On the Road 11/2/09

Wow!  10 hours on the road.  Ted drove the whole way (he thinks I go too slow).  I slept a lot (didn’t sleep well last night, and up very early).  Ted is an excellent driver, and I love riding with him.  He is a speed demon, but he is a CAREFUL speed demon. 

Maddie has been in my lap the entire trip because she refuses to share the back of the truck with Bear – which is fine with Bear.  Gives him more room to stretch out.  They have both been excellent travelers.  We stop about every four hours to walk around in a rest area and get the cramps out of all 12 of our legs.

We are in Richmond, KY for the night.  There is a Holiday Inn Express here that is pet-friendly and VERY, VERY nice.  You would never know there has been a dog in our room, and the rooms are beautiful, spacious, and CLEAN!  I highly recommend it to travelers with pets!  They charge $25 per pet (he gave us a really good deal on the room itself, so that helped), but it is worth it to be somewhere clean.

Here’s some pics from this morning:

Our taxi arrived at 9:20 a.m. (Alyssa was our driver – her last day is Nov. 4, then she’s off to the U.P. for the winter).  Ted and another passenger who was leaving for the season piled all our stuff on board.  There was QUITE a lot of stuff!

Bear got a little corner of one seat, with some of our things beside him. That's Maddie's fleece covered bed on top of the red suitcase.

Everything in the front half of this cart is ours. There were quite a few people leaving the island today for the winter. Lots and lots of luggage.

At least we left OUR sofa in the condo!

The island from the ferry window.

All ferries go to St. Ignace now. We packed our car and headed for the Mackinac Bridge. Today was the only day of the year you could cross without paying the toll. I don't think they did that just for us though (smile).

Mackinac Island from the Mackinac Bridge.

The sky was beautiful this morning, and the water was calm.

Coming off the bridge into Mackinaw City and the Lower Peninsula. As we approached Mac City, Ted said, "I wonder if we can see Chris Ann's house from here?"

So I took this photo. Chris Ann, I have no idea if any of these houses is yours, but we thought "maybe!"

I forgot to tell you that when we got to the truck, we found a note in a zip-lock bag under the windshield wiper.  When Jill had left the island Wednesday, she had found our truck in the parking lot and left us a “safe travels” message.  I remember her asking what we drove – that should have been a clue.

We plan to leave in the morning around 9 a.m., but we really have no set schedule.  We are over half-way home.  Will try to post something tomorrow just so you will know we made it safely.

Love to you all, and God bless.