Day Two: In search of a Crystal Pitcher

Day two began a little late. We had our wake up call scheduled for 6:45 am, but I am not certain that I took that call... We rolled out of bed at about 8:00 am, packed our stuff, had some breakfast in the hotel lobby and hit the road, destined for the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum. We have been to a few other presidential museums (we will go to one more on this trip!): Eisenhower, Truman, Lincoln, etc., and I LOVE them. The Ford museum was no exception. It was not quite as impressive as the others, but then Ford was only president for like 10 minutes.

Outside of the library Bryan groped an astronaut. You'll have to ask him why.

Inside was an awesome replica of the oval office. It looked just like The West Wing - which I presume looks just like the real thing... I wanted to jump over the little gate they put up to keep you from getting carried away and touching things. It would have been so much fun to sit at the desk. It's not fair, George Bush gets to do it. So does Martin Sheen!

We were also able to stand at a teleprompter and read one of Gerald Ford's speeches. Truth be told, we did not read the speech. Instead we tried to center ourselves on the screen and the camera... We were not entirely successful.

The last part of the exhibit was a replica of the cabinet room. We took pictures sitting in the presidents chair. Bryan was especially getting in to it.

Downtown Grand Rapids was bigger than I imagined it would be.

For lunch we stopped at Schnitz Deli (thank you tripadvisor), and Bryan parked in a tree.

The further east we travelled the more impressive the fall colors. This picture is a little blurry, and dirty where our windshield was dirty, but captures the general look of the highway.

The highlight of "Day Two" was meeting up with Crystal and her mom for dinner in Port Huron, MI. Crystal was my first best friend and I had not seen her in twenty years. Port Huron was a very cute town with a lot of character. Too many McCain/Palin signs for my comfort, but nice anyway. I should mention that I had to change clothes and could not find a restaurant or hotel at which I could, so I went to the local hospital. When asked why I was there, I told the guard I was meeting someone at the gift shop (?), and made my way, outfit in tow, to the bathroom.

Here we are: Nancy, Crystal, me and Bryan.

I enjoyed seeing them very much - it was nice to talk about the past, but also interesting to see that even after all this time we still seem compatible. It is like I made a new friend, and who doesn't need good friends?

From dinner in Port Huron, we drove to Cambridge, Canada. It was pretty fun to cross the border. We declared the alcohol we had on board, inquired about toll roads, and entered the "hat."

Other than stopping at a gas station (where I again changed clothes, and lost one of my shoes, only to be found in the foyer of the station), we drove straight through to Cambridge, where I logged online to recap my day (for my three readers), and found a different Google!

So, I ended the night blogging, and Bryan ended the night eating cheese doodles in bed. Thank god for vacation.