Home sweet home!

Me and Laura

Our final two homeward bound legs were short. On Sunday we drove a little over three hours to get to my sister Laura’s house in North Aurora, Illinois.

The trip was uneventful, although we ran into a long stretch of construction on I-88 inside Illinois which cost us some time. The freeway in Illinois is a toll road and named after Ronald Reagan, who has a notorious anti-tax guy, probably wouldn’t appreciate having a toll road named after him.

The temperatures reached 50 degrees only briefly during the whole day.

We enjoyed a quiet afternoon with Laura and Philip in their beautiful home and Laura made me my favorite dinner – spaghetti.

Mileage out: 42402

Mileage in: 42606

Time out: 9:02 a.m.

Joan and Laura

Time in: 12:40 p.m.

Monday dawned early and we enjoyed a wonderful day of relaxed touring with my sister Laura who was kind enough to take the day off work to spend some time with us.

Joan has wanted to visit a store called Woodman’s, which is a huge grocery store near my sister. We bought a few things we knew we would need when we got home and crammed the stuff into the few spaces left in the truck.

Later we went to one of Joan’s favorite shopping spots in North Aurora  - a Costco. We wish we had one close to us here in Lapeer, but we usually make a visit with Laura anytime we are in town.

Laura also took us by an apartment complex that my father and stepmother are considering for a new home. It was a beautiful three-bedroom apartment in an apartment complex only a few blocks from where Laura and Philip live. It would also only be about a five-hour drive from here, which would give Joan and I more opportunity to visit with them.

We then shopped at Home Goods, which is a new store for us, but it had a lot of cool stuff.

Welcome to Indiana

In the afternoon we went and saw “My Name is Doris” with Sally Field. We enjoyed the movie, but I had trouble trying to decide whether it was a comedy or drama. Just when I laughed and believed I was watching a comedy, the story suddenly turned dark and ugly. Sally was pretty good in the role, however.

After the movie we headed to Stockholm Restaurant in downtown Batavia for dinner and then back home for a quiet night before our final leg home.

We were up early on Tuesday and out the door by 8 a.m. We caught a little traffic on I-88, but took Laura’s directions and quickly found ourselves away from traffic on I-355 south. In almost no time we were in Indiana and then in Michigan and then home.

It took a couple hours to unpack the car and then unpack the luggage in the house. We headed to dinner at The Lake Inn, which has been totally remodeled while we were gone. We spent our first night home quietly watching sports.

Our trip had us out of Michigan about 100 days. We traveled 8,928 miles and visited 13 states during the process. But there is truly no place like home.

Welcome to "Pure" Michigan

So, for now, Grandma's Recess goes dark until our next adventure. Thanks for following us.

Mileage out: 42461

Mileage in: 42795

Time out: 8:06 a.m. (CDT)

Time in: 2:30 p.m. (EDT)