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If you are near Ann Arbor, join us for a Grex Walk!
Every Saturday morning at approximately 10:15 am a bunch of Grexers meet
for a 75-90 minute walk, followed by lunch at a local eatery.
Newcomers are most eagerly welcome; this is an opportunity to meet
and socialize with other Grex folks and get some exercise in the
bargain.
Spring is a great time to come out and join the walkers if you have
been cooped up all winter. There will probably be a bit of mud
on the trails until everything dries out, and then we can watch
the bud and leaf season start.
The walk usually takes a bit over an hour, so people usually make it to
the lunch debriefing between 11:45 and 12:15. Feel free to come
to the walk but not lunch, or the lunch but not to the walk.
Everything's very informal.
Currently we pick a different place for lunch each week. Watch this
item and make suggestions if you have a favorite place that we could
visit. With few exceptions, any restaurant that receives a nomination
and a second will be put on the list for a future debriefing.
The upcoming lunch schedule can be seen with the !lunch command.
On the FIRST SATURDAY of each month, the walk is held at Bird Hills
Park.
Those dates will be: Saturday, April 6
Saturday, May 4
Saturday, June 1
Directions for how to find us in Bird Hills Park are in
response #1 ( resp:1 ) of this item.
On ALL OTHER SATURDAYS, the walk starts in Gallup Park, and we gather
by the first parking lot near the entrance on Fuller Road.
Directions for how to find us at Gallup Park are in response #2
( resp:2 ) of this item.
198 responses total.
For FIRST SATURDAYS,
here's a description of how to meet us in Bird Hills Park:
(credit: Jan Wolter)
Jackson Dexter \\\/ NORTH =>
Road Road \X\
| / /\\\ Maple Road
---|----/-----------/--\\\----------------
| / / \\\
| / / \\\ M-14
| / Miller / \\\
|/ Road / \\\
| / \\\
| / school ||| Newport Road
| /---------------------,------------------
| 7th / ||| --' |
----|-------/ ||| Park Here |
| / ||| | Bird
Huron | / Miller ||| | Road
| | Road ||| |
Downtown | ___|||___________________|___
Ann --------------------'-. ||| Huron River Drive
Arbor Main \|||
|||
So you want Newport road, just where it crosses the M-14 highway.
Just a wee bit north of the bridge is a little dirt road that slopes
down to a little parking lot. The walk meets there. If you are
coming from the highway, note that there is no exit at Newport, just
at Main Street and at Maple and Miller. Getting from Main to Huron
River Drive is a bit tricky. Be alert. Amateurs may do better
approaching Newport Road from Miller Road. Occasionally the parking
lot gate is left locked. Park at the school and walk across the
bridge.
Gallup Park directions, for Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth Saturdays:
We meet in the parking lot just off Fuller Road, opposite Huron High
School, just west of Huron Parkway. Here's a small map:
\ -----
\ F \ | HHS | | H |
| \ u \ ----- | u |
| | \ l \ | r |
| | \ l \ | o |
Furstenburg \ e \ | n |
Park __ \ r \ | |
/..\ | \ \ | P |
/.....\ | | \ | k |
/......| / \ \ | w |\
\...../ | | | y | \
|.....| | | | |\ \
\....| | | /--\ | | \
|....| | *| |..| | | \
|....| | | |..| | |
|....| | | |..| | |
|....| \ / /...\| |
-------/.....\--|-|-/.....\---
....Huron River.| |...........
----------------|-|-----------
Gallup Park
Grexers meet in the parking lot near where the "*" is.
Please NOTE: we meet by the FIRST parking lot, before the bridge over
the river. If you need to drive over the bridge to find a parking
space, you'll have to backtrack to meet us.
(Gallup Park Grexwalk directions originally by Mark Conger (aruba))
Rereading last Agora's walking item, I see danr had some objections to the item title. Suggestions welcomed!
Restaurant suggestions are also welcomed. As lunchadm I'm responsible for scheduling various local restaurants, but I often can't attend myself. If there are restaurants you'd like to add, please list them here.
The current schedule displayed with the !lunch command (and what is the URL for our Web readers?) indicates that the April 6 restaurant was to be Shaharayar, near the Maynard parking ramp. My recollection is that they closed some months ago.
Oops. I'll fix the Shaharyr date. The Web-enabled version of !lunch is at: http://www.cyberspace.org/~scott/lunch.txt
I think we ought to put Paesano's on the list.
I'd like to suggest The Creekside, on Jackson Road near Zeeb.
Re #7: I hear that Paesano's menu has been radically cut and it's no longer a very good place to go; no variety.
I was at Paesano's about a week ago and didn't notice a lack of variety; certainly no decline in quality. I second Paesano's.
Is Paesano's a recent addition to Ann Arbor's dining scene or did I lose whichever neurons were responsible for remembering it?
I'm not a member of the Walk crowd, but my impression is that Paesano's is a little more upscale and pricey than the usual restaurant preferences. This is in no way a criticism of anything, but just a neutral observation....
Paesano's has been on Washtenaw Ave. near Arborland for as long as I can remember (at least 10 years).
I don't walk these days either, but I think Rane might have a point. Of course, the food there's fantastic, so it might be worth it to y'all.
For the first walk of the spring we had good Michigan spring weather:
it was sunny. OK, it was windy and cold, but it was sunny!
The All-Guy Walkers were, roughly in order of arrival:
janc, krj, jep, his son John, danr, kaplan, Barney, Mutsie, and aruba.
(OK, Mutsie's not a guy.) We admired the large wood chip pile
being created from all the ice storm debris. I saw a few leaf buds
starting to open in hedges along Geddes Road. By the time we
returned to the parking lot, the wind had blown over one of the
two porta-potties which had been set up for some park event.
We had to wait 30 minutes or so for a large table at Cafe Marie;
the number of extra grexers coming out for lunch testified to
the restaurant's popularity. All the walkers went to lunch except
danr and the canines. Seating map:
Ross kaplan valerie/baby scott arabella Carol
chanur aruba
arlo janc young John jep krj
It was cool to meet the two Johns. I'd met the elder John a couple times long ago, but not the younger John.
Little John enjoyed the walk so much he wanted to go back Sunday and do the same walk. (-: Instead we went to nearby Hidden Lake Gardens and went on a somewhat shorter walk there. I'd never met kaplan, chanur, arlo or Carol before. I may or may not have met scott. It was a little embarrassing how poorly I remembered those I'd met before. I guess that's what happens when you see people very rarely. It was nice walking with everyone, and nice chatting with people over lunch. I think Little John and I will both try to come back again sometime when we get the chance.
Fun. I forget, remind me why the botanical garden walks never worked out?
Great, John! We can always use more walkers. Re: Paesano's. At lunch it's no more expensive than some of the other places we go. I went there for lunch about a month ago, and the offer a soup and personal pizza for $7.
We used to do Botanical Gardens walks on days when we knew there was going to be some festival jamming up Gallup park (mainly the Jazz Festival, which jams with the best of them). It's been a while. I wouldn't mind doing it again.
Wasn't Paesano's Bimbo's on the Hill in a former life?
My recollection is that dogs are not welcome in the botanical garden. ??
Oh yeah. That was it. The dogs are regulars, and should be accomodated.
You know, there is a yahoogroups email list called 'grexwalk'. There is almost never any discussion on it, but once a week a robot mails out the location of the next lunch. Sometimes there is discussion of a walk location needs to be changed. Anyway, anybody can join this list, and we ought to announce it's existance in this item. Only I forgot how you join these things.
If that is its name, then you send a blank message to grexwalk-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
This response has been erased.
Wow, a halftime report, between the walk and lunch! Sidetrack attendees, in approximate order of arrival, were: i, mary, remmers, eskarina, krj, valerie/baby, janc and arlo.
chanur, Ross and I were out of town visiting relatives yesterday morning. The dogs were trapped in the house. I owe them a fairly long walk today.... The dogs and I would vote against the Botanical Gardens as an alternative grex walk location, but we don't have veto power. If other people want to go there, I could leave the dogs at home. Or the dogs and I could walk someplace else instead that day. Not a major problem.
The first party into Bird Hills Park today was danr, aruba, Carol, Raisa and krj. The second party, leaving about ten minutes late, was kaplan, chanur, Ross, Mutsie and Barney. Footing was rather muddy, requiring us to keep our noses to the trail -- Carol expressed regrets that we couldn't look up at the trees while we walked. As Ross was being carried, his family couldn't make time to catch up with us, and chanur also said they were worried about the muddy footing, so they abandoned the walk at the road crossing into Kuebler Langford Park. I'd hoped that Barton Dam would be doing its springtime impression of Niagara Falls this week, but the river flow is not especially high: only five of the ten gates were open. Still a bigger flow than usual. Both walking parties converged on Kai Garden for the debriefing, losing danr and the canines as usual, and gaining scott. Kai Garden is somewhat more expensive than most of the places we go, as there are no lunch specials, but it is awfully good, especially if you like tofu.
I got a monster headache this evening that kept me from being able to go out. I wonder if it was the MSG, or something else.
I got one too. I think mine was the huge chocolate Hershey's Kiss I ate this afternoon.
I took Arlo to a birthday party this morning and afterwards we were all too pooped to go the Grex lunch. Too bad. For no rational reason, I'm eager forr Ross and Kendra to meet.
John wanted to go on a walk, but was uncomfortable about having to keep up with a group. So he and I went to Gallup Park in the afternoon and did the walk there, up to the big mound of wood chips. We saw a lot of people, many with dogs. One couple had a bassett hound. John's fascinated by bassett hounds, and so we talked to them, and then they let him give the dog treats, and after that they let him walk her for a while. So there was kind of a third walk, at the wrong place and time. I'll try to come to the regular walk next week when I won't have John.
Re #31: Hmmm. I ate some chocolate too. I didn't know that could give you a headache.
I get migraines. Dr said to give up chocolate and caffeine as both are often triggers for migraines. My migraines are usually hormonal, but that shouldn't have been a factor for this one (I still have it, yuck).
Chocolate contains a chemical very similar to caffeine and they both cause blood vessels to constrict, which can trigger migraines.
If Spring starts to actually spring I'm going to try to make it to the walk. How friendly to other dogs are Mutsie and Barney?
We've had various other dogs on the walk, and usually meet a few during the walk. There have never been any problems.
resp:37 The tiny little lap dog that lives a few doors down from us gets quite irate when Mutsy and Barney are around. Our dogs do not reciprocate. In fact, they don't give that neighbor dog the time of day. Mutsy and Barney rarely show aggression around other dogs, and when they do it's quite mild. resp:32 I don't think Ross is likely to know that there's another baby around, but it sure will be fun for Arlo and the adults to see Kendra and Ross together. Maybe we can drop by your house this week. I'll send you an e-mail.
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