On The Road Again

After about 8 weeks of loafing and lounging in bed, in DC and Cleveland mostly, I'm finally on the road for the second part of my travels this year: My driving tour of the United States and Canada. Most people don't believe it, but this is the part of my year+ off that I've been most looking forward to. In fact, I've imagined doing something like this since I got my driver's license. The international trip was very cool and I'm glad I did it, but it was a fairly recent plan.

Starting point on the odometer:  72,406 miles (well, almost).

I might not write as much as I did abroad, in large measure because much more of my time spent in North America will be with friends, so I won't have to entertain myself each night by writing. But I plan to write a few times a week, with some short updates about where I've been and what I've seen. And if there are any particularly amusing or interesting stories, I'll share those. But I also anticipate that while this journey might be personally more fulfilling than my last -- because of how many friends I will share it with -- I might not have the same interesting things to write about. A night spend laughing and drinking with pals can be a hoot, but doesn't always make for interesting writing. We'll see. Anyway, on with the show...

My first stop was Astrid and Joe's new house (new to them) on the shores of Lake Erie, in Loraine, Ohio. They bought it last year and are super excited about it, and now that I've visited, I can see why.

Don't get me wrong, it's still Lake Erie, but the house and beach are pretty cool and they seem so happy about it. I didn't get to see much of Loraine itself, but it mostly looked like houses anyway, so I probably didn't miss too much.

It's alive!  ALIVE!  Oh wait...

The largest chunk of my day was spent driving to Grand Rapids, Michigan to visit my high school girl friend (not girlfriend, if you're wondering) Annette. She's currently in the other room watching a Curious George movie with her son, but that sounded way too exciting for me after such a busy day, so I opted to sit in the bedroom and write. But earlier, Annette was kind enough to host a dinner party at some friends' of hers across town, so I got to meet a few other people from Grand Rapids. They seem to like it here a lot. I'll learn more for myself tomorrow when we go out to explore.

Some of the people at Paul & Marty's.