Last Weekend for June 1-3: Parents, Birds
On very short notice my parents passed through town on Friday night en route to retirement home shopping. M and I took them to dinner at Cravings Cafe, which is a combination Thai restaurant & coffee house that I've biked past for many years but never been in. The menu had an extensive range of Thai food, some of which I do not recall seeing as an option at any of the Thai places I'd been to previously. I had a "Tiger Cry" salad which I greatly enjoyed. Everyone else also liked their meals. I suspect I'll be back. After dinner we hit up Mitchell's for ice cream.
My parents moved on Saturday morning, leaving me here to run a whole bunch of errands. Saturday night... I guess I didn't do very much, because I have no concrete memories of the evening, no new entries on my book and movie lists, and really no excuse. Sorry about that, life.
Sunday morning I finished off Pure Drivel by Steve Martin, which is the second to last of the free books from Ferrett's Oscar party. I guess that implies I started it Saturday night? Anyway, it's was a collection of mostly not very funny essays, but at least it was short!
More excitingly, Sunday my radio show was pre-empted for the Hessler Street Fair. M and I took the opportunity to head west and look for birds.
We started at Sandy Ridge Reservation. A pleasant walk revealed an indigo bunting, a yellow warbler, some eastern bluebirds and assorted egrets, herons and ducks. M spotted a Monarch Butterfly caterpillar, and most excitingly there were a whole bunch of really tiny frogs trying to cross the path. The largest of these was barely the size of my thumbnail. M was later told by a friend that seeing lots of these frogs portends rain. That sounds like an old wives' tail to me, but it must be acknowledged that as headed back to the car an utter deluge opened up on us.
We headed further west in the rain to Huron and decided to wait out the storm over lunch at Costa Azul, where M had been with a friend previously. We ate a lot of chips and unhealthy food.
The rain had passed by the time lunch was over, so we went to Sheldon's Marsh and walked out to the lake. The water was high enough that the beach was basically submerged and we couldn't walk to the western end of the preserve, but we did see a bunch of turtles and assorted standard issue unimportant birds, plus you can see the Huron Harbor Light off to the east. After that, we had just enough time to stop in at Old Woman Creek for a quick walk out to the observation deck before the gates closed.
Next up we stopped in Vermillion to check out the small public beach and to eat ice cream at Big Ed's. The ice cream is pretty standard, but it was a cool little shop and my cone was good. I may also have refiled all the books in a Little Free Library next to the beach.
Not being in any particular hurry, we took a slow drive along US-6 all the way back to home. That route took us past all the big houses along the lake, which felt decadently paparazzish. Upon our return, some much needed yard work was undertaken. Four yard bags being filled to the top.
My parents moved on Saturday morning, leaving me here to run a whole bunch of errands. Saturday night... I guess I didn't do very much, because I have no concrete memories of the evening, no new entries on my book and movie lists, and really no excuse. Sorry about that, life.
Sunday morning I finished off Pure Drivel by Steve Martin, which is the second to last of the free books from Ferrett's Oscar party. I guess that implies I started it Saturday night? Anyway, it's was a collection of mostly not very funny essays, but at least it was short!
More excitingly, Sunday my radio show was pre-empted for the Hessler Street Fair. M and I took the opportunity to head west and look for birds.
We started at Sandy Ridge Reservation. A pleasant walk revealed an indigo bunting, a yellow warbler, some eastern bluebirds and assorted egrets, herons and ducks. M spotted a Monarch Butterfly caterpillar, and most excitingly there were a whole bunch of really tiny frogs trying to cross the path. The largest of these was barely the size of my thumbnail. M was later told by a friend that seeing lots of these frogs portends rain. That sounds like an old wives' tail to me, but it must be acknowledged that as headed back to the car an utter deluge opened up on us.
We headed further west in the rain to Huron and decided to wait out the storm over lunch at Costa Azul, where M had been with a friend previously. We ate a lot of chips and unhealthy food.
The rain had passed by the time lunch was over, so we went to Sheldon's Marsh and walked out to the lake. The water was high enough that the beach was basically submerged and we couldn't walk to the western end of the preserve, but we did see a bunch of turtles and assorted standard issue unimportant birds, plus you can see the Huron Harbor Light off to the east. After that, we had just enough time to stop in at Old Woman Creek for a quick walk out to the observation deck before the gates closed.
Next up we stopped in Vermillion to check out the small public beach and to eat ice cream at Big Ed's. The ice cream is pretty standard, but it was a cool little shop and my cone was good. I may also have refiled all the books in a Little Free Library next to the beach.
Not being in any particular hurry, we took a slow drive along US-6 all the way back to home. That route took us past all the big houses along the lake, which felt decadently paparazzish. Upon our return, some much needed yard work was undertaken. Four yard bags being filled to the top.