Monday 20 July 2009

Road to Bellaire, Michigan

We left the Belden Stratford about 9:30 am after I took a million more pictures of the hotel

and of Chicago's skyline.

I even found the old wood frame houses on the

road side to be quite fascinating, a sure sign that I have been away for a long time.

I was much easier with Bill's driving than I have been on past trips. This issue is what makes me dread travel to the US more than any time zone change: his driving usually scares the **** out of me and mine makes him crazy as well. I would estimate that we argue and bicker in the car in the US more than the accumulation of all other such behavior probably for a full year before and after. It was slightly easier this time as Bill had had the experience of driving the huge RV around last year and so he seemed to position the car properly in the lanes much quicker than in the past.

When not required to consult the map for navigation, I busied myself working on a fabric card for one of the sewing group ladies, Emma. Her birthday was on the 14th of July and I figured I could drop it by when we got home, just in time for her birthday. Doing fiddly needlework in a stationary place is sufficient challenge; doing it in the car and later on the train was nigh impossible. Fortunately I find that as I get older I do seem to have more and more patience for this. I keep reminding myself that my Mom had endless patience and tell myself I have inherited it; it seems to work!

Occupying myself allowed me to ignore Bill's driving (except for when he slammed the brakes) which was good; the downside is that I probably missed some photo opps like the signs for entering various states until too late. As I took 1,288 photos as it was, this seems a small price to pay for a little less panic.


I had of course heard of the city named Kalamazoo,

but never realised Michigan had places called Cadillac or Pontiac -- what fun! So, have they ever made cars named Detroit, Lansing or Cheboygan?

I'd not noticed that we'd be taking in a small sliver of Indiana.

You might guess what song Bill couldn't resist singing...sad man.

1 comment:

Rick Stone said...

I was looking at your link for the "huge RV" Bill had driven. Didn't find it. ;-> Was wondering if it is hard to adjust to driving on the opposite side of the street. On one of my dad's trips to Europe he bought a VW at the factory and drove it around Europe. That was until he crossed the Channel to England. After the first day he took it to the shipping company and shipped it to the US. He could not adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road.