This may become a habit!

Our Intrepid Captain

Summary of the rest of day one, now that I have some semblance of sleep under my belt.

After leaving Vicksburg behind, we travelled up through Portage for one last stop at the Root Beer Stand, which is Michael's very favorite thing in the Kalamazoo area. From march to October, whenever we are visiting we must stop and have hot steamed dogs and cold sweet root beer, except for Sarah, who claims a genetic anomaly that makes root beer taste like liquid toothpaste. Poor girl, a tastebud tragedy. Cam spent a few moments making fun of my pronunciation of root beer, which I take pretty good naturedly. I can say it properly of course, but I like my Midwest flavor too much.

Not bad for an iphone from a moving vehicle.

It was such a beautiful day for driving. Sunny, cool, everything bright as a new penny. Yes, there were many ass-hats on the road, but traffic through Chicago was impressively smooth, and I got some pretty good pictures. Dinah is not taking the traveling too well- she spent most of her time between Chicago and port washington cowering under my seat,but Emma is the picture of tranquility. She sleeps in the carrier and ignores the rest of us, unless some sort of food gets passed around in which case she graces us with her attention. I'm kinda hoping that this trip might run some of the fat off of her.

We did almost stop at the Cheese Castle. Sadly, we were not tourist trapped.

ah, the open road.

We arrived in Port Washington around 5 o'clock our time, 4 o'clock local time, a time differential that will increase as we travel west. I can't decide yet if that's a good thing, since I'm the early riser in our group. At the very least it affords me the time and quiet to fill in this blog.

Our Chief Medical Officer. Damnit Jim, I'm a Doctor, not a road monkey!

I thought about making a redshirt joke, but Cam is totally our Chekhov.
 I can't decide if that makes me Uhura or Spock.

One unimpressed cat? Check. The other is cowering under my seat. 

After arrival we went to a lovely Greek/mexican restaurant called Tallos, where Sarah and I split an ENORMOUS burrito, and a very very tasty one at that. Burritos are easy to mess up, but this was exceptionally good. Sarah, Michael and I enjoyed a walk along the harbor, which was lovely in the evening light. We saw a beautiful black cormorant, and what Sarah thought was a greeb, but it was too far away to tell. The air was also full of scissor tail swallows, likely getting ready to build their nests under the docks.

I have to credit my parents for my love of wildlife and my meager ability to recognize various species of things. It did pay off to keep pointing it out to me mom and dad, even if it looked like I wasn't listening, it surprises me now just how much I do actually know.

Another quick check of the cats, and then we were off to visit Roxy and Teagan, who is a shockingly well behaved baby. Not shocking because I thought he wouldn't be, he has two wonderfully well behaved parents to begin with,but simply that he is a very quiet and thoughtful baby. He didn't fuss at all, and was more than happy to let Sarah and I hold him. I won't lie, my heart melted into a little puddle, and that little niggly voice in the back of my head that sounds suspiciously like my mother said 'you can totally handle having one of your own you know'. Baby steps Leigh, baby steps.

Returned to the hotel room around 8 local time, and Sarah and I took a hot tub/swim break, which our bodies were very grateful for having been pretty smooshed most of the day. By the time I was finished writing last nights post and figuring out how to get the dratted thing to post online, I was practically falling asleep into the iPad. I hopped like the bunny I am into my jammies and was practically zonked by the time Dan arrived for a visit, but I was forgiven and we knew we'd catch up at breakfast anyway.

Which brings me to waking up at 5:30 a.m. Local time, cursing the fates and searching groggily in the hotel lobby for a cup of coffee. Which, having found, I have settled in to catch everyone up.

Today's plan? Sort out how to post pictures on this blog, figure out how to fix the formatting, check Facebook and email, and then kick the others out of bed for brunch with Dan, Roxy and baby Teagan. In a little bit I'm going to start looking at where we might land tonight and sorting out hotel arrangements, and then it's drive drive drive til we find a place to stop. More when we rest tonight, or tomorrow morning depending.