This Road I'm On

Gray and a bit cold, but absolutely no precipitation in view (or hiding on the road). I'm very happy to say that we are off to Detroit...with no bad weather! When you prepare for the worst, you are pleasantly surprised when things turn out fine :) With a trip full of uncertainty, I'm thankful that bad weather isn't a part of the journey.

In preparing for this 12-hour voyage, Jack packed his bags 3 days ago, stuffed full of Lego's, army guys, books, drawing paper, stuffed animals, a 1-inch packet of homework, and snacks of course...4 Reese's bars, 3 packs of gum, and who knows what else. I happened to find in the bottom of the suitcase...a bag of miniature marshmallows! (just in case?)

I'm sure a few people think we are wacky, but we opted to rent a car. We couldn't swing the Hummer, but did manage the sweet Cadillac crossover....thanks to the sweet agent guy at Budget. After hearing the purpose of our trip, our rental transformed from "yeah, I don't know what kind of car we'll have for you" to "oh yes, I see here that you'll be in the Cadillac...nice. It always helps to inquire and tell people what you want :) Seriously, not like we were renting just to drive around KC, traveling 1400 miles necessitates comfort and safety! And, crazy to trust the trip to our 10-12 year old, 200K mile vehicles, when you can have a 2010 with no issues for the price of a few dinners out.

After picking up the rental, Jack is officially on his way to find out why he can't see and to possibly have retina surgery.

Just like a kid, after a couple of hours outside of KC, Jason got bored and began messing around with all of the buttons and dials on the dash..."Hmm, what's this?" he says. Beep...and a silky, female voice says, "OnStar at your service." Me.."That's the OnStar button!" Him.."oh, what's this red one?" as he pushes it. The smooth voice again, "Connecting to OnStar Emergency." What!? Geez, he dialed 911. "This is OnStar, what's your emergency?" Gosh, what do you say? I was having flashbacks. Um sorry, we don't really have an emergency...unless you count that the 7 year-old has to use the restroom and we are in the middle of Missouri nowhere. We frantically pushed every button nearby, but couldn't figure out how to hang up. We apologized to the woman in the ceiling, explaining our rental situation! That kept us busy for the next hundred miles, deciding what types of emergencies that one could announce in their car....and also discussed how long it would take our kids to push that button if it were in the driveway longer than a few minutes ;) So far it took the Dad one hour to find it :)