I had a great vacation.  I thought I would just re-cap for you here and post some pictures as well.  I’ve got them all up at leelanauphotography.com, just click the link for the full spread.  I started my vacation in Grand Rapids, MI with a visit to my long lost best friend Rachel.  She and I go WAY back and we were pretty much inseparable during all of high school and most of collage.  We were singing partners on a regular basis and spent a good deal of time performing and doing competitions for voice (which we always won).  Anyhow, she has had a pretty traumatic year, the details of which I won’t go into here.  She looks great, has 3 relatively good kids and a nice husband.  She’s also got a couple of wild dogs.  It was nice to spend some time with her and catch up and while we were at it, we went and saw the new Harry Potter film.  I’m a big fan of the Harry Potter series.

While in GR, I drove by the childhood home on Joslin and noticed that nothing had changed.  The neighborhood has really gone to hell though.  Houses down towards the end of the street are looking pretty run down, lawns are not kept up very well, and nobody was outside.  I am comparing this to my days on that street where there was always something going on, kids playing, someone mowing the grass, just people around.  Areas of GR have been hit pretty hard by this recession.  I looked through the papers and in many parts of the city there were homes selling at least $30-$50K less than they would have sold just 5 years ago.  My folks got out of there at just the right time.  They would never get the same price for their house on Joslin now.  The city is growing up, several new buildings downtown and the new highway (M-6) has created a huge boom in development out towards what used to be the edge of the suburbs.

From Grand Rapids, I then headed down to Chicago to stay with Angie and Cam.  Angie is someone else with whom I spent a great deal of my time, especially in High School.  She and I conveniently dated each other for most of high school to at least present to others that we weren’t both flaming queers.  I think even before we came out to each other we both knew we were gay.  It didn’t matter.  Angie was important to me not just becuase of our friendship but because she was a social animal and I wasn’t.  Through her, I was able to meet and become friends with all kinds of other people.  I was extremely shy socially and really I still am.  Regardless of what others might have thought of our relationship, I valued her friendship tremendously and I still do.

I had a great time in Chicago.  If there was one city in the country I would willingly choose to live, it would be Chicago.  It’s a huge city but it’s not obscene (like New York) and it has everything a huge city can offer.  One of the major things you’ll find in bigger cities is the real presence of a gay community.  There is an entire section of town that is considered a gay district, known as Boys Town.  Shops, bars, clubs, doctors, dentists, Realtors, you name it.  They are either gay owned or gay friendly, and they advertise it.  It stands to reason that in a big city, there would be a big gay population.  I like that because there are actually choices.  Up here in the north woods I don’t have any choices.  I’ve never felt any hostility towards gays up here but you would never know we even existed.  Choices for shopping, health services, and such are just much more limited for me up here and that is the biggest issue I have with living up here in the middle of nowhere.  The choices I have for dating are even pretty pathetic if they exist at all.  I used to joke with Jirar that all the gay folks up here are married and they all run the thousands of bed and breakfasts scattered all over the little villages.  There are no single gay men living up here…anyhow, that’s another blog post.

Angie and I went to the Lincoln Park zoo and had a nice time watching the monkeys.  We also visited Millennium Park which was awesome.  They have great gardens and sculptures and the park provides a great view of the city.  We went to Chinatown for lunch and I got to enjoy big city living for a few days.  I really do miss being that close to everything.

From Chicago, I headed over to Indianapolis to visit Jirar.  Despite our breakup, we have still managed to maintain a pretty good friendship with each other.  Both of us have been taking our time getting on with life and that seems to be working for us both right now.  I guess for me, it’s pretty hard to just quit talking to someone after spending that much time with them.  Obviously, I’d still like to be his husband but I won’t get into that here.  I got to Indie around noon and Jirar’s friend David came over and we hung out for a while at the house.  I’ve known David as long as I’ve known Jirar.  He and Jirar are best friends going back to when they were little kids.  Both are now working as flight attendants (a mutual dream for both of them).  We went out for dinner and then (being drunk enough by that point and not needing to drive since we could walk everywhere) decided to hit a gay club.  I won’t share the details of that experience here, needless to say, I’m too old for that sort of thing now.  I had a really good time but I could never do that sort of thing on a regular basis.  Wow.

On day 2, Jirar and I went to the Indianapolis Zoo.  Unlike the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago which is free, this one we had to pay to get in.  I had a good time but I was not very impressed overall with the zoo and I don’t think it was worth the $14 each that we had to pay to get in.  It was PACKED to the gill with kids (which is irritating to begin with…but it’s a zoo after all) and they had a very limited selection of animals.  The walk to the zoo however was great.  Indianapolis has a man-made canal that goes right through the city.  It is lined with expensive condos and all of the museums in the city are accessed from the walkways along the canal.  It was a beautiful day and I would love something like that up here in Traverse City.  People exercising, you can rent paddle boats and kayaks if you want (the canal runs about 4 miles I think which would be a good workout in a Kayak).

That night we had dinner at The Weber Grill in the downtown area and Jirar walked me around the circle area.  Apparently Indianapolis is called the Circle City because the city center is a giant monument that looks out to the Capitol building.  The city grows out in a circle from that point.  Anyhow, it was pretty cool to again walk around in a big city.

Day 3 was spent relaxing and having coffee at a little neighborhood coffee shop next to gay book store.  Jirar had to get up early on Saturday (as did I) so we just took it easy.

After a great week, it was time to head home and I did so on Saturday morning about 4am, in the pouring rain and thunder and lightning.  Thank GOD I had the GPS becuase I never would have found my way out of the city in the dark without it.  I drove 5 hours north to Birch Run, MI and decided to take in the Prime Outlet Mall.  I spent way too much money but I had never been there and I did need a few things after all.

So tomorrow I start back to the grind, back to work, back to issues with employees and customers.  You know, I really do like my job, it’s the people I hate (haha).