Started the long journey home today: destination, Cleveland, about 550 miles. Made one little sightseeing stop at the Pere Marquette National Monument (not an NPS site, so no passport stamp), where we learned why it is that Pere Marquette is so famous. I was wondering about this while we were on Mackinac Island, since all the information there focuses on his having established the Mackinac Mission (which ultimately resulted in the Ste. Anne's Catholic Church that I mentioned the other day). It seemed curious to me that such a fuss should be made over a young guy who founded a mission; there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of those. What we learned today is that Pere Marquette mapped the Mississippi River. Well, now. That makes more sense. (Of course, it is possible that somewhere in my distant past I knew this, but if so, it was accessible to my conscious mind no longer.)

Other than that half-hour, it was all about driving. Weather is heating up—over 90 today, everywhere we were. People on the UP (Upper Peninsula) were grousing mightily yesterday (when it was in the upper 80s), as highs of low to mid-70s are more the norm. Most of the drive was a straight shot down I-75 in Michigan. Interestingly, this road was pretty much devoid of trucks. (They were not missed—think I-81 in Virginia for nightmare driving conditions dodging 18-wheelers right and left.) Instead, I saw about a thousand large pickup trucks pulling ever larger RV trailers. I hear that the economy is bad, but you sure wouldn’t guess it from watching what travels down the road. Every one of those combinations must have represented a good 100K on wheels, never to mention the 6-8 mph with gas at nearly $4 a gallon.

Sight of the day: on the side of the road, an SUV sits. Half a dozen people or so stand around staring at a pile of luggage. The luggage is burning, rather spectacularly. This gives one pause. How did the pile of luggage end up on fire? Did the people suddenly get sick of it, pull over, haul the luggage out onto the pavement and set fire to it? This seems unlikely. But the other alternative, that the luggage burst into spontaneous flames inside the car, causing the driver to pull over and various brave souls to yank the burning luggage out onto the ground, seems equally improbable. What does one put in luggage that spontaneously combusts? Fireworks? Clearly something that they should not have been carrying around!

All went pretty well until the last 60 miles, when an alert on the Ohio turnpike warned us that there was an accident ahead and that we should "prepare to stop."  Since we had just passed a four-mile parking lot going (or not going) the other direction due to an accident westbound, we decided it was time to get off. So we did the last 60 miles on an old US highway. It was a bit slower, perhaps—or would have been if the turnpike was open all the way through—but it was more scenic and there were fewer cars. Rolled in to the Howard Johnson near the Cleveland airport around 7:30 after 11.5 hours on the road. I can’t say I recommend the place; there was only one set of towels (though they did deliver more, eventually, when I complained), and despite advertising “free WiFi,” it really doesn’t exist. It fades in and out and IF I can get connected, the signal strength is “very low.”  I will thus be uploading these last few blogs from home—either tomorrow night or, if we get in very late, Monday.

One last tiny stop en route tomorrow, at a memorial site for one of the Jewish athletes who was murdered at the Munich Games, then it’s home to see the cat, who will no doubt be very happy to see us, and will likely expect to be held non-stop for about 36 hours.