Back On the Road

After our holiday sojourn in the midwest Katie and I were ready to get back on the road. We spent our holidays with family and friends, enjoying suburban life in the Chicago and Detroit

areas. While at home, I took the knowledge I learned from our many stops on the road and brewed my first batch of beer with the help of one

of my friends. We brewed a robust coffee porter, coincidentally one of Katie's favorite beers, and can only hope that it will live up to her standards. Katie also got to try her hand at ice fishing for the very first time. My friend Al took us out on Long Lake for a whole day on the ice but we only managed to reel in one fish. Admittedly, Al and I have had worse days on the water

together so there was really nothing to complain

about. We had a lot of fun out there and now Katie can say that she has been ice fishing. Also, I'm sure I'd never hear the end of it if I didn't mention this last bit of our time spent at home; Katie got her engagement ring. A combination of her great great grandmothers wedding ring and a diamond which belonged to my mom, we had taken in the ring to be fitted

with the diamond and re-shanked to fit Katie's hand better. We picked the ring up a few days before we left and she has not stopped playing with it for weeks :) When the time came to finally leave again, it was hard to say goodbye to the comforts of home but great to be on the move once more. Our return to the road was as unceremonious as

possible. After an early morning wake-up call, some mad scrambling to re-pack the van, and a hard goodbye to family and friends, we were forced to endure the remainder of the day driving through Ohio. Our plan was to head

south; basically becoming snowbirds, hoping to find someplace to

wait out the winter without snow. Florida being our ultimate destination, we decided to take our time as usual, visiting friends and places we've never been to along the way. Ohio however, is well trodden territory, and there isn't much down there that would strike our fancy anyway. We drove for hours until we reached Louisville where we planned to stay our first night with Katie's friend from college, Mary. We spent the early evening talking and catching up before heading into the city for some dinner. Naturally I wanted to get started right away with continuing our brewery tour which, aside from a couple Michigan breweries, had been put on hiatus for far too long. But tonight was a girls night. My vote was overruled and we ended up at a restaurant which Mary highly recommended, Hammerheads. This place was great and more than met our expectations for the night. It was nestled in a small basement of a house right off of a main street downtown. Apparently it had been recently opened by a gourmet chef who decided to branch out on his own, basically the food was amazing. Also the atmosphere was very laid back while the crowd that it attracted was definitely upper class. There was no host and the tables were seated on a first come first serve, every man for themselves, basis. This resulted in many of the uptight guests leaving before even getting a table and us being seated rather quickly. This place also earned points in my book for having both Bell's and Founders' beer on tap. The food was great and after our meals we decided to give up our seats and let the next group fight over them. We spent the rest of the night lounging around Mary's apartment making plans for the following day.