Well, we’re in Madison. It feels like early morning, but in reality it’s early afternoon. We had a 6:00 start to our day yesterday, and didn’t get to bed until 2:00 last night, so we’re both kind of wiped.

Tire issues really threw yesterday off. We didn’t get out of Detroit until after 11:00, more than a couple of hours after we hoped to be on the road. The stop at the Firestone was necessary, though: The bolt they pulled out of the tire was over an inch long and had made the tire unrepairable. We would’ve had problems had we taken the car on the Interstate. Good thing I didn’t try pulling it out the night before, I guess.  (For what it’s worth, I found a tire place more than 12 miles closer than the place the concierge pointed us to.  She needs to put down that contact book of hers and open up an Internet connection.)
Anyway, we got in really late last night, so we’re visiting Lisa’s folks today. This means I won’t have time to visit my relatives down here, but hopefully we should be able to get back down to Madison in the next month or so.

It was good to meet Lisa’s relatives in Indiana. They’re a nice group of folks. Her grandmother is a spry little woman, although one who’s unfortunately not completely aware of everything going on around her. While over Lisa’s uncle’s place, “Jaws” was playing on the TV. Just as the scene where Quint gets violently ripped about and then eaten came to an end, her grandmother turned to the group and asked “have any of you ever gone fishing on Lake Michigan? It’s a lot of fun.” It sounds like those taking care of her hear such statements a lot, and I have to respect the infinite amounts of patience they must possess to be able to handle that.

Beyond that, not much. We stopped in Ann Arbor on the way out of Michigan so Lisa could see Michigan Stadium and the University of Michigan campus. The stadium was closed to visitors due to construction (usually it’s open on non-gamedays so people can wander in and look), but at least she got to see the campus. On the way out of town we stopped at a grocery store so I could buy some Faygo soda for coworkers. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes over.

Well, the family is slowly starting to congregate downstairs, so I guess I should wrap it up. The next entry will likely be back home in Minneapolis, unless the car breaks down along the way. (More on that potential issue later.)