Shade in Ann Arbor

My friend Rick and I headed up to Ann Arbor last weekend to see Pete Souza speak- he was Barak Obama's Whitehouse photographer. We went the day before to have some time to do a little bit of exploring and we stayed with Rick's niece and her husband. They have a beautiful home in the woods just a few minutes from downtown. Pete Souza was promoting his new book 'Shade' where he juxtaposes the grace, humor and intelligence of President Obama with the current guy, which he calls "Minus". This book actually started as Instagram posts where he would post an image of Barak that contrasted with the current news - go give him a follow on IG - it is worth it. 

Sean took us out to eat at Home Brewing - the beer and food were both amazing.

The food all had a Korean vibe - and these(and everything else) were awesome.

A delicious New England-style IPA



The next day we checked out the Argus Museum. The Argus C3 was Rick's first camera. I have three or four Argus's (Argi?) myself. The museum was just a couple of smallish rooms in the old factory which is now owned by UM - but worth it for photo/camera nerds.

This is a giant model for dealers - you can see how big it is by comparing it to the real thing in the bottom right.

Real C3 and giant model in the back - these "giants" might have been the coolest thing there.

...but these cut-aways were pretty neat too.



So it turns out Argus was a radio manufacturer - an employee went to Germany to study Leica's and convinced the company they could make something similar for only 10 bucks. The company was then bought and sold a number of times before being moved to Carolina and eventually put out of business by the Japanese manufacturers.

Sean had told us the the Law Library at UM was worth checking out - and it sure was! What an amazing building. It is part of the Law Quad that was built in the 1920s in the NEO-Gothic style.

Stunning, right?!


This is the building across from the library.

The Law Library



I did a little research to bring our coffee-nerd-friends some gifts and I found Hyperion in Ypsilanti - one town over. Each bag came with a free cup - I got an espresso.

Cool spot. Our hosts, Sean and Erin, said they go to Ypsilanti when they want to go out on gameday in Ann Arbor(which you can imagine would be a zoo).

They were roasting while we were there.

We had an awesome dinner at Taste in downtown Ann Arbor and then walked over to this beautiful theatre for Pete Souza. I forgot to take any photos at Taste but I had a really great cheese plate and duck tacos.


Souza showed a photo of a storm over the Whitehouse and then this image and said, "after a storm there is often a rainbow".

I snapped this before getting in the car and heading back to the house. Rick and I were wheels up before 7 am the next morning.