Minnesota Road Trip 2024

We left Ashland Ohio about 7:30AM and headed east. The drive was pretty uneventful with the exception of a stone hitting our windshield on I90. Oh well we almost made it without and issues.  The weather for this trip was cold, cold, cold. It typically was in the single digits most of the time. The Lincoln Corsair is rated for 33mpg highway, I averaged 25mpg, pretty bad.  I correlated this with the Corsair computer, it is close but the Corsair is a bit optimistic. The gas mileage is disappointing, especially given the fuel tank is only 11 gallons, it really limits the range of the vehicle in cold temps. 

 Sunday Rich again made us a nice breakfast. Of course Rich put on another movie that I will now have to watch when I get home because we started it.... Father of the Year.  After breakfast we took a reluctant picture of Rich, Kris and Jule.  I played the creeper and snapped a shot of their house as we left. They have very nice home.  We got off I90/I80 just south of Chicago and took RT30 to meet up with friends we met in Germany. Nate and Lisa Purdy are part of the fab4 from our Germany trip and live in Mansfield, Ohio.  I could not help but notice all the wind farms as we entered Ohio, they went on for miles and miles.  Of course, since it was the NFL playoffs, I did get June to drive while I watched football. The Lions pulled out a win against the Bucks, I was pulling for the Lions.  We met the Purdys at their house and then went to dinner at the Brown Derby Roadhouse. We had a nice dinner and reminisced about our Germany trip, they are a very nice ...

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel.  We really did not want to go out to eat because again it is very cold.  We checked with Tom but they were going to have a busy morning, they are still hopeful Lori will be discharged on Sunday.  So we left with brother Rich's house as the next stop, it is about a 6 hour drive from St. Paul.  Kris and Mike sent us a picture of them on the plane...headed for Jamaica! We reciprocated with a picture of us driving..not nearly as cool. The drive was uneventful and parts of it were even in the double digits. I got June to drive and watched the first half of the Texans/Jaguars game in the car. It did was not coming in great so we were trying to get to Rich's by half time.  We arrived at Rich's around 5PM and were happy to see that Jule and Mike P. were both at the house. Jule is working full time and finishing her school, she takes the boards in April. I am sure she will pass and will be a fully licensed Physical Therapis...

 Friday morning we were treated to a nice breakfast and left for the big city around 10:30AM, there were no degrees, it was cold.  We said our good byes to Aunt Carol and Uncle Earle, they are so fun to visit.  We arrived at the University of Minnesota Medical center around 12N. It is a massive complex and navigation is a bit confusing but we managed to find a parking garage and get directions to the hospital. It was a brisk few blocks to walk, but we found or way to Lori's room about 12:30PM. Lori was up and in strong spirits. We had lunch together and even took a walk around the hospital wing. We had a really nice 3 hour visit. It was not the visit we had planned for but we were grateful to see her in such good spirits and looking forward to this spring in Vermont.  We had made tentative plans to link up with my cousin, Kris, and her husband, Mike, at the Minneapolis Boat show being held at the conversion center.  It was only a bout 5 miles (20 mins) to the co...

 Thursday was a lazy day, we just hung out with Aunt Carol and Uncle Earle. It was 4F outside and expect to top out at about 6F, so no one was inclined to get out and about.  It was great to catch up and just take it slow for a day.  We were not entirely lazy, uncle Earle and I went to the post office, moved their old freezer from the mudroom to the garage, and replaced a few smoke detectors.  We spent a fair amount of time talking about our travels, since they are a pretty well traveled couple and have been more places than we will likely every see.  When we talked about the Black Forest region of Germany, Cuckoo clocks came up and of course they had one they brought back. I just had to wind it and get it going again. Uncle Earle was not in the room when I did this and it hangs on the wall behind his chair. He was sitting in his chair when that clock hit the hour and the look on his face was priceless. I guess he did not rewind it for a reason :-).  It is ...

We had  a change of plans. It turns out that Wednesday was not a good day to visit our friends, so we flexed our plans to visit Aunt Carol and Uncle Earle. They live a couple of hours north of Minneapolis so it was a bit farther of a drive, but not that much, about 8 hours from Rich's.  Before we left Rich's he made us a hardy breakfast and we watched the movie 'Here comes the Boom' with Kevin James and Henry Winkler. It is an entertaining, feel good movie, it is worth the watch. The drive was pretty uneventful, we only had one traffic issue and it was just a slow down around the city of Minneapolis.   We arrived at Aunt Carol and Uncle Earle's about 7PM. It was great to see them again. We last saw them in the fall of 2019 when they visited the family when Dad was still alive. They are both doing well, Uncle Earle looks great and Aunt Carol has made a good recovery from her stroke over a year ago.  Of course Uncle Earle had a brandy waiting for us and they serve...

 We got up and exited the hotel about 7AM. Much to our surprise it was snowing with a few inches on the ground and it was 10F. We found our way to a Micky's close by and got a quick bite before hitting I90W. The roads were very slippery and we saw a few cars off the road and an 18 wheeler laying on its side.  Other than slowing us down a bit, it was no big deal, we drove out if it in about 100 miles.  As we made our way west the temperature continued to drop. It bottomed at 0F.  When we got within a few miles of Rich's house we looked for a car wash, the car was a block of ice and the adaptive cruise has shut down due to covered cameras. We pulled into a Quickie's and paid $15 for a car wash. When we pulled in it soaped us down and then said proceed to the exit.  That was nice, now the car was coated in frozen soap. The guy in the store gave me back my $15 and we went down the road and found another car wash. It did the job, and the sensors in the car were happy...

Today we got off about 8:15, almost on schedule. We planned to drive until we were tired and find an hotel. Our first stop will be at brother Rich's which is about 900 miles, we could do it in one shot but there is no reason to push it, especially at our age!   We took Route 8 through the ADKs, it was surprising how inconsistent the snow coverage is, and we only saw a few snowmobiles.  Of course we hit snow squalls around Buffalo, but quickly drove out of them.  One issue with traveling today is that I wanted to watch the NFL playoffs.  When it got close to game time, I convinced June to drive. I then used my phone as a hotspot to connect my tablet to my home antenna using the FireTV App.  The FireTV App connects to my Amazon Recast box at home, so I was watching the game from my TV antenna at home...cool.  We decided to get off the highway around  halftime and watch the rest of the game in the hotel. We grabbed sandwiches to go from ChickFilet an...

Today is Monday January 15th, 2024. It is hard to believe that we are already 2 weeks into 2024, time does fly the older you get. We plan to leave this morning around 8AM for the cold Mid West.  The impetus for this trip is to see our neighbors in Minnesota, Tom and Lori. We met Tom and Lori in 2019 when they rented the house just south of us and we quickly became good friends. After two years in VT they decided they wanted to stay. They purchased property in the spring of 2022 a few house to the north of us and began extensive renovations on that property. Unfortunately, Lori became ill in the summer of 2023 and they returned to Minneapolis around Thanksgiving to be with family and get the best treatments for Lori.  It is winter and the snow is not good for sledding or skiing, so we decided to make a road trip to not only see Lori and Tom but stop and visit some other family along the way. We plan to visit brother my brother Richie's family in Illinois as well as my Aunt Caro...