The Adventure Ends

We are home safely after visiting western Michigan and Battle Creek yesterday. After checking out of the hotel yesterday, we visited downtown New Buffalo, and Y and I fell in love. We immediately called E and told him that we would like a house on the beach here one day. I know - keep dreaming. It was really beautiful and peaceful.

Next we headed to St. Joseph. I had heard that there was good shopping there, and I thought we might find a good beach to walk along. There was a stunning view of lake Michigan from a deck at the entrance of the city. Down below was a rocky cliff. From what we could tell driving around, that's the extent of lake Michigan in St. Joseph - nice views from rocky cliffs. We went into town and found a post office from which to mail the new "Judy Moody" book that we found for B in Chicago, and the lady in the gas station gave us really bad directions back to the highway, so we ended up going 1/2 hour out of our way along the lake. At least it was beautiful.

During this detour it started pouring rain, and that became the norm for the rest of our trip home.

We finally did find our way back on to the highway, and headed to Battle Creek. Y loved Cereal City. I was not as impressed, but the point was for him to have a good time, so it was worth it. I felt that the whole place was built as an attempt to prostylize the SDA faith and discredit the legitimacy of the original post legacy, but a kid doesn't get that out of it. They just see free cereal, Fruit Loop necklaces and Lego figures of Tony the Tiger and Snap, Crackle and Pop.


The rest of our trip was spent making our way back to Detroit, in the rain and rush hour (yuck!)

When we finally got home, we were greeted by M, who was jumping up and down and Squealing "mommy!" I guess she missed me. That's a great feeling.

Today we are relaxing and unpacking and otherwise readjusting.

Jenn

J & Y's Adventure -- More Great Stuff

We got a great night sleep last night. The beds and linens in this place were extremely comfortable. I don't get such a great sleep at home. The continental breakfast was really good too. The waitress didn't look like someone who would know what kashrut is, but when I asked her to see the package from the bagels, she brought out the packages from various things on the buffet and started pointing out the symbols to me. How cool was that? We could eat a lot of the stuff there. It's strange that the hotel guy in Skokie, Illinois (where there are a ton of Jews) didn't know about kashrut, but the hotel lady in New Buffalo, Michigan did!

I am thinking of moving in here. There's comfy beds, cable, a large, clean bathroom, Kosher food that's served and cleaned up by someone other than me or E.... Yeah - I would get sick of it fast.

Today we are doing Western and central Michigan.

I'll post again when we get back to Detroit.

Jenn

How to help Israel

My friend Jere in Israel sent me this great link this morning, and I thought I would share it with you. It lists various ways we can help those who are really suffering in Israel right now, and it looks like they are updating it regularly.

Jenn

J & Y's Excellent Adventure -- Part II

The post I tried to publish this morning mysteriously disappeared, so I am going to have to recap the entire day here...

Y got a great night sleep last night. Me -- not so great. I had trouble adjusting the air conditioning, and the beds were not terribly comfortable. As karma would have it, a truck of new mattresses pulled up as I was pulling out of the hotel. Oh well. I guess the fact that I showed up 45 minutes after a blackout yesterday evens that score a little.

We ate whatever we could at the hotel's continental breakfast, and then went across the street to the kosher bagel place to get food for the day and tonight's trip. The breakfast in the bagel place smelled SO good, but we were stuffed to the gills with all the Corn Flakes and bananas that we could eat, so we didn't eat there.

Then we headed downtown on the subway, and saw some really diverse architecture along the route.

Our first stop was Navy Pier and The Chicago children's' Museum. The museum was really great, but Y is almost too old for it (That didn't stop him from having a grate time though). Also, when we were in the gift shop the clerk came over to us with one of those loud snappy, boomy thingies and did it behind Y. He was SO frightened, and the lady knew it because she even chuckled and said "oh did that scare him." She then continued to laugh and snapped it again, so we went running out of the store, and she lost a sale. Tough luck. (I also left a complaint letter in the suggestion box). I mean how can a children's museum have employees who think it's funny to scare children?

After some directions from the homeless guy selling post cards, we took the free trolley over to state street, and did a little shopping. Then we hopped back on the trolley and went over to the Sear's tower. (Along the way we were seeing a lot of the city's sights from the trolley window). I was a little apprehensive about the sky deck since, if you believe what you hear on the news at least, every terrorist in the world has his eyes on that building, but we went up anyway. I felt a little gyped when, after they took my money, they told me that we had to sit through a "short" movie about the building before going up. Uggh - what a waste of our time.

I had worried that the view from the top would scare Y, but he loved it. He couldn't believe how small the baseball stadium and all of the other skyscrapers looked from up there.

Then we took the trolley back to Michigan Ave. for more shopping and a wild goose chase looking for Disney Quest. The hotel had given us a map of Chicago with an advertisement for this place, and the first trolley driver of the day had told us where to find it. We walked essentially in circles (and the heat index in the city was near 100 today), for an hour. Finally we stopped at Starbucks for chocolate milks, and a customer who overheard our conversation with the barista told us that they closed down 3 years ago. Man, were we mad!

We were both tiring out at that point, so we went back to the subway, and headed up to Skokie again. We went to a really great mall there, and Y got his first big boy watch (a Swatch). I shlepped him all the way down to Bloomingdales to get M a "bloomies" shirt, only to find out they don't have them in her size. Then we ate a delicious dinner at DiNali's and picked up some nosh at Hungarian, and hit the road.

Tonight we are staying at a very comfortable Holiday Inn in New Buffalo Michigan.

I will post more tomorrow.

Jenn

J & Y's Excellent Adventure

Just checking in from the road (gotta' love hotels with wireless internet access!)

I saw B off to camp on the bus this morning. He's SO big now. WOW! For me it was the first day of preschool all over again. I dropped him off, thinking that he was going to chicken out, or have separation anxiety, breakdown bawling crying "don't leave me mommy", something. Instead he happily got on the bus, picked his seat, and waved to us as the bus drove away with a big smile on his face (very much like the first day of preschool). This always leaves me crying inside. I know that it means that he's well adjusted and independant, but a mommy wants to feel missed. We need that crying to help us break loose. Oh well. Hopfully he's still happy now that he's there.

A couple hours later, Y and I left on our road trip to Chicago. It took us about 5 1/2 hours to get to Skokie, but the last 45 minutes were really the detour we took to avoid the construction an the Dan Ryan. (I've been told by at least two people already that it would have taken me longer to go straight).

We got to the hotel at 5:30 Chicago time (Y thinks it's very cool that he gets an extra hour of Cartoon Network here). We had dinner at Ken's (YUM!) with my great aunt, which was so fun. Now we are - you guessed it - watching the Cartoon Network.

Tomorrow we will do Chicago, go out to eat again, and then head to western Michigan for the next leg of our trip. I will try to post again tomorrow.

Jenn