The Last Hurrah at The Joe

February 17th - 19th

It has been over a month and a half since we have hit the road and we were ready for a long road trip. One of the things that would have been on my bucket list, if I had a bucket list, would be to go see a hockey game at The Joe. This was the last year for hockey in this arena so we had to find a weekend to make it happen with one of the only other Red Wing fans we know, Audrey!

Thankfully we were able to convince Eric that Detroit and sports would be fun. Much to Eric's surprise neither disappointed!

In typical #Castrotravels form, the trip up wasn't without random food and stops. This time we found a Tudor's Biscuit World and a super cool Colorful Buddhist Temple. 

It was about the time where we were walking around Watlao Buddhamamakaram when we received our first distress text from Eric & Audrey on the west coast. There flight had been delayed due to weather.

We tried not to think about the possibility of them not making it by distracting ourselves with more random stops at Graeter's Ice Cream for an ice cream lunch, a photo op with some lego ladies and a stop for a picture at a huge duck boot.

Once we made it to Detroit, we knew we needed to stop for Red Wings gear. We couldn't show up at the game without wearing the appropriate attire. After a little shopping, we got word from Eric & Audrey that they were one a flight east! We were so excited and since we had about 4 hours to waste, we headed to dinner at Vic's Casual Dining outside the city.

We were so excited when we finally got the text from Eric & Audrey that they had arrived. It took us no time to get them from the airport, check into our sweet hotel and find the closest place still opened for dinner, Hot Taco. This place was awesome!!

We ended the evening with very quick drinks at the Rusted Crow as we got there 20 or 30 minutes before they closed.

The next morning was beautiful so we set off on foot to find breakfast. After a few fails with sit down breakfast places with WAY too long of waits, we found Detroit Institute of Bagels. This place was great, it was nice enough that we sat outside, eat and catch up on life.

On our walk back, we were even able to find graffiti!

There wasn't a lot of time before we needed to get moving towards The Joe for the game. We all got dressed in our red and headed over to the game. It was a pretty surreal experience to be able to climb the steps to The Joe and walk around the arena before the game started.

Once inside, we completely understood why it was time for an upgrade. But none of that mattered cause we were there and it was so fun and about 3,000 degrees at the top of the stands where our seats were.

And the Red Wings didn't disappoint. Even though they were having a down year, they put on a show for us. The game when into overtime and ended with the Red Wings winning in a shoot out! THE PLACE WENT NUTS!!

Everyone was on such a high the rest of the day. We had so much fun walking around downtown after the game and checked out all the local must sees.

We were even asked to jump into formal wedding pictures as we were passing by.

As dusk fell, we quickly made our way to the Heidelberg Project. This area was right up or alley for many reasons. The recycled art was so fun and creative and we love how they have used this to bring people to the area in such a positive way. We were a little disappointed that we were not there earlier to head a little more of the history and talk to the people that help run it but we had a great time running around in the evening trying to take pictures of everything.

On our way out, we met Tim Burke of the Detroit Industrial Gallery that happens to be on the same block as the Heidelburg Project. He shared with us his history in the area and there was clearly some bad blood between the two. But his art was really impressive and it was nice to talk to someone from the area to hear a prospective of things.

That evening we found a great area of downtown that was filled with great bars and restaurants. We headed to Slow's Bar BQ. It was there that we finally figured out Detroit.

We have decided that Detroit is this hidden gem full of art, foodie restaurants, super nice people, great sports city hiding behind a less then stellar past. We believe the people of Detroit we continuing to promote their pass hiccups in an effort to keep all the tourists out so they can keep this fabulous city to themselves.

The rest of the night we spent walking around downtown enjoying the weather and the sights and more graffiti at The Belt. It really is a great city.

And a trip to Detroit isn't complete for me until I get pictures outside of Comerica Park!

Sunday morning we didn't have a lot of time before Eric & Audrey needed to be at the airport and we needed to get on the road home but we couldn't leave Detroit until we visited what Detroit use to corner the market on, cars. So that morning, we visited the Henry Ford Museum.

This museum was jam packed full of great things. I feel like we only saw the tip of the iceberg but what we did see was so interesting and at some times pretty heavy.

For me, the highlights had to be the Dymaxion House,  Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, Rosa Parks bus, the car JFK was shot in.

There is no doubt that we will have to revisit this museum another time to check out all the other areas we didn't have time to explore.

It was sad to have to say good-bye to Eric & Audrey but it was such a great weekend and in a city that we all fell in love with. We can not wait to plan our return trip to Detroit!

A Bye Weekend

October 18th to 20th

This year the football schedule had 3 off weekends. We were excited about it but knew that most of the time another sport has games or there is other work to be done and we would not able to take advantage of a full free weekend. But not this weekend! Jed didn't have to work on Saturday or Sunday so we decided to see what kind of trouble we could get into. He also found out that he didn't have to work a full day on Friday too! Last year with the bye weekend we headed to Tennessee to watch a UT game. This year we decided to head to The Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And as we were looking, we realized there were a few other games we could catch on the way.

So with our newly acquired Travel Bingo & Mad Libs (thanks Ben & Shelby), we headed west.

As we were driving and talking, we realized that we would be driving really close to Huntington, WV and one of my favorite Triple D restaurants, Hillbilly Hot Dogs. When Mathis, Nicki, my mom, Tom, Ryan and Caity went a few years back, Jed had to work and I have always wanted to bring him out here.

It was a quick stop but we both loved this place!

Our next stop was Louisville. We realized that Louisville was playing UCF on Friday night and it wasn't that far out of the way. So with no tickets in hand, we decided to see what we could make happen.

Thankfully, we were able to find tickets (and cheap parking). The seats were high, I mean higher then the video board/pressbox high but it was so fun.

It was an amazing game and UCF was able to score the go ahead touchdown with only 26 seconds left in the game to pull off the upset.

After the game, we immediately hit the road and were able to make it as far as Cincinnati, OH before calling it a night at 2am. We were so wired from the game that it never really felt that late.

Saturday morning we finished our drive to Ann Arbor. The views were beautiful and we saw some crazy stuff along the way. Like this...

Jed posted it on facebook and a few informed us that this is the second one. The first one was struck by lightning. I think getting stuck by lightning would be a clear sign from God that maybe you shouldn't have a big "idol" on display but clearly they felt different...but I digress.

We made it to Ann Arbor shortly after lunch. We had read about a must go to deli just north of campus so that was our first stop, Zingerman's.

We waited in line for a while and then found out that it would be over and hour and a half before we would have food in hand! We decided that we wanted to see a little more of campus and town so left Zingerman's empty handed. But I think we made the right decision. State Street in Ann Arbor was fun. It was fun to walk around and see different college towns and see how they do college football.

I think the craziest part was all the frat houses with tons of college students just drinking and partying. We kind of felt like we were on a movie set. Right across one of the frat houses was a little dive, Quickie Burger, that we stopped for lunch.

The weather wasn't the best but we were ready for it. As we were walking into the stadium it started hailing or sleeting not sure but it was definitely a memorable, cold & wet game day.

With the stadium holding over 110,000 fans, we figured the place would feel huge but it really didn't. We were pretty surprised at the size compared to the number of people it could hold. It was a surprise until we got to our seats. They jam you in there! I think your "seat" was half the size of any normal seat so we became good buddies with our "hip buddies". I think we can fit 110,000 people in Lane Stadium squeezing them in that tight. But it was such a fun experience. We might have been sitting on each others laps, had knees in our backs and our knees in other backs but it was so fun to watch the game set all kinds of records with passing yards and scoring a combined total of over 100 points.

After the game, we were again quick to hit the road. The next leg of the trip was short but there were 2 big games that we wanted to watch on Saturday night, FSU vs Clemson and game 6 of the Tigers vs Red Sox ALCS Championship series. Since we couldn't find a sports bar that was playing the FSU vs Clemson game, we decided to just order pizza and watch in our hotel room. It was perfect.

Sunday morning we woke to the disappointed new that the Tigers gave up the lead in game 6 and lost meaning the Red Sox were going to the World Series. It was quite a bummer. But we weren't going to let that mess up our last day. We left early to finish the drive to Detroit and mean my Uncle David, Aunt Janey and cousin, Lily for breakfast. They live just outside of Detroit and they are awesome! We went to breakfast at Jumps and time just flew by.

The view on the drive to breakfast

So many fun memories riding through the neighborhood

It was just so great to see them and hang out. We had to grab a few "selfies" before Jed and I headed to our final game.

We made it to the Lions game minutes before it started so we didn't see much around the stadium but we did get to walk past a lot of graffiti! These abandoned buildings had tons of it!

The Lions game was just way too much fun. The crowd really got into it. It was definitely one of those moments were I couldn't believe I was there and getting to watch my beloved Lions. Everything about it just seemed perfect.

Well, almost perfect, I wish Ben could have been there, he and I have been Lions fans for as long as we both knew what football was and maybe even before that. And then there was the issue of losing the game by the Bengals kicked the game winning field goal with time expiring.

After the game, we headed straight for the car to get on the road to head home. The road from Detroit to Christiansburg is not high traffic and mostly smaller roads so it was definitely a different feel then all the interstate driving we had done. It went pretty smoothly. We saw some interesting things...

And we made a pit stop for some highly recommended ice cream at Jeni's, in Columbus, OH, which was a fantastic move and a great recommendation. (Thanks Jackie & Evan)

Other then the near death experience we had with a deer, the drive home was a success and not much to write about. We had the best time driving all over the place and checking out both new and old places. I absolutely love doing this and I can't wait for our next opportunity.