A GRAND (Rapids) Old Time

Carson doesn't appear in this post at all, though he was around. 

Recently, Carson had a conference in Grand Rapids. He's gone to this particular conference several times, including Valentine's Day of this year and around Halloween last year. He always talks about how I'd like Grand Rapids, but since he's in meetings for the event from 9-9 every day, I've never really wanted to join him. I mean, sure, there's the free hotel thing, but even my deep love for watching random TV in hotels has a limit, and four days of that and only that is just past that point. 

But this spring and summer, not one but THREE close friends of mine from college moved to the Grand Rapids area. Two college roommates and one Reilly Building housemate. 

Now I want to go to Grand Rapids. Obviously. 

So we drove over there (it took us 4.5 hours. Not bad.), I dropped Carson off at his hotel, and drove to where Rachel and John are living, about 30 minutes away from the city. I spent Thursday evening-Saturday morning with them. During that time, Rachel and I had our first Pumpkin Spice Lattes of the season (sure, we both make 800 of them a day, but we didn't want to taste them until it felt like fall). We shopped a little, caught up, had a little Lindsay-feels-sorry-for-herself-because-she-has-poison-oak Blizzard pick-me-up, and had a grand time. Get it? GRAND Rapids? Nevermind. 

Forgive the double chin. That's why more sorry-for-myself Blizzards aren't in my near future.

The morning I left Rachel and John to go back to the city, I had to scrape the car for ice. Just when I think Cleveland weather is the worst... 

I went to Carson's hotel, threw my stuff in the room, and rested until it was time to meet Erica and Molly for a day of exploration. We meandered, walking around the streets before we remembered that we aren't very good at meandering without a plan. So then we had lunch and drove around. 

We ended up at the mall, because Molly had decided that her hair was too long and due for a cut. Here's a before picture of us. In the spirit of full disclosure, this was taken just outside of a public restroom. We ooze class. 

The before and after shots. Yes we returned to the bathroom just for a picture. Yes, we got funny looks. Yes, her hair is adorable and YES, I was tempted to cut mine a few inches shorter when I saw how cute her cut was. 

Hair chopped off, we decided that a drive around the city was a good idea.

"The Joke" - you know how "A blonde, a brunette and a redhead walked into a bar?" Well, look at us, we're basically THAT joke. So we sometimes call ourselves that (mostly me). 

We ended up exploring the hotel. Here's the link.

We concluded our day together with dinner. Unlike the dinners we had in college, this one did not consist of canned peas, fried eggs and popcorn. It was also considerably more expensive. 

I spent the evening watching the random TV I enjoy so much until Carson came back at 11 or so. After he met up with John for breakfast the next morning, we jumped in the car and went back to Cleveland, where we still haven't had to scrape ice off our car. Yet.