Tuesday of last week we packed our bags and headed to Michigan.
Why Michigan? Rick grew up living five blocks from Lake Michigan. He lived near Michigan Beach, Michigan, near St. Joseph. His parents moved from there to Mississippi, but the rest of the family mostly stayed in that area. His mom was coming for a visit to see her brothers and nieces and nephews. We thought it would be a great time for me to meet his family.
I wasn’t nervous a bit. I have talked with Rick’s mom lots on the phone prior to this. We hit if off long ago.
Driving there was not the best. Well, it started out good. Our first pit stop was at this lovely wayside rest area.
Do you see what I see?? Quilt blocks!!
It was so fun inside and out.
Travel around Chicago was terrible. Our original time was supposed to be 6 1/2 hours to get there. GPS kept doing this to us…See the red line and the traffic 34 min? That means pretty much standstill traffic.
It would occasionally change to yellow with a time adjustment. In the end, the slow traffic added 30 minutes onto our trip. We knew for sure that we would go home a different way!! There were five lanes on each side of this…and this was a toll road!!
I laughed when I saw this semi. Two of my sons-in-laws, Craig and Jason and John Deere techs.
We finally made it through Illinois and headed into Indiana.
Traffic was still bad.
We weren’t in Indiana for long. We were headed to the lower east side of Lake Michigan. I learned from watching the news that the area is called Michiana- a combo of Michigan and Indiana.
We rolled in about 7:30 on Tuesday night. Happily, Rick’s mom and family had arrived about half an hour before we did. We snatched up Lois (Rick’s mom) and her husband Dickey and took them out to eat. We were so happy to get out of the car and start our vacation.
I’ll tell you more in another blog post.
Not the best start to your vacation. One has to time the trip around Chicago just right which is hard to do!! When I lived in Rochester, Minnesota, we travelled to Michigan often so had many trips through the Chicago area. I’m anxious to hear what route you used to go home.
That’s a nasty stretch of highway and always busy! So glad you were able to get away! Where was that lovely roadside pit stop?
In Iowa on 80.
I know that rest stop! How fun. So glad you made it safely. Enjoy.
Oh Jo you were so close to me! I live 12 miles from St. Joseph!
Where you visited is a lovely part of the lakeshore area and hope you had a great time while you were in my state!
Oh Patty. Sorry I missed you!!
✂️ The quilt blocks at the rest area are neat-o! Super cool!
That’s alot of traffic – whoa! Five lanes of vehicles on each side of you is – wow! – thats way too many vehicles & persons for
me. I’d be contemplating hiding.
Can’t wait to find out more about ur trip. So great you two taking a trip!
Like i commented earlier on another of ur posts – I’m super glad i found your blog once again (in amongst my gmails).
Life here’s been off kilter for way too long (definitely since Hurricane Helene hit here in WesternNC on Sept 26, 2024, turning our lives & community’s upside-down).
i’m embarrassed at how long it’d been since i’d opened any gmails ~ no quilty ones, no craft ones, nothing but “bill payment needed right now” ones.
God has His ways though of guiding us to where we need to be ~•~ The other day, i HAD to delete gmails or not get anymore, so I got with it. And like I said, your gmail blog posts just kept standing out to me ~ a lot.
i’d always enjoyed ur posts because you post about your life, family, quilts, cooking, crafting, propagating violets. You always do such interesting things!
Thank you for writing your blog. Thank you for sharing your life, your talents, your flowers/gardening and everything else.
i also realized how much i’d missed ur blog Readers & their comments. Its nice to find out that we’re not alone & that we have much in common with some super amazing folks!
Thank you for your kind words. It’s much appreciated. I’m glad you’re back.
Did you ever post on how your garage sale went?
Last time we were through that stretch, it was about 90 minutes of stop and go traffic after dark in the rain. We have traveled through that area for over 25 years and it’s always bad and they are always working on it. Sadly, there is not another interstate heading east until the middle of Illinois. But it’s not a bad trip outside of that area.
The best time to drive through Chicago is at 5 AM in the morning. That is city is crazy! Glad you made it safely though. Greetings from Michiana!
We live in west Michigan near the “Big Lake,” but north of where you visited. Thirty-three years ago, our oldest child headed off to college west of Chicago. We have been driving that route multiple times a year ever since since she married and settled there, too. Construction is actually much less/better now than it was back in the 90’s. But you still just never know what is going to slow you down. As someone else said, it is difficult to time a trip to avoid traffic unless you are driving in the middle of the night, but you really DON’T want to be around Chicago between 3-6 pm. I can count on one hand the number of times we have actually made the trip in the three hours it is “supposed” to take. So glad you enjoyed our state once you finally got here! Can’t wait to hear more about your trip. ~ Suzanne