who are happy to talk about their work and happy to give a demonstration of how they make their craft.

At the visitor’s center we ran into one of the attorney’s who works in Barb’s office. Small World!

Berea College was originally set up for blacks in the south in the 1800’s to help them learn a trade. Today, the college is a liberal arts college where every students receive a full ride, providing they work 10-15 hours in addition to their full time class work. It’s a small town, has an easy feel to it and seemed easy to get around.

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September 2, 2008 by pam.

Monday night, Labor Day, we went to the race track. The Red Mile track is a one mile track and on Mondays and Thursdays there’s harness racing there. We got there right at post time for the first race, hearing the sound of the horn announcing the race was soon to begin.

The stadium is fairly large. I don’t know how many people it can seat, but the night we were there, we had our pick of seats. We sat in the front row - practically on the track. It was a great vantage point to observe the horses and the riders (all ages, all sizes, mostly men).

There were 12 or 13 races. Each race takes about two minutes. There are 13 or 14 minutes between races so you can size up the horses, or use whatever method you have to choose which horse to bet on. Our methods ranged from gender of the rider, color of the horse, number of the horse, the odds, the trackman’s picks and, my favorite, length of the horses legs (which was just a rough visual estimate).

I bet on race two and three without success. Race four I bet on PartyLikeARockStar and won! My two dollar bet got me $20.20. At the end of the night, I was $10 ahead. Dad bet once, putting $10 on horse number one (The Ice Queen) and won $30.

We didn’t stay until the end. We’d had enough about halfway through. It was a fun evening.

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August 31, 2008 by pam.

This morning we had a reservation for the 9:00 AM “New Entrance” tour - one of the caves in Mammoth Cave National Park. The park is easy to get to and must be more crowded in the summer months. Even so, some of the tours were sold out.

The “New Entrance” tour sells out at 118 people. There was quite a crowd, probably close to capacity. The whole lot of us boarded three old school buses for the five minute ride to the cave entrance. Katie and April were our ranger guides.

Once in the cave we spent almost two hours underground. The short (quarter of a mile) hike was mostly stairs … almost 300 of them … taking us 250 feet underground. At one point, at a place with benches call “Grand Central Station” Katie turned out the lights so we could see how pitch dark it was in the cave. It was a cool 55 degrees and, besides lots of rock, we saw at least one bat. The stalagtites and the stalamites came near the end of the tour with a formation they have dubbed “Frozen Niagara”.

I liked the hike, being underground and seeing all the rocks and formations. It just seems amazing for it to be there and be so solid. You’d think that it would cave in on itself eventually. But you don’t really want to think too much about that while you’re underground.

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April 6, 2008 by pam.

Friday I watched the odometer on my 1999 Honda Accord click over to 100,000 miles. I was on Jackson Road in Ann Arbor, between Meijer and Arbor Farms, on my way to buy a loaf of Zingerman’s Jewish Rye. Seems like most of those miles were trips like that. I tried to remember some of those miles - at least the long trips when I put a lot of miles on - and I couldn’t come up with many. Here’s a quick list (in no particular order):
Ann Arbor to Boston: 1,500 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to Philly: 1,200 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to St. Louis: 1,000 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to Hershey, PA: 1,000 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to Paradise (it’s not): 700 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to Petoskey (twice): 500 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio: 500 miles round trip
Ann Arbor to Leo, IN: 300 miles round trip
And then there’s all those 300 mile round trips to Daniel’s. Approximately twice a month for the last three and a half years. That adds up to over 25,000 miles (I got the calculator out for that one).
That leaves approximately 67,000 miles done in 10 mile round trip increments to work, the grocery store, yoga, disc golf, and, to Zingerman’s for a loaf of Detroit Street (my favorite) or Jewish Rye (Daniel’s favorite).

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