We leave Byron in complete charge of our home and drag our suitcases up the alley beside our house under a spitting gray sky. Metro to National Airport and wait a bit for our plane, which boards rather quickly. We sit for a few minutes until the head steward announces that there will be “a bit of weather” near Detroit and that the weather radar on our plane is not working soooooo … fortunately there’s a jet with functioning weather radar at the next gate and, if we deplane and board the other jet, we’ll be on our way through windy weather.

As our new plane rolls toward take-off, the head steward announces that we should stay buckled up during the flight because we will have some heavy turbulence on the way. We depart and climb smoothly. The captain announces that we will hit some turbulence. We fly along for a while. We get near Detroit. The captain announces we will hit turbulence so stewards must stop service and return to their seats.

The jet shimmies through cross-winds and swerves from side to side down the runway and we find our way to our luggage and to the DAX bus stop. Our bus arrives after a while and the driver gets out and says, “As you probably know by now it’s windy here. This vehicle may look like a bus but it’s actually a sail in winds like these. So, when we swerve on the highway, it’s not me. Just sayin’.”

He drops us off downtown after an uneventful 30-minute ride and we walk 10 minutes — actually, we just grip our suitcases and let the wind push us — to the Hotel David Whitney. We check in and ensconce ourselves in the lobby, David with a Negroni and Cynthia with a ginger ale. Beautiful lobby, sort of like the Brown Palace in Denver. Soft jazz, low lighting, lots of marble and gold, several people with very large dogs: golden retrievers, a white lab, a border collie.

We walk a few blocks to get to the Bad Luck Bar by 5:30. Down a truly dirty alley, its entrance is a steel door, looks like the entrance to a mechanical closet. We’re the only people in the small bar (see photos). Cynthia selects the “Mount Pelee:” El Dorado 8-year rum, Rhum J.M 110, dry curaçao, Carpano Blanco, Caribbean spiced pepper, ginger, lime, served over pebbled ice with torched cinnamon and rosemary. David gets a bourbon-based drink called “The Hammer.”

We chat up the bartender — Mark, also the manager — who warms to our cocktail jones with stories of his own and we start swapping alcohol trivia and recipes and share our deep concerns about absolutely clear ice and since we mentioned seaweed-infused gins from Scotland, he goes to the liquor racks and gets two gins — a seaweeds “Gray Whale” from Montecito, Ca., and olive and thyme “Gin Mare” from Italy — which he gives us to taste. Great soft jazz wafts from a group named “LA LOM” (Los Angeles League of Musicians).

The music…

So, pretty much by 6:30, Cynthia and I have had several different drinks with several kinds of alcohol and we weave our way a few blocks to La Lanterna, an Italian restaurant where we order a spicy Calamari and peppers appetizer, skipping another cocktail but going for some vino rosso. The appetizer is enough the feed five so we decide to get nothing beyond a single entree apiece. As recommended by a the people with whom we will hike the Dolomites and visit Venice shortly, Cynthia orders the lasagna in a bechmel and bolognese sauce, and David gets some tortellini tossed with gorgonzola, cream and sliced pears. Neither of us can eat more than half. We eschew the offered boxes and stagger to our hotel.