Today was the epic Birch Run adventure. I had been planning to go on a trip like this since last September and had used it as a motivator to get my ass to the fitness center when it was cold outside at 5:30 in the morning. I chose the outlet mall at Birch Run over the one in Howell (which I drove past twice today) or South Bend because it had an American Eagle outlet, a Banana Republic factory store, and a Pottery Barn factory store. The only thing missing from that place was an All-Clad factory store and a Le Creuset factory store. It was amazing.
I did take more than three pictures of the event, but since I’ve already uploaded them to Facebook, simply click here to save me the trouble of having to re-post them all here.
Because I skipped my workout on Wednesday and Thursday, I do not get the weekend off. I did, however, get to sleep in a bit and cranked out a solid 1.75 miles. Monday I’m going to push for 2 miles, and I’m feeling pretty good about it.
After that I got cleaned up and jumped into Jetta and headed out to Ann Arbor to pick up my friend who was going to be my shopping buddy for the day. I made it from Holland to Ann Arbor in about two hours and fifteen minutes, which was a bit faster than I had expected. My tripodometer, which I had reset after filling up on my way out of town, also seemed off by a bit. But more on that in a bit.
Once I got to Ann Arbor my friend and I went for some brunch. Naturally, we went for sushi. I’ll be reviewing Sadako’s fare in a separate post, but it was a pretty awesome way to start the day. From there we set off for Birch Run, stopping right before the end to grab some caffeine.
Birch Run, as an outlet mall, was pretty amazing. It’s huge, and fortunately the weather was pretty awesome. I could have stood for it to be a bit warmer, but for February it could have been much, much worse. It was pretty crowded, which may have had something to do with the Presidents Day sales going on that weekend. I was a bit disappointed with the American Eagle, which didn’t have two different washes of my jeans in my size (which is not an uncommon one), but they also weren’t available online, so it wasn’t just this store. The prices were a little cheaper than the retail stores, but nothing earth-shattering. Pottery Barn had some absolutely amazing deals on furniture; we found a $1,000 couch for $650. If only I had room in my place for one of those suckers…
The one disappointment was probably the North Face outlet. I’ve wanted to get my hands on one of those Denali fleece jackets that practically everyone in Holland has for a while now, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to put down the $140 that they normally cost. I had hoped that the outlet store would have them for slightly less, but they didn’t have any of those jackets, period. Minor letdown.
My friend and I shopped hardcore for a solid three and a half hours though, and by the end of the day Jetta’s trunk was stuffed. We stopped on the way back to Ann Arbor at TGI Fridays and grabbed some tasty beer and some dinner, which for me included some really oddly shaped fried mozzarella sticks. After dropping her off at her place, I turned around and headed back to Holland and sorted through my haul:
Despite my best efforts, I didn’t manage to drain my Banana Republic gift card and I stayed $45 under budget for the trip. Not too shabby.
Now, about Jetta…
Jetta is a Special car. She’s got a known issue with her transmission that causes the speedometer to be pretty much useless on the highway, but something that struck me as odd today was that after tanking up and resetting my tripodometer, the distances weren’t adding up. Google Maps pegs the route I took from Ann Arbor to Holland at 153 miles, but Jetta insists that she only flew for 112.5 miles. It makes about as much sense as when Han Solo told Luke and Obi-Wan that he made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs (perhaps he took Jetta?)
I suspect that the reason for this understatement has to do with the fact that mileage is calculated based on the speedometer, and if that’s reporting speeds of 55-60mph, then I’m going to wind up driving farther than the odometer actually says I did. I don’t do a lot of highway driving, so it’s not like the car is under reporting by a thousand miles (maybe a hundred after today), but it’s another weird quirk that I’m going to just put up with for now, because getting it fixed will cost about a grand.
Besides…I’d rather say that Jetta moves so fast, time and distance compress in a relativistic fashion.
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