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 Random Thoughts Of A Tired Old Man

Tonight I am going to stray from my memories of the distant past and talk about the present. A long time ago when Mary and I still did a fair amount of traveling we decided to never travel when the kids were out of school. At one time, in a fit of anger, I swore I would call every school district in the nation and if even one of them was out I would not travel that week. However I got an invitation to my 65th class reunion and feeling this would be the last one I decided to go. I also wanted to tie it in with a visit with my older brother who is in failing health and my daughter who lives close by the class reunion. Toward that end I made airline reservation from Columbia to Milwaukee and I made a reservation to rent a car there. Everything is set. I had the hotel rooms reserved, the car reserved and the airline tickets reserved. Then I made the mistake of watching the 6 o’clock news. I stopped watching the news as much as possible as it was mostly depressing but I caught a few episodes the week before the trip. What did I see every night? Pictures of the airline cancellations and the flight delayed board lit up like a pin ball machine. I had everything lined up on a tight schedule but one delay or cancellation would screwed up the whole trip so I canceled everything and decided to drive. Fair sized mistake. There was road construction everywhere and the trafffic was bumper to bumper. So far not so good. In the meantime I get a call from my brothers daughter and she tells me not to come to Minnesota. The assisted living place where my brother is staying is on lock down with Covid. 18 residents and 8 employees have come down with it. Then I get another call from a friend I was going to hook up with and he has Covid. Crap. The class reunion went well but I read the invitaiton wrong and showed up an hour late. I blame a poorly written and confusingly worded invitation. The visit with my daughter went well thank God or I would have been down in the dumps. I did take Mary down to Wisconsin Dells and we took a boat ride on the Ducks. That went very well and we both had a good time. Ok, now comes time to plan the trip home. I thought I would treat my wife to a Ferry ride across Lake Michigan on the SS Badger Ferry boat and then run upstate to Mackinaw Island. Crap, the ferry was booked up for the next week. Crap, that meant driving to Mackinaw City by car. I don’t know if It’s just me but my Map program is cursed. It took us on every county road in the eastern half of Wisconsin before we go to cross over into Michigan. At one the roads kept getting narrower and rougher until there was one stretch that turned into oiled gravel. I didn’t have an Atlas or a State map so I had no idea if we were even going in the right direction. Eventually we broke out of the wilderness and got onto the road that runs along Lake Michigan on the upper peninsula. That went fairly well. Until. About 10 miles from the Mackinac Bridge. The traffic ground to a complete halt. We sat there. And we sat there. And we sat there some more. 5 hours to go 10 miles. 5 hours. We were supposed to arrive around 3 and we made it finally right at 8 in the evening. Tomorrow we take the ferry over to Mackinaw Island. After that I’m almost afraid to plan the trip home. I have no ideas what else could go wrong.