trip up north

taking a trip to an out of state race is always interesting. u go thru places that u never been to. especially if u go by car, u'll pass areas, places and points that u never thought existed. i left for the st. joseph on wednesday evening around 7pm. i followed one of co-workers (adopted family members) to the race area as she was from the area and they're going up there to visit the parent. along the road, the area was pretty ok. not much to see except for the green farm field. we stopped by at middlebury, indiana to picked up my friend's motorhome. as we went along the area, i realized the area is filled with so many motorhome, so i thought, 'are people in this area lived in motor home, or what.' as it turned out the area is one of the biggest motor home builder in the country. that was interesting, especially since i saw 1 motorhome with a chandelier inside, so i thought, 'wow....that was definitely something...'
we got the place that we'd be staying around 1am, or maybe it was almost 2am, oh well...didn't really matter anyways. the place is actually my co-worker's mother-in-law's house. it was quite a big house, not huge, but yet it looked really nice and shaded. as i got inside, my place to sleep was assigned in the basement. so, i went down and went straight to sleep, although i wanted to take a shower first, but oh well.....it was 2am and everybody was sleeping, so forget about it....
i woke up around 8 in the morning to meet the owner of the house and the rest of the gang that is staying in it. i met grandma charlotte, grandpa al (sir), jason and baby charlotte. talk to them briefly and went straight to the shower as it was the first that i'm dying to do since last nite. after shower, i started to plan for my day. thinking about what i'm going to eat, what i'm going to do, places that i wanted to visit, etc. as i get to the kitchen to look around for breakfast, grandma charlotte had already took out her breakfast stuffs, from bagel, banana, bread, coffee, cream to honey and peanut butter. to my surprise, those are the things that i was thinking earlier to get at the store. it turns out they have it all.
those actually put me in the position where i realized i missed those times. i guess i never really got a chance to spend a lot of times with my actual grandparents. it was brief and now i realized how those times were the times to be treasured and thankful. i guess a lot of people said that u can get anything in grandparents' house is actually right. thank GOD for them.
after breakfast, the people in the house started asking me what i wanted to do, so i tell them i wanted to swim at the race course which is in the lake michigan from the jean klock park. so, al took me to the park and i swam for about 40mins to get some practice and get acclimated with the water. i felt good and i like the water. it had some waves and current, but not salty. after the swim, we got back to the house and i had my lunch of rice cakes (i made it myself). then i went on to bike around the race course from the house. i rode my bike out and back for about an hour to check out some of the roads, which turned out to be quite rough with potholes all over the place. after the bike ride, i ran around the neighborhood for about 20mins. and, i found out the place actually have a dock to launch boat. so i thought, 'wow.....that's cool'
after all the training, i went back to the house, took another shower to take care of my other cleaning needs. then i took some rest and had a bite of something that i couldn't remember what. then, headed to downtown with some member of the family. and, guess what i found in the downtown, there is a sign that said, 'st. joseph, michigan's most romantic city' (check out the pix at the top) now, isn't that interesting and even my friend that was from the area did not know about that.
then, for dinner, the family took me to a place called 'clementines'. pretty nice, but quite crowded, as it turned out it's a local favorite. and their special was 'perch', which is a deep fried fish, in which in this case and time, i couldn't have it since i didn't want to ruin my diet for the race. the dish is a local fav that the menu said the restaurant served them about 11tons per year. that alone is actually a great reason to come back, just to try that dish, which i will come back just to try that 'perch'. so, what did i have for dinner? pasta with light sauce, which is actually taste pretty good. after dinner we went down to the beach to walk around the area and all the way to the pier. then, we all decided to drive around the city to see some areas that some of us never been to. we went thru benton harbor and an area, in which people called benton 'harlem' (hahha.....) we went thru the back side of the jean klock park, in which we passed thru an old burger place called north shore inn. then, we went home and get some rest.
the next day, i basically went thru the same routine as the day before. except this time i had to go to the race site for check-in, registration, bike racking, body marking, race meeting, and pasta dinner. boy, was it hectic or what? plus, it was quite hot actually with the sun. i stayed at the park until about 5pm, then went back to the house to get myself ready for the race. as i got to the house, i was greeted with many of my friend's old friends from the town and old co-workers. i talked to them briefly explaining who and why i was the only asian there. (hahhaha.......) i went to bed around 8:30pm, yet i think i didn't go to sleep until about 10:30pm. not sure what, but i think it was the anxiety, excitement and nervousness. then again, i think i had a good rest the nite before the race. at the end of this blog, i wanted to thank GOD for letting me be with the aagenas family. thank U, GOD, for using them to bless me in so many ways. i sure hope i was able to be a blessing for them too.
i will never forget everything that they had done for me.
God bless.....