A Long Strange Trip

I was going to blog while on the road but I ended up being without internet access from the time I left Wednesday morning until I got back Saturday morning. For future reference, when asking a hotel if they have internet access be specific about high-speed or wireless access. After I got settled in my room I called the front desk and asked about the internet, to which they replied "There's a phone jack in the room." And since I haven't used dial-up or any sort of ISP for almost 5 years now, I had no way to use ye olde internet while in North Carolina. So, I'm just going to change the posting day for this blog back to last Thursday, just to break things up a bit.

The trip down to North Carolina was easy, which unfortunately meant that everything went wrong on the trip home. I drove down to Chicago on Tuesday because it was like $150 cheaper to fly out of O'Hare than out of GR. I stayed with The Captain since he was gracious enough to drive me to the airport the next morning, and we came to the realization that the suburbs of Chicago were a Bizarro form of Holland. In Holland we vowed to never again go to the IHOP for fear of being stabbed (or at least made to feel disgusted of humanity) by one of the patrons there. So while in Holland, Denny's is the only viable option for late night coffee. There is no Denny's in The Captain's particular neck of the woods, but there are two in different directions on the highway. We finally decided after a history of bad service and creepy clientele that the closer Denny's is now dead to us, but there's an IHOP in town that has yet to scare us.

Anyway... got to O'Hare Wednesday morning with no difficulty because we were leaving before traffic. Once at the airport I made it through security and to my terminal in about 10 minutes, no hassle. So, I had plenty of time to start my column for The Newsletter and play Gameboy. The plane boarded and departed more or less on time, and I had plenty of time to leisurely make my connecting flight in Cincinnati.

I arrived in North Carolina without incident, and made my way to the Enterprise rental counter. I got a free upgrade (who doesn't?) from a Kia Rio to a Pontiac Sunfire. While that's not really that exciting, I was really pleased by the fact that they did not charge me the additional $40 fee for not being 25 years old.

And so, behind the wheel of my Pontiac Sunfire (I still hate Pontiacs), I made my way towards my hotel. Driving through North Carolina I actually forgot once or twice that I wasn't in Michigan. Aside from the addition of a few Waffle Houses and the lack of meager, the scenery looked like it could be any city in Michigan.

I spent most of Wednesday afternoon and into the evening just driving around, getting a feel for the area. Traffic does not exist down there. I was on the highway at 5:30, and it was nothing. In my travels I found all the staples of fast food, a new Target and Best Buy that were opening at the end of the month, and almost all of the other hallmarks of civilization. Unfortunately I had grown accustomed to the drought in Michigan, and was completely unprepared for the torrential downpour that came Wednesday night. I'm far enough inland that I won't ever be directly affected by hurricanes, but I sure caught one hell of a thunderstorm.