This past weekend I celebrated Fall Break by asking Ted to join me on a quick brewery/disc golf tour of southwest Michigan. We visited New Holland Brewing Company in Holland, MI as well as Founders Brewing in Grand Rapids. In between, we shot up to Silver Lake, a place I hadn’t been since high school. On the way back, we stopped in South Bend, IN to play some disc golf (and get IN off my to-do list), but, according to a local, all the baskets were taken down for the winter. Didn’t realize one couldn’t play DG in the winter. Guess those Hoosiers don’t believe in Ice Bowls or other manly things.

Below are two slideshows: one of New Holland Brewing and one of Little Sable Point Lighthouse.

Those of you following me on Twitter or Facebook have no doubt grown tired of reading updates of my recent week spent on the Big Island lounging about in the luxury that is Hale Honu (Thanks Dan and Laura!).

However, our seven days in the bliss were not without their troubles. No. There are big, sneaky cockroaches in the coconut palm crowned world of sunshine and surf. Ken has already documented some of these. I include his list here:

–The first key Cindy got didn’t work on the rental car.
–The second restaraunt we went for sushi didn’t serve lunch on Saturdays.
–Sherry scraped her leg on a rock.
–It took us most of the first day to figure out how to heat the spa.
–The second time the group went snorkeling we saw only a lot of fish instead of a huge number of fish.
–Cindy was the only one who saw a live Honu.
–The remote control to play the DVD player in the minivan was missing, meaning we could only play one episode of “The Shield” on our drive to Hilo.
–Ken forgot to pack pants. (Contrary to what is being widely [and Ken thinks libelously] reported, he did not forget to bring pants. Ken was, in fact, wearing pants on the plane. (Todd can vouch for the LA–Kona flight but makes no claims for Ken’s other flights.) Ken claims th just didn’t have any additional pants (except swim trunks).
–Ken lost my Star Sidewinder playing Safari golf in Hilo.
–One of the games we played didn’t have instructions, forcing us to make them up.
–The local mailbox store had a note that said Western Union was “temporarily unavailable” and when we asked when it would be available again they said “next year.”
–The time difference meant that people occasionally called or texted us at weird hours.
–Sherry had an allergic reaction to some mascara and had to wear sunglassess for all of one whole day.
–Ken fell asleep half way through Don Cheadle’s “Traitor” and so didn’t have brownies until the next day (when they were no longer hot out of the oven).
–After going through a whole meal at the Kona Brewery, Cindy was informed that Beer-a-misu was no longer available (even though it was still on the menu).
–The multi-disc DVD player that is hooked up to the home entertainment center with stereo sound only has a next disc function (instead of skip disc function) on the remote, meaning you have to either get up and walk to the unit or let one disc load for 10 seconds if you are on disc 1 and actually want to watch something on disc three.

In addition to these trials, I would add:

–Some shelves in the kitchen were too tall to reach comfortably.
–The controls for the two-headed shower took a few minutes to fully comprehend.

Further, upon arrival home from said week in paradise, we discovered that our toilet was clogged. The toilet is now sitting in the middle of the bathroom as we await a second repairman to come rout out the clog and replace the toilet.