Episode 60: July-September 2012
Highlights of the quarter:
- Summer vacation in Frankfort, Michigan;
- Weekend in Detroit;
- Home improvements;
- Labor Day holiday in Oklahoma;
- Weekend in New York;
- Neal (finally) rides the MS-150;
- The return of Adventure Sunday!
This year’s summer was gorgeous and everything we’ve come to look
forward to living in Michigan – a state that comes alive with people enjoying
the outdoors, the lakes, the warm, consistent temperatures, and the long, sunlit
days.
On the heels of Carol coming to spend a few days with us, Stephanie and
Luis, our friends who now live in Brazil, arrived for a three-week vacation in northern
Michigan. We joined them up north in the
beautiful little town of Frankfurt which is located on Lake Michigan, along the
state’s west coast. The town has the
feel of a sleepy surfing village, with a few stores and restaurants. But the major highlight of the town is its
access to the expansive coastline and gorgeous sandy beaches. Fortunately for us, the Lake Michigan waters
had warmed up to the mid-70s Fahrenheit (low-20s Celsius) thanks to all the
weeks of warm weather leading up to our vacation. Each day started with the men heading off on
a long bike ride and the ladies heading off to the gym for a morning workout
(with Stephanie teaching), followed by some combination of lunch, heading to
the beach for an afternoon of swimming and reading, a home-cooked dinner, and
then a round or two of cards and a few glasses of wine before bed. Stephanie was responsible for setting up the accommodations,
and the little cottage she rented was perfect, centrally located a few blocks
off the beach and one block away from the town’s main street. The cottage was packed with all the amenities
that we could possibly need, including an outdoor shower to avoid tracking sand
into the house and a fantastic front porch that was perfect for late night chill-axing
and people watching. Besides a few day
trips to see the shoreline bluffs and some of the surrounding beaches, we were
happy to spend all of our time exploring what Frankfort had to offer.
Neal and I returned home after a week’s stay, while Stephanie and Luis
remained in Frankfort for another week and then joined us in Midland for a week
before heading back to Brazil. For her
last weekend in Michigan, Stephanie had pre-planned a weekend dance retreat
with many of her NIA students and fellow instructors. One instructor travelled from Sweden to join
us for a weekend of dancing and togetherness.
Soon after our vacation, Neal participated in the Midland Country Club’s
Member-Guest Invitational Golf Tournament, which unfortunately did not run
quite as planned given some uncooperative weather. Basically, it was rainy and cold the entire tournament,
which left Neal soaking wet and frustrated with his golf game every day. Nevertheless, it was a fun weekend of golf
and the rain did not prevent us from enjoying the tournament after-parties.
This quarter marked the beginning of some fairly significant home
improvement projects. We finally decided
to get some help with decorating the inside of the house and getting the backyard
landscaping upgraded. Given these
decisions, the house was in disarray for a good part of September, so we
conveniently spent some time outside of the house. As we like to do, we spent a few weekends
away from Midland. One of the weekends was
spent in Birmingham, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit) for a quiet weekend to find
some furniture for our interior decorating project and enjoy some great
food. While there, we decided to trade
in my car, Effie the Eos, for a new car – we are now the proud owners of Lexy,
a black Lexus convertible. Although the
transaction seemed a little impulsive, it was something we had talked about for
the last few months. When we found that
the dealer had the exact car we were looking for, we decided to act.
In early September, we traveled to Oklahoma to spend the Labor Day long
weekend with Neal’s family. We had a
great day exploring some of the sights in Oklahoma City, including a revisit to
the memorial site of the tragic Oklahoma City bombings, which happened in 1995,
as well as the very cool neighborhood of Brick Town. Neal’s parents organized a lovely dinner
party at their house with family friends that we do not often get to catch see
during our short visits. Being summer in
Oklahoma, the days were sunny and the temperatures were scorching. So, we tried our best to enjoy the outdoors,
but stayed in the shade! For the rest of
our trip we mostly relaxed, ate a lot of food, and spent as much time with Neal’s
grandparents as we could.
When I lived in Melbourne, a few girlfriends and I (you know who you
are) started a tradition we called “Adventure Sundays”. Once a month on a Sunday, we would make plans
to be a tourist in our own town and do something we would not otherwise
do. While catching up with a few
girlfriends for drinks one night here in Midland, I brought up the idea, and we
decided we would bring this back to life.
Our first Adventure Sunday was spent taking photos of ourselves posing
in front of some of the town’s main tourist attractions. We started at our house – where the bobcat
and tools that the landscapers had in the backyard served as a great landscape
for some crazy photos – before hitting some of the sites around town. We ended Adventure Sunday with a
pedicure. It was fabulous – I cannot wait
for our next adventure!
The final weekend away for us this quarter was to New York City with Ed
and Michelle. We had planned this trip
almost a year ago when Neal and I bid on – and won – the trip at a charity auction. The trip included flights, hotel, dinner, and
tickets to a Broadway show. Given the
Noacks’ equal love for food and adventure, there was a lot of research that
went into which culinary experiences we were going to have while there. Our first stop was for lunch at the Spotted
Pig in Greenwich Village. The Spotted
Pig is a British-style gastropub co-owned by Bono, Jay-Z, and Mario Batali
among others. It is a small place with
some very cute and eclectic décor, and more importantly, solid pub food
elevated a notch. We spent the remainder
of our first day exploring the city on foot.
That evening, we ended up at the French restaurant, Le Veau D'or, which
is a place that Ed got interested in after it was featured on a television show. This restaurant has been a staple in New York
City’s Upper East Side, dating back to 1937, and the food did not disappoint.
The following day we rented bikes and spent a leisurely morning riding
through Central Park before washing up and heading to a matinee showing of the
Broadway show, “The Book of Mormon”. The
show was written by the creators of the television show, “South Park”, and it
was every bit as crass as one would expect.
It was, in our opinion, a very funny parody of religion, and definitely worthy
of all the accolades it has been getting.
We highly recommend it, but prepare to be offended in some way! Our dinner that evening was at a fabulous
Mexican cantina called La Esquina. You
walk into an unassuming street-side taqueria, only to be ushered into a secret
door, down a set of stairs, through the kitchen, and into an underground cave
that is buzzing with people and activity.
The food and cocktails were delicious.
The final day in the city, we headed out to explore lower Manhattan,
with the goal of getting to one of my favorite places, the Australian bakery
called the Tuck Shop. We found out that
a branch of the Tuck Shop is located in the famous Chelsea Market, so we wandered
through the city and eventually got to the market in time for a lunch of meat
pies, sausage rolls, and lamingtons.
After that, we continued further south and walked through The High Line,
a public park built on an historic freight rail line elevated above the streets
on Manhattan’s West Side. From there, we
headed back to our hotels, picked up our bags, and made our way to the
airport. In my case, I had a business
meeting in Washington D.C. the next day, so I made my way there by train before
flying back to Midland a day later.
The final highlight of the quarter was Neal (finally) completing the
MS-150, a 150-mile charity bike ride over a weekend. As some of you may remember, Neal had a false
start in June when he regrettably had to pull out of the ride due to a
partially torn hamstring. After weeks of
rehab on his leg, he decided that he was in good enough shape to do the last
MS-150 ride of the year, which started and ended in Frankenmuth, a small town
about 45 minutes south of Midland. Typically,
most people break up the ride into two 75-mile routes, one on Saturday and the
second on Sunday. The whole ride is
well-organized, with road markings showing the routes and plenty of volunteers
manning the rest stops along the way with food and drinks. Thanks to a wrong turn, Neal and the group he
was riding with ended up riding 100 miles on the first day. Although unexpected (that was the first
100-mile ride for Neal), Neal was amazed that he was in good enough shape to
knock out 100 miles in a day. The
following day, Neal finished up the ride by completing the remaining 50 miles. Although the Frankenmuth ride was not as
pretty as the ride he was supposed to do in June, Neal was very glad that he
did it. And thanks to the support from
many of you, he was able to raise $2,410 for the MS Society – a tremendous
cause, indeed.
And so with tired legs (at least for Neal), we closed another action-packed
quarter for the Shorgs. Until next time,
take care!
