Highlights from our trip to Michigan – Part One

June 29^th – We pack up, pick up Sarah’s friend, Tania, and hit the road. Half an hour outside Ottawa, Tania says, “I thought you said I’d be sharing the back seat with a bunch of hanging outfits,” and we realize we’re the dumbest people on the planet. My suit and Sarah’s dress are still hanging in our front hall closet. We turn back to recover the clothes and our four-hour car ride becomes a five-hour car ride. Then in my haste to get Tania to her stop without further delay, we almost run out of gas. A sketchy Canadian Tire in a sketchy part of Toronto saves our ass (and at 78.9 cents a litre, it feels like my birthday).

June 30^th – We visit families and run errands in Georgetown. Rested, beautified, and freshly shorn, we’re Windsor-bound down the 401. The trip is uneventful, and the border crossing goes fine, but then we enter into absolute fucking chaos. Across the border, the roads are garbage, all cracks and pot holes, but that’s to be expected. The day’s special bonus is that the first eight exits on either side of the I96 are closed—and not just closed but demolished, ripped to bits. And are there sixteen road crews on the job? Of course not! I don’t know if I even saw one. It’s like they only had the jackhammer guy for one day so he had to do it all at once. Anyhow, after a detour through Eight Mile Road, we rap-battle our way out of the war zone that is downtown Detroit. How are we treated for our effort? Five minutes after getting on to the correct highway (I-94), a flying object hits and cracks our windshield. And I totally did not curse out the entire state of Michigan and all its inhabitants.

Around five-thirty, we make it to Ann Arbor where we meet up with Katie and Jason, our friends and our innkeepers for the night. They suggest Grizzly Peak for dinner, which turns out to have great food and also serves beer from a nitro tap (less carbonation, smoother taste, drunky drunky). From there we move on to Ashley’s, which has over a hundred and fifty brands of beer. We enjoy Bell’s quite a bit, and Jason and I finish with a glass of Suntory whiskey (“For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.”) Back at their apartment, Jason introduces me to a PS2 game called Def Jam Fight for NY, where stars affiliated with the Def Jam label beat the shit out of each other for money. You can pit Henry Rollins against Flavor Flav, or Lil' Kim versus Carmen Electra. Good times. After many games and many drinks, I go to bed half cut.

July 1^st – We leave Ann Arbor and head north. There’s a stop for breakfast, and another at an outlet mall, but other than that there’s just a lot of driving. Four hours in, we officially enter God’s Country because three of every four radio stations play only Christian Rock, and all the city limits signs say things like ‘God’s blessing falls on Petosky’. We drive into a town called Gaylord. But don’t snigger—that’s pronounced Gaylerd, the radio stations assure us. Dude, if you’re that ashamed of the name of your town, then change it. Call it Cocksure or Ballhang. Don’t call it Gaylerd.

Through Gaylord and Ironton, we get to our destination: Charlevoix. We check into our room at The Weathervane Terrace Inn & Suites and jet over to the rehearsal party. Here we meet too many people for me to catalog. Of special note—of course—are groom and bride, Ben and Erin. There’s home-made pasta, cold-ass air, and Stag beer. Local only to certain parts of Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, Stag’s unofficial spokesman tells us that Stag is “sugar-free as a beer can be.” And he says it proudly. When the party runs down, we tag along with some of Ben’s friends to a townie bar appropriately called The Town Bar. It’s crowded, smoky, and Ben’s friend Janine almost gets in a scrap, but pitchers are nine dollars so I consider the night well-spent.

July 2^nd – We rise lazily and go out to explore the town. In a shop called Momentum, which is all about discount overstock from stores of the J. Crew/Ralph Lauren ilk. Sarah goes buckwild and I pick through the clothes like it’s garbage because the first thing I see is a big Abercrombie label that turns me off. We ransack a few more stores then come back to Momentum where Sarah practically has to beat me into buying a really nice jacket for ten bucks.

Lunch at a seafood place called Whitney’s, then we’re back at the hotel to get ready. Sarah chooses her Jackie O dress and together with her new haircut she looks amazing. I’ve got my new tan suit and I look okay too. Who’s kidding who—I looked like The Mack.

All set, we get our dapper asses to the chapel.