Introduction - 2013 Vacation Up North

(written by J)

Welcome to the summary of our 2013 vacation.  Last year, we went into SEC country and Texas where temperatures soared into the high nineties.  This year, we went in the opposite direction to Big Ten (or is it Big Eleven or Big Twelve) country - Michigan and Ohio.  Our stops this year were Detroit (1 night), Mackinaw City (3 nights), Sandusky/Cedar Point (1 night), Cleveland (2 nights), and Cincinnati (2 nights).  I know, I know, you are all asking Detroit?  You are vacationing in Detroit?  You realize it's the largest bankrupt American city, right?  It's all about thinking outside the box.  Why battle all the beach traffic heading south on a Saturday when you can drive free and easy 600 plus miles to Detroit?  Just look at all of this wide open highway.

 

 

Oops, we were making good time until we got to Toledo, Ohio.  This was the best hour spent all day in the exact same spot on I-75 where you could step outside of the car, get some fresh air, stand on rumble strips, have a frantic child desperately needing to go to the bathroom ... good times.  Some knucklehead overturned a car a mile up from where I was standing and they closed the interstate while police, fire, and rescue cleaned up the mess.  Once we finally got moving again around 6PM, we were still an hour plus from the Motor City and everyone was hungry.  So we stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel in Monroe, Michigan.  It was a strange meal to say the least.  First, the waitress brought everyone drinks except H.  Eventually, she received her drink.  Then, the waitress brought everyone their meals except H again.  What did the waitress have against my wife?  Eventually, she brought her a salad, not the one she ordered, but it was edible and H didn't want to complain.  Finally, we were all finished and then the waitress comes over to H holding a big salad (like Seinfeld) saying, "I'm sorry but I brought you the wrong salad.  Here's the right one."  H was dumbfounded.  She said that she couldn't eat it but the waitress insisted that we take it.  We said no because we were traveling and that we had nowhere to keep it.  Reluctantly, the waitress left taking the big salad with her.  We then headed back on the road arriving at our hotel in the Detroit suburbs at 9 PM when it was still kind of light out.  The next post will describe the Michigan portion of our vacation in detail.