In the midst of the Midwest

It was just a week ago that we left Dick and Dorothy's house in Douglas, MA, south of Worcester, and pointed our car west toward New York, Canada and our eventual goal, Western Michigan.

The weather was just fine as we zipped along through the Berkshires, on into New York State and down the Thruway to Amherst, New York, a suburb of Buffalo where we spent the night. While watching the Weather Channel (motto: "Our world is one disaster after another!") that evening we learned that a serious snow storm had slid in behind us and hammered a bit at the Albany area and much of the upstate New York and beyond.

The weather soured overnight in Buffalo and we awoke to rainy, overcast skies but with warm temps. After checking out of the Comfort Inn (motto: "we're clean, cheap and not too picky about who stays here") we crossed into Canada. The weather cleared a bit by the time we got to the US border at Sarnia where we waited probably a half hour to get through into the land of the semi-free. I just love the border police questions, don't you? My personal favorite is "Why are you coming here?" Like a terrorist would pipe up and say, "Oh me? I want to blow something up!"

But this was the first time the GWAG ("guy with a gun") tried a trick question: "Where are you coming back from?" "Massachusetts." "Why?" "Because we live there." I mean our car has Mass plates. As we puttered off into the heart of DumberHummer country (DumbHum for short) we couldn't help but remark to each other how safe we felt. God knows we don't any psychotic Canadians crossing into the US to kill Americans. No, tragically we seem all too capable of doing that ourselves.

The weather remained tranquil all the way past Flint, Lansing and on into Western Michigan. Traffic was light, the roads in pretty rough shape in spots, lots of orange cones and of course the warning everywhere that if you kill or injure a highway worker you can get fined $7500 and up to 15 years in jail. Yep, it's the midwest all right.

By the time we got to Grand Rapids the storm that had hit the city day before had moved on. We scooted into town with no difficulty and pulled into the driver at Susan's mom's condo, home for the next couple of weeks or so as we tried to collect ourselves. Again we counted ourselves fortunate indeed.