"A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch." - James Beard
Back in 2012 we visited Grand Rapids, Michigan for the first time and we loved it! At the time it was the #1 beer city in the USA. Since it is less than 4 hours from home, we had to check it out.
This summer, circumstances conspired to get us back there again. We wanted to see Dolly Parton on tour but the dates close to home were on weeknights meaning booking a day off work so we could stay overnight rather than drive 2 hours home after a concert. But she was playing Grand Rapids on a Saturday night, so we could make a mini-vacation out of it!
Some things have changed a lot since we were last in Grand Rapids. It's still a beautiful, clean, vibrant city, but there are so many new breweries, bars and restaurants. The hotel we stayed in had only been open for two weeks! We visited lots of new places and some old favourites from our last trip. Here are the highlights:
We stayed at the brand-new Homewood Suites downtown. The hotel is nice and the location is fabulous. All the rooms have a full kitchen. The building is a converted furniture warehouse and has some odd features, like interior windows that face into empty hallways, and a second-floor lobby that can be hard to find from the street. But we really enjoyed the room and location. We could walk anywhere downtown easily.
But the first thing we did after checking in was hop in the car and head to Siciliano's Market for local craft beer and cider for our hotel room fridge. Then it was off to Greyline Brewing Co. for our first drinks of the day.
Last week we celebrated my 40th birthday in Montreal! We wanted to go somewhere fun and, surprisingly, have never been to Montreal together, and neither of us has been since we were teenagers.
Montreal is about a 7 hour drive from home. On the way, we stopped to visit family for a couple of nights in Eastern Ontario, then headed into the city.
I'll let Matt, the Beer Baron, talk about all the beer he tried in an upcoming post, but one of our first stops was Atwater Market to check out the beer and cider selection at the Fromagerie. We collected several selections to enjoy in our hotel room.
We chose the Delta Montreal as our hotel and it was great. The Jazz Fest was on while we were there and it was right next door. It was an easy walk to Old Montreal and shopping downtown.
Winter has been pretty tough on us this year. It just never seems to stop snowing. We usually travel to Las Vegas in the fall for our anniversary, so I was surprised and delighted when Matt suggested another trip over Valentines Day to get away from the snow.
We fly out of Detroit and cross the border at Port Huron, so on our way to the airport we decided to stop for some BBQ at Fuel Woodfire Grill in Port Huron. To celebrate our little holiday, I had a Haymaker bourbon cocktail and Matt had a Hopslam from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo. We both ordered the brisket sandwich which was smoky and delicious. The fries were really excellent as well.
We've travelled to Las Vegas together almost every year of our marriage. This year we spent our 7th anniversary in Vegas and had a fantastic time as usual.
I love Las Vegas. It is just so much of everything. Food, drinks, lights, gambling, crowds, shows. Everything is bigger and brighter there.
On this trip we stayed in three different hotels! Our first room was a suite at TheHotel at Mandalay Bay. It is the last hotel on the South end of the Strip. This was our first time staying at this hotel, but we love the restaurants here and they have a great pool with a lazy river, wave pool and sand beach. We loved it!
.JPG)
