Having had the choice of spending July 1-6 curled up in the fetal position pondering the relavance of the 4th of July holiday or traveling to the state of Michigan, I boldly decided to attempt the latter. Plus getting the oppurtunity to be able to take only one vacation day off of work to get said holiday; I was stupid not to.
What’s in Michigan you might ask, I might says trees, but that would be rhetorical. Actually, there’s a girl I met some 14 years previous on a 4-H exchange trip. I’ve kept in touch and it’s always an interesting time when I go to visit.
As for the timing of this trip I decided renting a car would be the prudent thing to do, seeing as I can’t imagine how much fun it would be if my car got me stranded in like Chicago somewhere and airplane flights were mucho expensive for a last minute traveler. The prospect of driving nearly 14 hours was not exciting and in retrospect still wasn’t grand. I believe the parts that made it sucketh big time were the said time allotted and also Chicago, the drivers nightmare.
I actually didn’t do so shabby on timing. Going out I started from Gaylord at 7:00 a.m. (sharp) and arrived in Rochester’s airport a bit after 9 for car rental. But someone at Budget decided to sleep in so I didn’t get out of there until 10 am which I originally had planned on timewise. So with fuel/personal pitstops, upwards of 1 hour waiting in traffic on a Saturday night in Chicago and a time change; I made East Lansing, MI by 9:30 pm.
Coming back was pretty much same timewise. I left at 8:00 a.m. and made Chicago by noon after trying to take some back roads that looked like they would avoid Chicago. Seems they had stoplights every 2 miles maximum. That got old fast and I decided to try the parking lot… oops the interstate. Yeah, interstates in Chicago at say 1 p.m. suck. It took me upwords of an our to get out of Chicago by exiting it in the south and trying to fly across most of Illinois instead of trying for more of the gridlocked interstate that the rest of Chicago may have been. Having made time up that way afforded me the oppurtunity to visit a DQ in Decorah, IA that in managed by a family I got to know through Green Isle’s CTC. So that was worthwhile too. All said I arrived back in Gaylord at roughly midnight. So with time delayed on interstates, adding a hour change over and various fuel/personal pitstops, I also didn’t make too terrible of time. 15 going out, 16 coming back on a timeframe scheduled for 14 hrs? Not too bad in my book.
Driving that distance solo makes you wonder how truckers can do that day in and day out. Must love driving and/or have seats that are luxurious. Oof-Da!
Other than hanging out with my friend, we also got to see the Piotter Center and Piotter Highway, both roughly located in Adrian, MI (just northwest of Toledo,Ohio). Although not immediate relation, I have corresponded with family members from the area and they said their ancestors came from Pomerania, the same as my line of Piotters. Except in Michigan they don’t pronounce the name Pee Otter, but Pee- Odor.
Interesting.
Good times.
Ego-trip for sure!
