Winter Trip: Homeward Bound

Tuesday (Happy Birthday, Jordan!) it was nice to be at a site with sewer hook-up because we could do everything needed to winterize right where we were. In fact, we were packed, cleaned, closed-up, and on the road well before 10:00.  It was another sunny day in the seventies and we made good time and good mileage with a tail wind. We stopped at a Rest Area and had lunch out of the leftovers in the cooler, and then stopped at a Cracker Barrel around Nashville, TN for dinner, and made it to Elizabethtown, KY to a Comfort Inn for the night, both remarking how different the drive north in the sun was from the drive south in the snow had been. We had a call from The Desk at 10:30 saying that there had been complaints about someone smoking weed in our hallway, where only 4 rooms were occupied, and they were going to involve the police if it continued. Tee-hee! Lucky it wasn’t us. J We had a good breakfast Wednesday morning and got to Indianapolis in time to buy Jordan a Mind Craft set to give him for his birthday, along with the promise to choose something online to go with it. Sarah and Analyn hadn’t returned from Preschool yet, so we took our stuff in the house and made our lunch from the cooler contents again. Despite some light drizzle we played outside when the boys got home from school. When Craig got home we gave Jordan his present and then we took everyone out for dinner downtown to celebrate. 

Jordan is such a dramatic guy!

What a joy to see that both boys are very good readers!

Big brother, Eli, "helps out".

Analyn, Jordan and Elijah check out the new Mine Craft set

Dessert was at an ice cream place across the street, where Elijah’s basketball team was having a season’s end party. The coach had taken Sports Illustrated covers of famous basketball players and superimposed the boys’ pictures on them and laminated them, which the kids found uproarious. As he handed them out he talked about each individual and what made him an asset to the team. It was a really nice gesture. 

Eli gets his picture and accolades

We left Thursday by 9:00 and met Ken, Jen, and Josh at the Bob Evans in Auburn for an early lunch. Marv pulled up to Mirabella’s Salon right at 2:30 to drop me off for my hair appointment and went home to begin unpacking and putting away. In East Lansing the temperatures were in the fifties and the crocuses and hellebores were in bloom. A warmer than usual Spring was predicted which will make our Coming Home easier.  It had been another nice Winter Trip and we were so grateful to be home safely. We drove 4112 miles and averaged 17.5 mpg. I biked 90.4 miles and Marv had done 8-10 more. Our experiment with staying in the same place for extended periods of time had worked well and we found it to be a quieter, less eventful trip than some we have had. 

A riot of crocuses

Hellebore poking through the leaves

Our next trip is two weeks in China in April. Come back to read all about it!