The Journey – Day Two

So, I made it to Michigan okay.

I’ve been in a sort of internet funk the past few days, which really wasn’t a funk so much as it’s been a nice vacation from the woes of the technological world. Okay, sure, I’ve been on my Blackberry plenty, but I’ve spent most of the time just enjoying the company of others and things like that. But that’s a post for another day.

I woke up fairly early on Wednesday, I originally wanted to leave the hotel a lot sooner and had my mom call me at like five thirty in the morning to wake me up, but I’d stayed up too late the night before and had a hard time getting to sleep, so I ended up sleeping in a bit. It was about 8:30 when I finished showering, loaded the car, and went down to eat breakfast. To save some cash I decided to have the free food the hotel offered, which was reasonably delicious except that the gravy for the biscuits was brown instead of white, despite tasting pretty good, and that the scrambled eggs were…well, okay, I know they were frozen, but they could have tried to make them look a little more egg shaped. Instead I got foamy round discs that tasted alright but made me feel like I was eating someone’s bra inserts or something. Moving on.

The morning went by reasonably quickly, and since the trip that day was only about six hours, I really didn’t have a lot to worry about. I was admittedly pretty weary from the drive the day before and not getting a whole lot of sleep, but I managed to take a lot less bathroom breaks than the previous day and was feeling pretty good until, well, the Ohio Turnpike.

There really wasn’t anything wrong with the Ohio Turnpike, exactly, just that it was, well, the Turnpike, and it was miles and miles and miles and miles of pavement and pavement and pavement and lines and poorly driving tourists (probably including myself) and pavement walls and the occasional tree and it was just pretty darn boring, all things considered. Driving through the hills had been scenic, the cities had been interesting, the Turnpike was…well, bland.

Getting into Grand Rapids was exciting. The city is gorgeous, everything was new and interesting. I met up with Lis at a grocery store and followed her through town to my new house, and later went shopping in the evening. It’s going to take some getting used to the whole city thing again… I mean, if I need groceries, I can just go get them, no matter what time of day. There’s a Best Buy and a Target and bookstores and Starbucks and a lake. (River? Thing? Body of water? There’s even a yacht club!) My room is cozy and wonderful, my housemates are wonderful, everything is really great.

The trip in itself on day two wasn’t incredibly noteworthy, to be honest, but I just felt good. It felt good to go, to arrive, to start a new life. From now on, things are different.

I’m sitting here in Wisconsin writing this, though, and have Wisconsin-y things to attend to… I promise I’ll get you all up to date soon enough; the third day of travel, my time in WI, and then this weekend I’ll be back in Grand Rapids for “good.” For once, everything is going really well.