Holidays are wonderful things!

(Editorial note, 6/5: I wrote this post on Wednesday and haven't had time to post it since. Such is the life of a boomer librarian....)

Thanks to the Memorial Day holiday and some relaxing time with the Pablo the illustrious (but still Blogless) and M., I've been feeling rested and ready (if not yet tanned) since the past weekend. We'll see how long that lasts.

Summary of the weekend:

Saturday:

Lunch at the Sidetrack Bar & Grill. I never would have thought of french-frying sweet potatoes, but they're surprisingly good that way, especially with a little horseradish sauce. Sadly, despite its trackside location, not a single steel wheel was anywhere to be seen.

The Automotive Heritage Museum across the street was an interesting place to visit, with some real rarities on display. Multiple Corvairs were in evidence, in recognition of the fact that they were built just east of town at the Willow Run plant. (I doubt that Ralph Nader will ever garner many votes around here!) I found the working, cutaway model of the Corvair's unusual flat-six engine to be quite entertaining, and I wish the straight-six in my truck had the oomph of the ones that Hudson put in its stock-car racers in the early 1950s.

Off with Pablo and M. to the Real Seafood Company. Managed to get a table this time. Pricy, pricy, pricy! But good.

Off then with Pablo and M. to the next-to-last showing of the Threepenny Opera. I've commented about seeing this before. I enjoyed seeing it again. Some of the actors' mannerisms seemed a bit stagier than they did before, but this could have been just because they were more familiar. As usual, I found myself humming one of Weill's catchy little paeans to human depravity most of the way home.

Sunday, off with Pablo to Frankenmuth, Michigan, a town once settled by German immigrants which nowadays styles itself "Michigan's Little Bavaria". A bit touristy but entertaining. On the way back stopped off at the Junction Valley Railroad, the work of a man with a fascinating obsession to build his own quarter-size railroad... from scratch. I can't even imagine spending hundreds of thousands of hours in a machine shop building welded-steel cars and locomotives, each of which weighs several tons. Not to mention laying a spaghetti-bowl of miles of intertwining track for them to run on. It's safe to say that this guy is no longer a "model railroader". When your layout-construction tools are shovels and backhoes rather than hammers and nails, it ain't modeling!

Sunday evening: Finally got around to sampling the Dalat restaurant in downtown Y-ville. Excellently spicy. Spent evening discussing life, the universe and everything. Adjourned pending further discussion.