And then Detroit thrift stores

Monday, October 7th.

Monday morning we woke up all alone in the drive-in lot. We'd gone to bed in the middle of "Men in Black II" with cars all around us, and now we woke up to find the place entirely deserted.

We spent the morning doing the circuit of thrift stores around Dearborn and, aside from clothes, bought both a large suitcase, a few more cd's and a stack of old 45's. After some lunch on the way out of Detroit we got on I-94 and headed for Chicago.

We've been experimenting with the van's cruise control lately and continued those experiments on the way to Chicago. Going down the interstate with the car on cruise control made the driving delightingly easy. After we've started driving westward on longer stretches of road and have begun to use cruise control our gas mileage has also reached a whopping 11.5 miles/gallon! :) Which isn't very good by any standards but is better than the about 8 m/gl that we started out with...

We got off the interstate around New Buffalo on the border of Michigan and Indiana which, according to our map, is the area where the Eastern and Central time zones meet. We found no signs announcing this fact anywhere, but parked at the beach about where we thought the line was and took a few pictures anyway.

As we headed back towards the interstate we passed an area with strip malls and fast food restaurants and Jens said "this looks sort of like a place that would have a Goodwill Store". And sure enough, 50 feet down the road was a Goodwill thrift store! We're getting way too good at this :) So of course we stopped to check that out. And brought out shoes, shirts and hats and a few more 45's.

We then got back on the expressway and drove on up through Chicago and took in the view of the lit-up evening skyline. We continued on up through the city and got off the expressway in the suburb of Wilmette. Right off the exit we stopped for a bite to eat at the "Corner Bakery". The manager was just taking in the outdoor signs as we pulled up, preparing to close down for the day. But when he saw us he invited us in and told us to stay as long as we wanted. He was very friendly and polite and had our grilled sandwiches fixed up in no time. The food was great and the great service made it a really nice experience.

The territory was familiar to Dan. He stayed in Wilmette and went to high school there almost 5 years ago. We were there to visit the Martins, who were his host family for that year. The area being familiar we found there house with no problem and were reunited with them and introduced to them, respectively. They are great people and while Dan felt comfortably "at home" again, Jens felt equally comfortable as a "stranger".

And for the first time in quite a while we slept on actual beds that night. Aaahh... :)