Earlier this year Bike Ypsi cohort Tom L. devised the Taco Tour: pick a handful of Mexican restaurants and bike a loop to all of them, having a taco at each place. The 2008 Taco Tour happened this past Saturday, 14 September.
The remnants of Hurricane Ike were working their way into the Michigan area, and all morning I kept an eye on the NWS radar, watching the giant blob over Illinois. It didn't look like it was moving all that quickly, and in fact when I arrived at Recreation Park for the start it was warm and humid, and there were even bits of blue showing in the sky.
I think we had 25 people or so show up (Tom said that the limited number of spots he had were all full two or three days after he announced it). Starting at 1, our first stop was also the longest without tacos, about six or seven miles to Los Amigos out on East Michigan. Around the time we got to Los Amigos it started sprinkling, and I debated pulling out the new rain jacket I had gotten, but decided it wasn't worth it.
For the next stop the carnies and vegetarians split up, because the next two stops were too small to hold all of us at once. We veggies arrived next at Dos Hermanos Mercado, which is a few blocks from my house and I had always ment to stop at. I was rather fond of the bean tacos there, which is slightly sad since Dos Hermanos normally only has meat tacos — the owner made bean tacos for us specially since so many of us were going to stop.
Around the next stop, Taqueria La Loma on West Michigan, it started to pour. And leaving La Loma I developed a flat, fortunately close to Chappell Elementary and its inviting front overhang. Nat and Andy C. held back while I changed the tire, rather slowly; my glasses where fogged up and streaked with rain, and I could see about as much with them on as when I took them off.
Also around this time my tummy told me that it had had enough, and I passed on tacos at the next two stops: La Casita Taqueria and Zorro's. Missing tacos at both places made me sad; several of the veggies liked La Casita, and it's very close to Temptations, which we visit a lot at work, and Zorro's used to be Taco Boy of ancient fame and glory before it became a crappy buffet and then finally became Zorro's. Tom is really fond of Zorro's, and I had wanted to see what it had became, because we used to go to Taco Boy a lot at work.
We finally ended, after a jaunt down the recently re-surfaced railbed trail between the EMU stadium and campus proper and a dash through campus, at Corner Brewery, which would be my favorite bar if I drank (well, it's still my favorite bar, since I can get Ugly Mug coffee there). A few hours hanging around and drying out were the perfect end to the day, which yielded some other ride ideas that I hope come to fruition.
I normally don't do rides, because I'm more of a meander about town person than I am actually riding with any speed, but this was fairly laid back and I had a ton of fun. Besides, how could I miss a Taco Tour?
Photos can be found here.