The day finally arrived! This morning we packed the car BEAUTIFULLY, left Iowa, and covered about 450 miles on our way to Ann Arbor. ..Only 350 more.
The eight hours we drove today were largely uneventful. It looked mostly like this:
except for two moments.
The first – I’m pretty sure I got challenged to a street race. My 1997 Buick LeSabre is understandably an extremely tempting target to want to race, but it was still a little surprising on the interstate. A truck louder than most airplanes caught up next to me, then the driver looked me straight in the eye and started lurching forward without breaking eye contact. If that’s not a challenge to a race, then Hollywood has deceived me. As MUCH as that made me want to stay anywhere close to him, though, I thought I’d let him off easy.
The second – We met an extremely precocious baby robin at one of the rest stops. He flew straight into the back of my dad’s legs, then landed on the sidewalk and chirped at us angrily for quite a while. When we apparently didn’t do what he wanted, he flew straight for my face. I ducked; he landed on the car and tried again to get us big dumb dumbs to understand him. When that didn’t work, though, he jumped straight onto my mom and hung out on her back for a while. Totally serious.
HE WAS SO PROUD OF HIMSELF.
We eventually got the little guy to hop off onto the grass, but I’m sure he’ll find some other innocent rest stop-goers that speak bird a little better than we do.
Apart from those two things, the drive was very quiet. It was a beautiful day and my poor, rickety car held up remarkably well. All in all, it was about the best start we could have asked for. Here’s hoping for more uneventful days!
An Anne in Ann Arbor 
I giggled out loud about the drag racing part! hah 🙂 And that is so strange of that little brave bird! wow. Have a safe rest of your trip, Anne!
Oh my goodness that bird is so funny! I would have tried to keep him and raise him as my own. Praying for another safe day of travels today!