Michigan – The Details

If you read this blog regularly, you know about the house that will never sell. It is located between Detroit and Ann Arbor and due to an economy there that totally sucks, we are stuck with it. I decided that I might as well get some payback for the tens of thousands that we’ve sunk into it since DH has taken the job in Florida and pretend it is our vacation home. It really is lovely there, so much cooler and less humid than here in the Deep South.

Anyway, I decided to drive there in the big red stupid SUV in spite of the cost of gas so that I could pack some things up and bring them back. So off Monkey Boy, Mr. T and I went. I brought a spare child with me, Mr. T, to make my life easier. Those of you with only children can understand this logic.

The kids were real troopers during the entire drive. I had loaded the car with plenty of puzzle and activities books plus every hand-held electronic device a child could want. What did the kids like best? The page in one of the activity books that let you track the license plates that you saw! Can you believe we saw over 30 different ones before we even left Georgia!? As tribute to the mommy sanity saving license plate checklist, I have created a 'tag map' of our travel route:



We used Knoxville as a halfway point and stayed in a great Country Inn and Suites hotel there. The boys took control of the pool and all was well.

When we got to the house, it looked great, in spite of being locked up for several months. No critters had moved in and no major repairs were needed. Life is good.

The kids had their week pretty full. Check out this schedule:
Sunday – Lazer Tag and swimming at the community pool
Monday – Swimming, shopping, grilling dinner
Tuesday – Meeting a friend for coffee, swimming, Cars movie
Wednesday – Going to Jeepers (kind of like Chuckie Cheese, but with rides, too.), lunch at Rainforest Café, more time at Jeepers, camping out
Thursday – Glow golf, swimming and packing

You should have seen their ‘camp.’ We have a deck that is about 20 feet off the ground with no exterior steps, so nobody, including creatures can get up there. I got a great deal on a tent from Walmart and it fit on the deck perfectly!

Friday morning meant getting back in the car for the next couple of days. Again the boys were great. If you are wondering, by the end of the trip we had seen 43 different license plates including 2 from Canada!

We stayed in the same hotel going home that we had stayed in coming up. Crackers, the possum, loved it.