Road to Michigan

I had written this a while ago, but wasn't really planning to bore you with this post. But then at the rate at which my good friend A is charging me for ideas for blog posts, I decided to post it anyway... :)

So, here we go...

Thought I will share with you from our road trip to Troy, Michigan. Troy is 608 miles from home and took us 9 hours on the road. It had been a while since we went on our last road trip (NJ to Springfield OH) and so we were looking forward to it.

It was a pleasant morning; as usual journey started with a McDonald breakfast. Children had brought pillows and blankets to cushion up in their seats, ever since GPS came into practice my job as a navigator has been taken over, so it was very relaxing. However we missed looking at the large AAA maps as we used to, thinking children at this age would love it better.

We played I-Spy for some time. We spied on dancing leaves, singing birds on the telephone lines, a big letter R in a passing truck, American flags etc. When we got bored of that we started counting on animals and special things we saw on the way for which we would get "points" - a score we keep track of. The rule is that the finder should show it to at least one more person. We saw an owl, colorful ducks, swans, dead deer, grazing cows, horses and a beautiful vintage bridge.

All along we also made a list of cars from different States; at the end of the journey we had a representation of 32 States and 4 Canadian provinces!! We kept an account of each State Welcome board sign as we entered Pennsylvania, Ohio and finally Michigan. Children showed special interests in them and wanted to be awoke if they were sleeping.

We were amazed at the number of factories or manufacturing facilities in Detroit. We could see lots of smoke - some were dense - some were light - of different colors and shapes. Houses looked a little closer together compared to New Jersey homes but then it also depends on where we live. Snow seemed to have been heavier though. The roads were almost empty but friends were complaining and we were like "Come and see New Jersey roads".

The best part of the trip was when we visited our friends: Ramesh & family and my UG college friend Pratima and her family. It was hard to believe 18 years had slipped by! She looked the same sweet personality as she was when we had waved good bye in 1993.I was slightly an enlarged version with a different hair and look but mostly we clicked on and our husbands and children connected right away and it was as if they too were friends for long.

I must add, we decided to surprise a toll booth worker with a goody bag filled with chocolates, teddy bear and other knick knacks. She was overjoyed and much delighted with the surprise gift and it was such a blessing to us. It kind of put us all in to our Christmas Spirits all over again.

Overall it was a very enjoyable trip and very memorable too. Can’t wait for the next road trip to places unknown...