So, a week later and I finally write about it.

Saturday, as you should already know, I had off work to go with my mom to the funeral home for paperwork. Having the rest of the day free and needing something to keep my mind off recent events, I had told Jenn to be ready to go away at 10:30, and bring a bathing suit and towel.

We ran a little late, but did leave around 11:30 to a destination Jenn had no idea about. We headed off first down US-10 to Clare, where we stopped into Jay’s for a look around. Lot’s of camping stuff to wish for and inflatable boats to think long and hard for, but I ended up with a pocket chain saw and a rawhide cows head for the dogs (this thing was like 18″ diameter hunk of rawhide, with ears and everything). We then wandered next door to General Jim’s as I had never been there. Lots of cool things in there, military surplus and military pride and all that. They even had a 15 person life raft in the plastic case, like they throw off ships and auto-inflate.

Next we got back on 10 and for a few minutes I was excited that they redid 10 into divided 4 lane but that was quickly dissolved when we reached the freeway end and went down to a 2 lane road. After a while we came across a rummage sale and decided to look around. Among old dishes and clothing, there was a box of X rated tapes that were clearly recorded. We wondered if they were recorded from TV, copied form rentals, or home movies, but regardless purchased nothing. Further along the road we reached Reed City and turned south. We passed the Yoplait yogurt plant and headed down to Big Rapids.

Holy crap is Ferris big was the first impression. We stopped to look around the Alltel store for Jenn’s mom and I found a Big Rapids phone book to bring home. Next up we drove around the downtown area to look for somewhere to eat, but settled on Qdoba. We really didn’t want to eat at a chain restaurant, but at least this was a chain we had never eaten at. We really had wanted to eat in Paris, but the only restaurant was Pizza in Paris, and that wasn’t what we felt like. Anyway, Qdoba turned out to be very good, and now full we decided to drive around Ferris’s campus to see what we could. We never even got out of the car, a real campus tour will be come fall, but at least we got to see stuff. Following that, we headed toward the freeway, and down to Grand Rapids. On the way we saw a really bad accident, a trail blazer about 100ft off the freeway upside down. Sadly the paramedics didn’t look to be in much of a hurry.

GR is a big city, and our first stop in the big city was the museum. Very much on accident actually, we just saw it and were like wow, lets go. It turned out to be 4:40 though, and they were going to close at 5, so didn’t go in. Next we looked for the hospital, as Jenn would be working there. We found what we thought might be it, but kind of thought no, so kept looking and driving around, then gave up and went to find the mall. This took like an hour since we had no idea where it was. We went through some rather ghetto areas, but nothing bad, and got to see quite a bit of the city. Finally, we decided oh well and started heading for home when we decided to try 1 more exit, and after a ways we found the mall. Jenn went into DEB for a shirt, and when she came out I went looking for the Apple Store, but found it no where. I did find a shoe store with some nice shoes I would be dragged away from. I called my mom, and asked her to look up where the GR Apple Store was, and it turned out we were in the Kentwood Mall, and needed to be in the Woodland Mall, ACROSS THE STREET! We had come so very close. So, we headed out and across the street to the MUCH bigger mall. We had thought Kentwood was rather empty and blah for the mall of GR. So, we went straight to the Apple Store, having already walked around 1 mall that day, and went to drool at the MacBooks. Jenn decided they are too small, but I do like them. The graphics chip does scare me a little though.

Finally we decided to head for home, this time on I-96 to Lansing, the I-69 to Flint, and I-75 home. Just onto 69 we stopped in Perry to get something to drink at the Burger King. When we returned to the car, it wouldn’t start. I called my brother and Jenn called GM and nothing really amounted from it. GM was of the opinion it seemed that the car was there only concern, and what we did from now till Monday when it could be fixed (this was Saturday night remember) was our problem. Jenn got upset, and eventually GM sent a wrecker form Birch Run (to us, near Lansing) with an estimate of 90 minutes. I finally decided to give what my brother had suggested a try, since Jenn was not very focused at this point, and low and behold it worked. I got the engine started and as I understood it, it would be fine so long as we didn’t shut it off. This meant no White Castle, sadly, but oh well. We headed home and dropped Jenn’s car off at Dunlop to await repair on Monday. We tried starting it again, and it started right up fine, but decided not to risk it. We ended the night with Texan breakfast buffet with my mom (we went to Euclid, center used to be much better one, was left very disappointed).

So that was Saturday. I did see the Pere Marquette in Clare, and the intersection of Pere Marquette and White Pine in Reed City. As was suggested to me by Jenn, Big Rapids is still really far but much more logical goal the Mackinac, at least for now. That’s not to say I am canceling Mackinac or anything, just considering alternative near-term options.

Yeah, that’s about it.

Ohhhhh!!!
My mom fixed the iMac, she got a PowerBook. 1.67GHz, 15″ PowerBook G4, 80GB HD, 512MB RAM, and a SuperDrive. It’s the last PowerBook model made, and was a refurbished model too, and is now a “previous generation” which all add up to a hefty discount.

OK, see you later, hopefully a little sooner though.

nick