bell's funvitational 2015

The point when I realized it was too cold for shorts.

There are a lot of beer festivals. Like, a lot of beer festivals, especially because we live in Michigan, where there's a new brewery every twelve seconds (okay maybe more like twelve weeks) and there's nothing the vast majority of Michiganders like better than looping twine through giant sourdough pretzels & packets of beef jerky to maraud around in a field/parking lot/park/etc., potentially soggy & freezing or sweaty and what feels like actually melting, to taste tiny samples of weird ass beers while "accidentally" forgetting to turn in their tokens.

So, there are a lot of beer festivals in Michigan. I have been to a lot of beer festivals in Michigan (and elsewhere for that matter - shout out to Indianapolis, Chicago, and Toronto!), but nobody else yet has done it the way Bell's did it for their 30th anniversary.

Granted it certainly helped that I had three of my favorite people in the world there with me (I have always had this sort of weird tender and fiercely possessive love for my place in my closest friendship as the only girl among a handful of boys, but this time around there was the added delight of introducing them to my boyfriend & watching the lot of us act like we've all been friends for the entirety of our lives), but you guys. Bell's does it like nobody does it.

The festival didn't start until 4 pm on Saturday evening, but registration & check in started at noon, so we sauntered in around 1ish after hearing that we could bottle share in line - and when we got there we were astonished to find we were literally only the second group in line??? Which ended up being fantastic for multiple reasons including:

• The line surrounded a football field, so we dragged a large team bench over to the beginning of the line and thus for three hours we had a place to chill, lounge, and drink beer with the masses.
• We made friends with the guys in front of us who not only shared huge amounts of delicious rare beers but also had secret friends inside who broke the news about double barrel Hunahpu to us which meant we had plenty of time to indulge before the keg kicked.
• At one point just before the doors opened for the festival, we realized we had a few scattered bottles left that we wouldn't be able to drink before being let in - and the rules were bottle sharing in line was allowed, but bringing in any alcohol, opened or no, was not, which, while being a crappy rule, did lead to the greatest moment of my life which was: standing on a shaky aluminum bench a little bit tipsy holding up a bottle of Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout and shouting FREE BCBS WHO WANTS SOME?? At which point the masses converged on me and I felt something akin to the Jesus of Beer. (This feeling returned later on when multiple people we didn't remotely know but whom we had shared beer with us found us inside the festival and showered us with extra beer tokens.)

My boys <3 <3 <3

So as I'm standing there pouring to the lot of people behind us who hadn't gotten there three hours early and weren't already like 15 tastings into the evening, the greatest thing to ever signal the beginning of a beer festival happened, which was AN ACTUAL MARCHING BAND LED US IN TO THE BASEBALL FIELD. No, really. A raunchy sounding slapdash marching band dressed in gold & black nonsense. I have never actually been more pleased. Until like three minutes later while halfway through my Hunahpu and standing in line for some Russian River Supplication I realized there were actual Bell's 30th Anniversary party hats, and they were free.  And then like an hour later when I realized both Spruce & Double Two Hearted were happening in my exceptionally blessed life.

ACTUAL MARCHING BAND.

I just don't know why people thought we were all so drunk already????

My literal only regret is that I was too busy tasting beer to play Giant Skee-Ball, but the opportunity will present itself again some day, I'm certain...

In conclusion, basically every beer festival should probably follow the format of: Giant pre-party, marching band, super huge lineup of tasty rare beers, giant funk/soul dance party back at the brewery afterward.  (With a small break in between for us to acquire the best shawarma of my life.)

Funk soul brothas.

I'm looking at you, Michigan Brewer's Guild.

hot date on the detroit river

In my favorite place, showing off my other favorite place; whats a Canadian/American girl to do?

Skye & I and the most obnoxious tech shirts
I have ever seen.

I did the best thing ever this weekend, which was a 5k for a super amazing cause that I wholeheartedly support with NONE of the mega-stress that usually surrounds a race for me (that impending doom leading up to the moment that it starts, then abates for the first two minutes of feeling good, and then picks back up and spirals into the WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF despair that keeps me company for the rest of the race as I feel like my body is being broken down into a thousand miserable little non-runner pieces).  Why? Because my non-athlete friend Skye was in town from Ohio to support the cause with me, so as part of the deal to get her up here I agreed to walk it with her.  HA!  Take that, running!  (I admit though, I felt super guilty watching people pass me knowing I could pace them or even finish before them, had I been trying - and also kind of disappointed that I didn't truly run it because the course was BEAUTIFUL.)

The race we ran was Mickey's Run up in Windsor, sponsored by the Windsor Spitfires hockey team. The Spits are near and dear to my heart, and even more so is former captain Mickey Renaud, in whose honor the race is held to benefit the Windsor Spitfires Foundation.  I wasn't able to run the inaugural race last year because it was the same weekend I had another 5k planned, so I was extra excited to run this year.

Part of the track we ran - the whole thing was this beautiful & I want to go back and run this course for real some day.

The beautiful finisher medals we got.

After the race, we headed down to take a nice walk by the Riverfront before coming back to Detroit, & then decided that it was such a beautiful day that we should take advantage of it by staying outside, so I drove us over to Belle Isle to spend a few hours!  I can't remember the last time I was on the island, but it was definitely a perfect decision. I've been wanting to go to the aquarium ever since it reopened.  I wasn't disappointed - it's AMAZING to see it in working condition again - and even more cool is the fact that it's still undergoing renovations, but instead of trying to hide it, the aquarium almost flaunts this fact, filling open display tanks with local artwork, advertisements for local interests and signs for coming attractions.  Hallways under construction are only haphazardly blocked off, so visitors can see the work being done, and the employees are more than happy to tell you what they're working on renovating next. Such an amazing display of what makes Detroit so special.  We also spent some time walking through the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum and dipping our feet in the river before heading back home.

Riverwalk selfie!

Belle Isle Aquarium.

The beautiful koi pond out back of the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservatory made me long to be back in Asia. I could sit out there all day just basking in how peaceful it was. Unfortunately there was a wedding photo shoot going on when we were there, so this is as close as we could get :(

Enjoying the beautiful Detroit River.

Of course I couldn't leave without some spoils from the LCBO..........

Amazing Michigan history including a full spread on the Edmund Fitzgerald (which, as I pointed out about forty times as we walked through, is also an awesome beer).

We could have probably stay there all day to be quite honest - but we ended up leaving around the middle of the afternoon to meet up with some friends, grill some delicious venison burgers topped with blue cheese & horseradish sauce & marathon as many episodes of Orange is the New Black we could before passing out (which was way early....being out in the sun all day is exhausting!). 

Most delicious lettuce wrap I've had in a while....

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you feel guilty when you don't put your all into a workout, for whatever reason? Do you find yourself spending the rest of the day trying to compensate for it?

communing with nature.......or something

I have a new obsession, and it's long walks through beautiful scenery. I try (as I've said before) to run, but I just can't find a way to truly enjoy it in a way that makes me want to do it for fun (aka not a race). But now that the Michigan chill has FINALLY broken, I want to spend every second outside forever.  

Tuesdays I usually go to an absolutely phenomenal hot vin yoga class, but this week the sun was shining, it was beautiful, and stuck in a dark, hot room at my gym for an hour was just not what I was feeling, so I headed out to Stony Creek for a nature walk instead!

This is the first year I've bought a park pass, so I'm determined to make the most of it and go as often as I can. I had heard they had gorgeous walking trails so I sought them out and intended to walk the 2.5 mile Habitat Trail, but when I finished I wasn't satisfied...so I tried to hop on the 1.5 mile Landscape trail, but apparently I'm not very good at signs because I ended up doubling back on myself twice and walking almost 5 miles...oh well; at least I made a nice dent in my huge backlogged list of podcasts. 

I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out that this was my first opportunity to try out my new BondiBand headband! A really fantastic store called GearBox Rx opened up in downtown Rochester Hills recently, selling CrossFit gear of all kinds, from shoes to apparel to hear & equipment, to my favorite part - a huge, huge selection of Paleo snacks from all over the internet. No longer do you have to submit to $8 shopping charges on one jar of almond butter or bottle of wing sauce, and no longer do you have to order a months supply of treats at once (at least if you live here). Plus the guys who run it are super knowledgable, personable, and assure me I will always be able to get my fix of Rickaroons from them (they also carry Steve's Paleo Goods, Nikki's Coconut Butter, PaleoTreats, Meenut Butter, Nohmad cookies/chocolates... Basically go there right now because everything delicious is literally at your fingertips. ANYWAY the BondiBand is AWESOME - kept the hair and sweat out of my eyes without getting irritable or itchy or hot (and as I am temporarily growing my hair out, this is the most important thing in the whole world, because I am decidedly NOT use to hair on my neck). New favorite!

Afterward I was feeling so summery that I stopped and picked up some fresh cut flowers for my condo - amazingly it's been 2 days and the cats have only eaten one or two flowers...... (This is why we can't have nice things.)

QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you have spring/summer fever, too? How are you adjusting your workouts?