The next leg of the trip was a drive down into the State of Michigan. We drove down through Detroit and then headed towards Charlevoix where was our next major destination. It was a bit of a drive though and we weren’t sure how far we would get that first day so we planned to stop in a decent looking town somewhere along the highway around dinner time and spend the night. We found a small town, neither of us can recall the name now, but it had a clean looking motel and a quaint downtown area where we grabbed subs for dinner.
I remember the place we stayed was close to an outlet mall of some kind. The major attraction was that it was there and we could get out and stretch our legs for a while. When we finally got to Charlevoix the next day I was struck by how quaint it was. Lot of little touristy shops, the beautiful marina area and of course that really neat drawbridge. It was up when we drove into town so it took us while to finally get to the rental condo that we stayed at. The desk clerk had a hairdo from the late 1970′s which kind of added to the whole stepping back in time theme of our trip.
We did lots of walking around a bit of shopping and walked along the beach of lake Michigan. I remember each time we crossed the bridge or started to, the alarm would start hooting and I would hotfoot it across in a panic which amused Tom no end. Of course it takes a wee bit of time for it to actually clear and open but no amount of assurances would get me to walk it! It was fun watching the sailboats with their tall masts move through the channel from the marina to the lake. The people were usually in a good mood and friendly so there was a lot of waving to the people on the shore and vice-versa.
Tom in front of the Marina in Charlevoix
The next stop on our adventure was to drive down to visit Tom’s Sister Carol and her family in the lower part of Michigan. They had recently moved from Virginia and had built a new house which was finished but for the landscaping. Carol’s husband works at the local College and Carol was working from home while raising their two Children. We had a lovely time visiting them and meeting Greg and Laura their sweet children. It was amazing to see how incredibly bright Laura was and to watch her kind of ‘Mommy’ her Brother Greg, running through a set of flash cards. I was blowing on Greg’s tummy and then he wanted to do it to everyone. After I heard their plan to ‘tackle Uncle Tom’ I derailed them with a ‘tickle Uncle Tom’ campaign after I told them when he’s tickled he ‘squeals like a girl’ which was hilariously funny to them. They tried at every opportunity to tickle him which I enjoyed immensely. The funniest was when a neighbour of Carols showed up and said to Tom ‘ I understand when you are tickled you squeal like a girl!’ Haha thanks Laura and Gregg!!
Too soon it was time to get back on the road (yes that spreadsheet was calling *grin*) and we had a date to keep with Tom’s friend Pat and his then girlfriend to meet up in Chicago. We had booked into the Sheraton for the night and planned to go to the Blue Man Group show that was put on in a theatre in town. It was Pat and his date’s first time at the BMG shows and I’m not sure what they thought of it! It seems to be something you either love or not, there isn’t really any in between.
We had a nice dinner afterwards at a Steak place in the hotel was is owned by some football dude (not sure who he is personally) but it was called Shula’s and what I found funny was the fact that EVERYTHING was covered in football memorabilia down to the ladies room walls. There was a club at the restaurant too where if you eat some humungous steak you would get your name on their door. The menus were even written on footballs! Of course the main stuff there was STEAK STEAK AND MORE STEAK which I understand was very tastey, but I’m more of a fish or chicken gal so I had the Salmon.
It being a long day and night we hit the sack and then got up to meet Pat for breakfast before we all headed home. We had to catch a plane as our return flight was out of Chicago back to Seattle. We bid him goodbye and drove over to O’Hare to hand in the rental car and catch the plane back to the West Coast. I had caught the cold from Tom at this point (my fault for insisting on kissing him) so I had fun on the flight back with my sinuses! We spent the night in the Wyndham again and then made our way to the airport for him to catch his flight to LA and me to catch my bus back up to Belligham.
Wow this was a very depressing time! We had just spent two week solid together and had such a great time only to part yet again. The shuttle pulled up to where I was to get off to catch my bus very quickly so we had barely a second to say our final goodbye and I had to get off the bus. Tom said later he felt so bad because he was worried about where he would have to get off and it turned out to be the very next stop so he quickly checked in and then came and found me where I was waiting for my bus. He sat and snuggled with me until it was time for me to get on. I watched back through the glass and waved and felt a HUGE wave of self pity come over me once again.
