Rockford

I found a really great deal on some used DVDs, the only problem was that they were more than an hour away in Rockford. I explained it to the wife and asked if she wanted to come with me. She said yes! A boring drive just became a fun impromptu date! We let the boy know we would be gone for a while, which he was excited about, and hopped in the car. For the next hour or so we got to listen to great '90s music, chat, hold hands, and just be silly together. We finally found the guy selling the movies way back in some random dirt road forest. I started to wonder if this was all a set up and we were walking into a trap... As we turn the corner, we see a huge warehouse garage and a nice older man waving us over. Turns out he just buys huge lots of stuff at estate sales and sells them online for a profit. Phew, no need to worry for our lives! This was by far the biggest DVD lot I had ever bought. He said that he was starting to get out of the business and just wanted all the movies gone. It ended up being over 1450 movies for only $100! Wow! We hardly had enough room for all of them in our vehicle, I had to get creative with fitting all the boxes.

After we loaded them up and started to leave, I asked Diana if she wanted to make it a real date and stop and get dinner. If you know Diana, you know that she will never turn down the chance to go to a restaurant! Growing up, my family would go to Rockford every few months because they have The Corner Bar. Its a place that is renowned far and wide as having the best chili dogs in Michigan. It was a dark and dingy bar, which made it all the cooler. They were known for their hot dog challenge: If you can eat 8 or more hot dogs in a set amount of time, you could get your name added to the 'Wall of Fame' that filled every wall in the place. It was really cool, there were name plaques on every wall that stated the name of the person, how many they ate, and where they were from. There were names from all over the country. The record holder had eaten 42 1/2 hot dogs! Mind-blowing! Unfortunately, my parents never let me try to get my name up there, which as a chubby kid I feel like I could have been successful... Anyway, The Corner Bar had unfortunately burned down a few years back. It has since been rebuilt, and I had never been to the new building. We took the opportunity to stop there and chow down on some of their famous dogs. The atmosphere is totally different, it feels like a nice family restaurant now, but the chili dogs are still just as good!

After sharing all kinds of nostalgic stories with the wife, we finished our meal (no, I didn't try to get my name on the wall this time either) and happily headed home. It was really great to have a little day away with just the two of us- so much fun! (and getting a carload of movies helped too!)

(more pics)