When things don't go as planned weekend roundup

Good Monday morning all!  Another glorious week ahead!

So the Mr is not a plan a surprise kinda guy.  He's lucky if he can keep a secret a full day, much less a week bless his heart so when he said the weekend before last he had a surprise for this past Saturday, part of me wondered if he'd make it.  The man will babble with excitement and give it away.  It's both cute and maddening because as the usual surpriser, I don't mind being surprised but I'm also good at clues, so there's that.  He made it, and it required a very early wake-up, so we got started before the birds and got on our way.  He did his research and marked a donut shop to hit on the way there because donuts.  The people were friendly and the donuts were pretty good, but I could tell he seemed surprised with the way it took us.  So as we're driving to the destination and it told us to take a route that would've taken us the opposite direction, he pulled over to see what the deal was.  Now I could see he was nervous.  He realized that he hit a different location in the GPS that was labeled similarly and we would now be adding 30 minutes on that we didn't have.  But it was a beautiful drive in the country, so I didn't mind so much, and he said we weren't going to make our ferry.  Whoops.

Our destination was Put-in-Bay, Ohio.  We both had mentioned a long time ago the few places that we went on road trips with our parents as kids going to other destinations, and this happened to be one of them.  It has a reputation for being a drinking mecca so we weren't sure if we'd like it because drunks are annoying.  So I am glad he nudged us there so we could see if anything triggered our memories since we both remember being between 8-10 years old as kids.  Thankfully they took us on the next one, but the thing is, we couldn't bring our car because they don't take cars on Saturday, so you have to rent golf carts.  He waffled back and forth between going and canceling because the weather looked 50/50 and I could see him really struggling.  He made the decision to go, and this was the view from the ferry.

Now, I must say, that looks very benign but as we got closer, there was a HUGE dark cloud over the island and just as we pulled in...huge torrential downpours of sideways sheeting rain.   Did I mention this was our ride?

(Only $90!)

But it's okay because they give you this handy-dandy windshield wiper that you must take your hand off the wheel to operate.

We had to laugh.  We pulled into an arcade because not only was there rain but lightning and we were in a metal lightning rod, so we used the bathroom and got a souvenir penny.   The rain didn't let up for two hours between downpour and side sheeters.  I would put my umbrella up and try to shield myself while he attempted to see through the windshield with the wiper that didn't even touch the windshield to do its job.  One thing about islands like that that we learned real quick is they charge what they want, and you can either like it or leave.  We left most places.  Everything was $8 per person.  Want to enter a cave or two?  $16, please!  Want to see butterflies?  $16, please!  Want some chocolate from the chocolate cafe?  $23 per pound, please!   Perhaps they should call it Rip Off Bay?  We both decided none of them were worth doing and he said Yelp reviews showed we weren't missing anything cave wise. 

We decided to go to a bayside restaurant to ride out the last of the rain since we were both soaked.

Then the radar blob finally moved off, and we could enjoy ourselves.  We did some shopping, skipped every bar and every person coming out of them, found some penuche fudge (which is usually only in New England) and then walked to Perry's Monument which we both remember as kids.

I don't know if you can see the people there but what *I* remember from being a kid was dudes in costume firing a friggin' cannon several times and giving me PTSD.  It flared up when one went off, and we ran (okay walked fast) to the monument so we could see inside.

The sun decided to make an appearance.

We went up to the top, and I got to snap this pic before they closed down one side due to 45 mph gusts. 

Does that mean we get 1/4 of our money back since it's 1/4 closed?  The answer is no.  But we're both glad we did it, but we agreed nothing really set off our nostalgia radars much.  Everything looks different when you've got a couple extra feet of height and 30 years of change.  I'm just so glad the weather cleared up because it would've been miserable to be in that all day and the man would never plan anything ever again.  LOL

We headed over to a lighthouse and sat at the picnic table and just watched boats go by for a while.

We grabbed a pic of the lighthouse in between crowds.

I saw the ferry coming in and said it looked like we could make it or we could wait another 40 minutes for the next one.  We both agreed we'd seen it all at that point, so we returned the cart and got on the ferry after finally having the wind blow us dry naturally.  Of course, three minutes into the ferry ride, a huge wave rectified that.  *twitch*

It was a pleasant surprise, and we're both glad we got to see a place that we both had been as tots (kids, not tater), and we had about enough time to grab an early dinner and start our trek home.  When we got home, we were absolutely exhausted.  I mean I don't remember being that tired for a long time, and we were in the golf cart a majority of the time.  He thinks its because we were bracing so much and that's probably right.  Plus we've both got long legs, and those things do not have much leg room.

We spent yesterday still pretty tired but cleaned up a little, worked out and ate dinner before crashing for the night.  He learned some lessons on planning and said it won't be his last time which is good.

How was your weekend?

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