At night we sat on some rocks at the rivers edge and watched the fireworks display. Tons of people had gathered to watch the fireworks and with good reason. It was a long and entertaining display.
The next day the bus was headed to the Rothbury Music Festival. Rothbury is a huge hippie music fest. We got to catch Toots and the Maytals (a little disappointing to be honest), Ani (she was better when I saw her several years ago), The Hold Steady (I still don't get the fascination with this band), Willie Nelson (can do no wrong), and Bob Dylan (who doesn't even seem to try anymore but no one really cares). It was pretty sweet to be able to check out all these bands. We got a little sun and our feet were nice and dirty by the end of the day. We fit right in with the other hippies, minus the trust funds.
On Monday we walked another 4 mile RT to a restaurant called Marie Catrib's. This restaurant was much better than the one we had gone to the other day. Almost everything was made in-house or organically grown by local farmers. We started off with a goat cheese salad with toasted walnuts and roasted root vegetables with a balsamic vinagrette and a cup of tunisian vegetable soup (kind of a vegetable curried lentil) and some seasoned potatoes. We followed that with a roasted eggplant, provolone, spinach, and tomato with a homemade aioli on fresh baked whole wheat herb bread. I had a nut burger made from walnuts, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds and spices on rye bread with a cucumber yogurt sauce. The portions were enormous and we ended up taking a half of each sandwich to go, along with a vegan chai spice cookie for later. They were busy so there was a significant wait to be seated, but the service was welcoming and attentive. The restaurant itself is built on the site of a former gas station. Heavily polluted, the former owner paid (or was fined) $520,000 to rebuild on the site sustainably. They are now a LEED's certified property that houses businesses in addition to serving as an educational demonstration site. It features a green roof (dramatically reducing the energy needed to heat/cool the property), a storm water collection/filtration system, a 'rain' garden, and use only non-CFC air conditioning among other environmentally sound practices. The restaurant itself goes beyond offering a comfortable dining experience with homemade, whole, locally sourced food. They promote and help arrange tours to the farms where they source their vegetables and meats from, furthering the relationship between how we eat, what we eat, and where our food comes from. I asked the server about checking out the roof and she happily instructed us on how to get the key and check it out. We ended up having a guided tour of the roof where we walked barefoot on the vegetative covering while weeding out the dandelions. If you ever find yourself in Grand Rapids, do yourself a favor and visit this restaurant.
After filling our bellies to the brim we walked back to the hotel and pampered our sore feet and aching muscles. A quick trip to the steam room, following by a relaxing soak in the hot tub and a couple of laps around the pool and we were rejuvenated. We spent a few minutes basking in late afternoon sunlight over a crossword puzzle before walking to Founders Brewing Company.
They have a special on pints on Monday nights and the place was swarming with people. We stepped in and were immediately disoriented and unsure of the protocol. We were seeking an outdoors table but couldn't find anyone to ask about it. Eventually I tracked down a server who rudely told me to grab whatever table I could grab where ever I could grab it. We decided to sit at the bar rather than have the rude and unhelpful server wait on us.The bar wasn't much better. The first bartender who approached us gave some snarky response when I asked a question about one of their beers. Mike commented that perhaps they were trained to have bad attitudes. I played it safe with my first beer after trying to ask a question to the bartender and just ordered the Dirty Bastard, a medium bodied scotch ale. It had a slight nutty quality with a well balanced sweetness and dry finish despite the 10 different types of malt it is brewed with. Amber in color with a touch of spice this beer weighs in at about 8.5%ABV. Mike ordered the Imperial Stout, 10.5%ABV. The color and taste both evoke a nice shot of espresso, perfectly roasty without being overdone. It offered a full body and enough hops to give this imperial stout a nice punch without any cloying sweetness.
We ended up finding a helpful person behind the bar in the happy hippie with beads in his beard. For our next beer Mike ordered the Porter, which was nice, and offered a smooth mouthfeel and chocolate finish but wasn't particularly noteworthy otherwise.
Upon our friendly bartenders suggestion I tried the Pepper Pale, which he described as packing some habanero like heat. This light-medium bodied orangy pale ale offered just a slight peppery finish at first tasting and was a little bit of a let down, however the lower the beer became in my glass the more I noticed the heat slowly creeping up on me. Though I did feel a little warm all over by the end of the pint it still wasn't as hot as I was hoping for. We also had a taste of the Cerise Cherry Ale, a seasonal brew from the cherry capital of the world (I write you now from the National Cherry Festival a few hours away from Grand Rapids). Light purpley-red in color, kind of like diluted grape juice, I found the flavor of this beer was too heavily concentrated cherry and not enough beer flavor going on. A little too syrupy with not enough pizazz, Mike said it reminded him of drinking a wine cooler. I'm not shocked that I didn't care for this beer though, as I have never been a fan of the fruited ale genre unless of course it's a delicious lambic that smells like horse blanket. 
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