What a nice week/end I had up at Michigan Tech for the Sigma Tau Gamma Gamma Chi Chapter’s 30th Reunion!
What went down:
Wednesday:
Met up with Steve E. at exit 131 at about 12:30PM and grabbed lunch at Freeway Fritz. Dirty… but we had to try it.
We made some pretty damn good time up there, arriving up at Tech at about 8ish PM. We stopped plenty along the way, enjoying the drive up. Once there, we checked in, and went up to the Sig Tau house to hang out. After that, we went to the Ambassador to have nachos, tostada pizza, and a fishbowl each. The fishbowl I got had gin in it… it wasn’t working out for me, so I only had about .42 of it. Oh well. Can’t win ’em all. We also saw Gene, Dee, and Schnez there. Man, Gene is one skinny cat!
Thursday:
At about 8:15, I summoned Jon and Steve to accompany me on my 5 mile run along the lakefront path. Very nice… weather was spectacular, and the company made it go by very quickly. Afterwards, we grabbed breakfast at the Suomi Restaurant and then went “Copper Country Cruisin'” near the Hancock area. We went to the top of Mt. Ripley via the back way, to try and scope out a place to do a downhill bike ride later in the weekend. <– This never worked out, as we did a downhill ride at Brockway Mountain in Copper Harbor, MI, instead. We hung out near the Quincy Mine Hoist, taking lots of pictures. We tried to pick up Jesse at the airport, but we were too late. We drove back to Houghton to hang out at the house and then snatch up Jesse. We went to Quincy’s for dinner. I had a nice steak there. After dinner, we went back to the house, where more and more people were showing up. Lewis, Mariner, Dittmer, and many others were strolling in, and the excitement of having old and new friends around was getting larger. We went to the Dog to have drinks and play darts. I had water… something was “burning me up”. I think it was the tostada pizza the night before, as Jon didn’t even make it to the Dog, and I had to hang out in the bahtroom for about 20 minutes. When I got out, the place was empty. They ditched me. Oh well. I went back to the hotel, watched TV a bit, and then fell asleep.
Friday:
For breakfast, we went to Victoria’s Cafe, once known as Marie’s Deli. Victoria seems to have purchased the place from Marie. Anyway, we had a great breakfast there, minus Dino and Steve. After this, we went up towards Copper Harbor for sightseeing, picture taking, and a downhill bike ride down Brockway mountain (4.05 miles). Steve and I did it twice. Jon reached 47 MPH. I reached 36.3 MPH. That’s pretty fast… I’d hate to take a spill at that speed, especially w/o armor on the corners of my body. After our Copper Harbor playtime, we went to Eagle Harbor and ate at Fitzgerald’s, which, thanks to Tom Phillips, is one in the same as the Eagle River Inn. Food was awesome. Service sucked. Maybe it’s because they shoved us on the back deck, and didn’t have the staff to serve the number of people they had at the time. After dinner, I decied that it’d be best to squeeze in my 7 miles, before heading to the house to party with old and new friends. The only thing bad about this idea was that I had just eaten a large dinner, about 1 hour prior to running. It worked out, but my GPS died, and I had to estimate the last 1.2 miles. I’m thinking I put in about 6.8 miles… can’t say I was upset about it. I showered up and then I headed back to the house, where there was an evening reception, with none other than Gary Tunstall at the mic, in the backyard. Now, the place was full. Entire families were there. It was like a Sig Tau party of old, but with little kids, older kids, and all sorts of brothers running all over the place. We hung there, and then went back to the Dog for more drinks. They server Bell’s Oberon there, which is damn tasty. Had a few glasses of the stuff, and then retired.
Saturday:
Woke up with a headache form a lack of water and a mixture of beer types the night before. Am I glad I ran on Friday evening vs. Saturday or Sunday morning. Went to the house for our alumni meeting. Was shocked to see so few bodies at this meeting, when there were about 5X the brothers up there. Oh well…can’t win ’em all. Good stuff, though. Dino and I are exempt from ever having to pay Alumni Dues because we host and run the Sig Tau site. After the meeting, we headed to the Houghton beach with our bikes, for our “picnic”. It was nice. Hung out for about 2 hours, tops. People seemed to have agendas, and that’s great, as the Keweenaw is a gorgeous place! We were going to try and go bowling at Miller Lanes with Lewis, Mariner, Dittmer, and others, but it never worked out. They went there to find that it was closed. We just hung out near town, went fishing a bit, and hung out at the house pretty much the rest of the day/evening. We were leaving at 6AM on Sunday, so we didn’t want to get all thrashed. We ended up hanging out in the Super 8 lobby for about 2 hours, prior to going to bed, and BSing with Matt and Debbie, Hawk and Zimmer, Rich and Keisha, and our group, minus Dino and Steve. We had lots of laughs, and we even watched a bit of last week’s Six Feet Under and a bit of Chris Rock’s latest comedy show.
Sunday:
We got out of town a bit later than normal. 6:40. Made awesome time. About 7:30 hours. Rested the whole way home. It was nice, since I didn’t have to drive up or down.
All in all, great trip.