This will be my 20th trip between Florida and Detroit in nine years, starting with my initial drive south in June 1999 for the combination Karen & Emad renewal of vows celebration and "Florida Teach-In" mega job fair in St. Petersburg, and the 10th time the travel has taken place in my 1997 Toyota RAV-4. The odometer reads 177,186 as I leave my condo, with iPod connected to the stereo system and TomTom GPS unit programmed for the trip.
For the most part, the first day was uneventful. Oh, there was plenty of rain (What? Rain in Florida during June? Inconceivable!), but most of the ride was spent on I-95 and I-26. Destination: Columbia, South Carolina, where I have a dinner date with a former debate student, Brittany Cos, and her sister Paige. Brittany and I talked several times during the day to coordinate things, and ended up going to a really nice Japanese steakhouse resting in a row of shopping malls. Dinner was great, despite our waiter bringing Paige spicy hot chicken fingers instead of the requested not-too-spicy version. To his credit, he did remove it from the bill without being prodded. It was a great reunion; I hadn't seen Brittany since the FSU tournament in September of last year, or Paige - who is 13 now! - since March 2006. The Cos family moved an hour from Columbia after Brittany graduated, so we were literally next door to her new home.
After dinner, Brittany got to show off her new car (affectionally named "Nemo"). We said goodbye, with the Cos sisters heading home and me heading for a hotel. Did I mention I didn't book a room? Oh. Well, I didn't book a room. No biggie; it's a weekday in the middle of the Bible belt. I decide to follow the lead of my GPS unit and look for the first hotel on Stage 2, the trip from South Carolina to Springfield, Ohio.
My original idea was to head north on I-77, through the Carolinas and Virginias, then cut northwest to Springfield, home of the Grindrods. However, my TomTom had a different idea, which was to take I-26 west to I-75 and cut north through Tennessee and Kentucky. PROBLEM NUMBER 1: Much to my surprise, the first hour of this portion is amazingly void of hotels! I finally found a Comfort Inn in Clinton, SC. PROBLEM NUMBER 2: Despite billing itself as having wireless Internet, the only place this actually existed was in the hotel lobby, thus depriving me the opportunity to download my daily dose of spam e-mail. OK, maybe this wasn't as big a problem after all!
THURSDAY, JULY 17: My RAV-4 got to experience something rare - climbing up and down hills. I am always amazed by the mountain ranges that make up parts of this trip, like the Appalachians. The view is breathtaking. One of these times, I might even add a few days to this trip and pull off to the side of the Interstate (or, better yet, off the Interstate altogether) to take some photos. Not this time, though.
I'm excited to see Chris & Ketra Grindrod, whose new condo I will be staying at for two nights. The last time we got together was in August 2006, when I was driving home from my last Detroit visit, and we did lunch at a Buca di Beppo near Columbus, Ohio - a get-together commemorated by a photo of me with the Pope. I mean, a photo taken of me standing next to a photo of the Pope. Whatever, it was a cool time.
By afternoon, my eyes are starting to bother me, even though I'm wearing prescription sunglasses, and I have to stop more frequently than the previous day in order to take brief rests. The strategy pays off, and I arrive safe and sound in Springfield as dusk approaches. The Grindrod residence is a very nice two-story structure, with a spacious family/living room and a nicely-designed office for Chris to work on his radio productions. Along with his computer, he has a reel-to-reel deck, microphone, and other equipment vital to the job. After dinner, we put together some abstract pseudo-rap videos (which, God willing, will never find their way to YouTube!) and caught up on things.
FRIDAY, JULY 18: Bagels for breakfast! This was followed by a trip to the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Despite living half an hour away, this will be Chris and Ketra's first visit to WP; I vaguely remember touring the base some 30 years ago while in the Boy Scouts. What's really nice is that we will have our own personal tour guide in Ron, a former Air Force pilot who is friends with Ketra's family and is in town from Texas for the week. Ron's expertise in discussing everything from the Wright Brothers' initial flight to the history behind various MiG fighter jets was wonderful, and added depth to what was already a great visual experience. I took more than 60 photos during our tour.
After leaving WPAFB, we headed to dinner at a new restaurant called The Pub, an authentic British pub with nearly 30 brews on tap (none of which are Bud, Miller, Coors, etc.). One of the really neat things about The Pub is that they let you taste-test its brews; after reviewing the extensive list, I asked to test the Monty Python's Holy Grail Ale, which I subsequently ordered in a 16-ounce "Holy Grail" collector's mug! (And yes, that's the other reason I ordered said beverage.) For dinner, both Ketra and Chris went with a Shepherd's Pie, while I went with a more traditional Fish & Chips.
Following dinner, we stopped at Graeter's Ice Cream for some Buckeye Blast: Peanut Butter-Chocolate Ice Cream with Peanut Butter Cookie Dough and Chocolate Fudge Chunks. Wow! A brief stop at Best Buy, and we're back at Grindrod Central for the night. Chris downloaded songs to put together a hockey-theme music block, while I burned what seemed to be every George Winston song not previously in my collection onto my hard drive.
OK, it's getting late, and there's so much more to write. I'll pay catch-up on the weekend, and then some, tomorrow!
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