Road Trip to Michigan

Keitha picked me up at 7 am and we were on our way to Michigan. The plan was to pick Geri up at the truck stop in Sarnia and then to cross the border and drive onto meet Sandra.

Our drive to Sarnia was uneventful and we chatted about what we thought Geri would be like. We arrived at the Flying J truck stop and sat down to breakfast. Keitha had a buffet breakfast and I had toast and jam with tea. Geri was to meet us at 9 am, but showed up at 9:25 having had some trouble getting something for her car. She had coffee and we were off at about 9:45.

We drove to the border crossing where we had to sit in the car for a while as people were going through. When it was our turn the guard wanted to know about what fruit I had especially those little orange things. They were my apricots, but I guess the way I say it is unusual, because she asked again. We passed through without further question.

Then we had a long drive to Lapeer Michigan. On the way we passed an accident that happened a few minutes before, and a car had rolled onto its roof. We had a short delay as we sat in the car waiting for the ambulance and police to arrive. We finally arrived at K-Mart in Lapeer where we were to meet Sandra. We were a bit early, so we looked around the store. I found a neat binder for $4 that I can keep my die cuts in.

Sandra arrived and we all got into Keitha’s vehicle and headed off to our first Scrapbook store, Crystal’s Scrapworks. I spent $33 there on a few items, but found some magnetic stamps. We went across the road for lunch at a Bistro where I ordered a house salad and ice tea. Then we drove over to Davison and checked out Karen’s Creative Stamping. There was so much at this store that I was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed. I managed to spend another $30, and found some very cute purse and shoes stamps.

It was after 5pm and many of the independent stores were closed, so we decided to go to Birch Run and look at the mall for some good deals. I found a nice green jacket at Eddie Bauer for about $28. We walked around there while Sandra looked for pots and pans for her kitchen. She did find some.

It was late so we looked for a motel to spend the night. We drove to Flint and booked our rooms at the Super 8 Motel. Keitha and I shared and Sandra and Geri shared. We then drove to Appleby’s restaurant for dinner. I had a beer and a lovely vegetarian pizza with artichokes. After dinner we returned to the hotel to sleep. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, too hot, too noisy and too smelly! I got up at 5am turned the air conditioner cooler, took 2 advil hoping that would help me sleep, and put in my ear plugs. I did fall asleep and was awoken by Keitha blowing her nose!

After a shower and a quick bite to eat we went to Target in Flint. I was not really impressed! Sandra did buy a change of clothes and Keitha found some books, and Geri bought a few things too. In the same Mall we found a Jo-Ann store. I went crazy in this store. There was so much to buy and much of it was on sale. I got 2 great punches, a square and a circle, as well as two 12 x 12 albums. We left there at about 12:20.

We drove to a Krispy Kreme store where we bought dozens of doughnuts with a coupon we got at the motel. They had a very cool van in the parking lot and I got lots of pictures of that. We then took Kathy back to K-Mart where she had left her car, and did a quick once over at the Dollar Tree store, but there wasn’t much available there. We said our goodbyes, and were on our way by around 2:15pm.

The drive back was pretty uneventful. At the border we declared that each of us had spent about $175 and we were told that after 24 hours the first $50 was okay the rest we needed to declare. Then he said, “Drive safely” so we drove off! We all assumed that was what he meant!

We dropped Geri off at the Flying J, used the bathroom and got a tea, and headed for Toronto. I got back to my apartment at around 6:15, so it was a safe and enjoyable journey.