I have not fallen off the face of the planet

I've neglected my blog this week. Sorry!!

Here's a super fast update: Yesterday, I spent the day in the basement of Cleveland Clinic. The doctor sent me for a CT scan of my belly. I drink gargantuan amounts of neon yellow fluid and had the most painful IV of my life. Today my belly hurts and is sore. I have to give a shout out to my friend and neighbor R who volunteered to go with me so I wouldn't have to ask D to take another day off or go alone. Thanks!!

Now...I want to recap the awesome weekend I had in Traverse City, MI. I think I am going to do a post on each day of our trip. So today's post is about Friday.

FRIDAY:

D and I spent Thursday night in Saginaw, MI. We woke up early (I'm talking 7am. Hello! This was supposed to be vacation!!) and hit the road. The drive to Traverse City only took about 3 hours. Our first stop in town was the local mall. ha ha It was cold, windy, and rainy. I jumped the gun and declared I needed a sweatshirt. Well we bought the sweatshirt and the skies immediately cleared. After the mall we went straight to the National Cherry Festival. Oh my gosh! Cherry overload! wowza! We made a B-line toward the food tents. We ate Koegel hot dogs, fries, cherry lemonade, and a cup of fresh cherries. We sampled cherry bbq, cherry peanutbutter, cherry jam, chocolate covered cherries, cherry salsa, and cherry butter. yum! yum! Clearly we ate our way through the festival.

We spent about 2 hrs exploring the festival and then decided to walk up and down the main street of Traverse City. Much to D's relief, I was in a hurry to see everything there was to see and did not spend much time seriously shopping. whew!

Finally it was time to check into the hotel, nap, and get ready for a fine dining experience. D and I had made reservations at Trattoria Stella a European restaurant in the basement of an old insane asylum. We figured it would a once in a lifetime experience. I mean how many people can say, "yeah I ate roasted duck in and wine in the cell of a retired insane asylum." Oh boy, the food was incredible. We had a five course meal with wine pairings. I ate (and drank) so much I thought I'd be sick. I highly highly recommend this restaurant.

Following dinner we went back to the hotel where the only thing we could do was take some Cherry Pepto and sleep off our lovely meal.

-h

p.s. my camera died on Friday, so I apologize for the lack of pictures!