Holy Toledo!

I had a few portraits to take in Toledo today so Erin and I decided to make a bit of a get-a-way out of it. We left on Saturday evening and after checking in to the hotel went out for diner and a few drinks. We were already tired and it was raining so we didn't make it very late. We had spotty weather on Sunday but the evening turned out nice and on Monday it was all thunderstorms so we didn't stick around long. We did everything by foot or bike so we were only in the downtown area. I do remember hearing downtown was a no-go zone back when I had friends who went to the University in the late 90's. Compared to that it seems like it is on a bit of an upswing but there were still a lot of empty buildings - although I do hate to judge a city on a rainy Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

Black Cloister Brewing - a cool space in an old building with some pretty good beers. All the Saturday night action seemed to be in the few blocks surrounding the Triple A baseball stadium. That area is one of Ohio's entertainment districts that allows open containers withing certain borders. A few locals told us that during games a lot of people take advantage of it. I assume the city takes on a different feel at those times.

In the morning we walked to a coffee shop and then for a stroll along the river front. The far left is our hotel, the center must be an old Holiday Inn that is either being torn down or getting a complete renovation, and the colorful strip of old building in the middle seemed mostly abandoned...

We then walked to another pretty good coffee shop in the Adam's Street Area(it seemed like an area that was similar to Highland Square in size and feel) and over to Handmade Toledo. Handmade Toledo was like Crafty Mart but with a permanent storefront(it seems like they do a lot of the same type of events and classes too).

I must never take photos of the cool coffee shops we check out because I'm not awake enough yet to think about it....

Our plan was to ride our bikes to the town of Grand Rapids to try out an interesting brewery but the weather seemed too iffy and the Towpath-like material would have been pretty wet from the over night rain. So we drove. We hiked around and checked out the little downtown before hitting the brewery.


Gone Fishin'




The brewery was called Wild Side and it was fantastic. They specialized in "wild ales"(sours) but they weren't your typical sour for the sake of being sour beers that are so trendy right now. These were real deal, one-year barrel aged beers.

They have only been open for a few months with three of their beers on tap and the rest were guest beers. We each got one then split the third. Here is a mango beer aged in rum barrels and a plum beer aged in wine barrels. I believe the third was a blueberry beer aged in Cab-Franc barrels. All were fantastic, balanced, funky, complex beers. If you like real sours this is a destination spot.

We drove back to Toledo and the weather broke so we were able to get on our bikes. We made a short ride to Maumee Bay Brewing for dinner.


We watched the end of the Cavs game and the finish of the first stage of the Tour of California here.

We had some left-over pizza and Erin's ingenuity found a way to bring it on the bikes(thank god - it made a great breakfast!)

We then cruised over to the other side of the river, back and around downtown.



The view from our room. Our hotel was a little dated but clean. We had a final drink in the hotel bar which could have been out of the late 90s(buckets of Bud for 10 bucks! and not a single craft beer). In the morning we hit another cool coffee shop then were off to my shoot. It was still early and we had planned to ride bikes but it was still pouring and thunderstorming. We decided to head home. Not a perfect trip but I always enjoy getting away and seeing some new places no matter what.