All over the place

I've been travelling a lot throughout June but unfortunately nothing too exciting. I've been gone four weekends in a row and I'm exhausted. Columbus and Dayton, Ohio to visit my family, Cleveland, Ohio for a bachelorette party, Ann Arbor and the Detroit area to visit The Husband's family, and out to the suburbs for a wedding.

A couple highlights - The Burgundy Room in Columbus, Ohio. The Burgundy Room is located in the Short North area of Columbus, not far from Ohio State's campus. The Short North is a very vibrant area with lots of shops, people walking on the streets, street performances, and restaurants. The Burgundy Room was a wine bar and tapas restaurant. I took my brother there for dinner and he asked me what a tapa was. Luckily I was able to introduce my college-age brother to the wonders of good tapas. If I ever moved back to Ohio, Columbus is where I'd be. It's a great town.

The next weekend it was on to Cleveland. Saturday night we went to a winery called Perennial Vineyards near Canton, Ohio for part of a bachelorette party. The wine was pretty decent (what can you expect, Ohio isn't exactly known as the Napa of the midwest). But the food was excellent. Really good and creative pizzas.

Weekend three was on to Michigan. We stopped in Ann Arbor on Friday night on the way in to see some old friends. I'd really been looking forward to stopping at Zingerman's Creamery for some cheese on Saturday morning but we got up early and left before it was open. We did have the pleasure of going to the dirtiest, nastiest, undergrad bar on University of Michigan's campus on Friday night. They actually made us pay cover. I boycott places that charge a cover but once in beers were only $1. And The Husband and I were able to get fairly intoxicated on only $16 total. And the bar made me feel extremely old. Pretty sure that me, The Husband, and The Husband's friend were the only ones in the whole place with a wedding ring on.

Last weekend was a wedding on Saturday night. The Marriott resort in Vernon Hills has a restaurant and bar decorated as a pirate ship. Awesome when you've been drinking. Wouldn't actually recommend this hotel to anyone as it seemed extremely outdated. Sunday we headed to the beach in Michigan with two other couples. We headed to Warren Dunes in Sawyer, Michigan which is less than 2 hours from downtown Chicago. I highly recommend heading there as a day trip or even an overnight. We laid on the beach all day, grilled out in the parking lot for lunch, went hiking to find the clay pits, and you can also climb and run down the huge dune if you'd like. We also had dinner at a great local restaurant down the road. There were some wineries nearby too. It really was the perfect summer outing (I write this as I'm sitting here on July 4th, it isn't even 70 degrees out, and it's raining).