Ann Arbor Zen turns to Tornado Watch

Our day in Ann Arbor was simply relaxing. We all woke up fairly late, ate some oatmeal for breakfast, and plugged in. Lee was on the internet, Lenny was posting to the blog, and I, I was going to write some. It had been a while since I did my morning pages practice. I also called my friend Rebecca. It was nice catching up and sharing some of the lessons from the trip with her.

By that time, it was already noon. I took over the blogging and talked with Lenny about religion, trying to convince him that he did in fact believe in God right after Lee left to explore the town. At some point, a delivery man came with a really cool package for Tyler, which turned out to be a wine rack made from recycled wine barrels, courtesy of Etsy.com. Getting it into the house was another lesson in practical skills - how to move large stuff up narrow stairs.

While the rest of the guys went to the Natural History museum, I stuck around and wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Looking up and out over their balcony and hearing the fountain and the leaves in the tress, I felt like I was in a Zen monastery.

That night, we all met up at the Brown Jug for Trivia night. We enjoyed some nice burgers and some brews, but didn't do very well at the trivia. Apparently, next to Alaska, Michigan borders Canada the most.

On our way out, we all loaded up into Kelsey's car. Since there was only room for five people, I laid across the dudes laps. We had a hilarious time and I finally solved the puzzle game we had been playing (He likes trees, but he doesn't like leaves).

It wasn't long before we were in bed. The next morning, we all had coffee together. Kelsey and Tyler were leaving that morning and we needed to be out of there before they were. We packed up our stuff, laid it on the porch, and almost lost a cat. We also almost lost some keys, but those turned up as well. We said goodbye to our hosts and rode off into the heart of Ann Arbor, this time together as a team.

We ate breakfast in front of the Michigan University library. After our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were all finished, we went in to decide on directions. We spoke with the librarian who suggested a nice scenic route, which we gladly took.

Riding was pretty good, except having to backtrack after hitting a dirt trail along Grass Lake road. We ended up taking old US 22. We stopped at a police station to break and then later to try and pick up milk at a farm stand, which happened to be closed. As we rode into Grass Lake, i went to take a picture of some road graffiti when I realized I had left my camera at the last stop. I turned around and flew out to grab it while the guys watched my stuff. I must have been going 20 mph the hole 4 or so miles. Luckily, I found it. I have a lot of learning still to do on this trip about keeping track of my stuff.

We continued until we hit Jackson and started to look for a grocery store. This turned out to be a challenge. After riding a bit recklessly through town, we found a Meijers and after shopping around, feasted on some vienna bread, tomatoes, butter, and meunster cheese. We also had our ritual gallon of milk between the four of us.

I told the guys about a dugout I had seen along the way, and we went to check it out. It turned out to be on private land and there was a baseball game going on, but a nice couple pointed us in the direction of Cascade park with multiple ball parks and an ampitheater. They also told us about tornado warnings.

We rode in to find a very neat public park. We found the ampitheater and put down our items. We checked out the cascades, an enormous water fountain display. Stef and I went ahead and actually bathed in one of the fountains, which was frigid cold. I didn't mind too much though, seeing as the day had been quite the scorcher. Not to say that I didn't scream a little bit getting in.

I wanted to go work out some stuff with my Peace Corps application and Montana research, so I rode out to a local laundromat while the boys hung out. I met a nice mother and daughter running the place. Caitlin was the daughters name and she was entering her senior year in high school. Maybe it's just the days spent on the road, but man, I just thought she was the cutest and I enjoyed gazing into her eyes as I told her about our adventure.

The storm and really picked up and I was scared. Luckily, a nice person at the park had approached the guys about letting us stay at a house! They even had a pickup truck for all our gear. They piled it on and dropped by the laundromat to pick me up.

I was a bit miserable -I wanted to spend time with Caitlin, wanted to work out Peace Corps and Montana research stuff, and suddenly, I was faced with what looked wet panniers and wet laundry. I blew up a bit once we got to our kind hosts house, but the guys were real good at hearing me out and saying their piece. In the end, I was really grateful for what they had down.

Our hosts showed us to the basement where there was a tv, vomputer, a blow up mattress, shower, and board games. Who knew we'd be staying in the most luxurious place yet on a night we had planned to sleep under an ampitheatre in a bitter storm.

I sent an awkward text to Caitlin, played a game of Chinese checkers with Lenny (hey Rebecca, I won my first game!), and talked for a good 45 minutes with my dear friend Mishu. A nice night in spite of a rocky start.

And now it is 1:18 AM and I really should be getting some sleep. Good night everyone.

Michael