Safe!

It took us 5 hours to get home, what with awful holiday traffic on all the major interstates, and a stop at a favorite market on the west side of Lansing (Horrock's)...but we made it.

God must be saving us for better things. His divine intervention was in evidence all the way home. Somewhere on 127 we nearly got rear-ended by a large truck hauling a very nice and very large boat. Everyone had to come to a dead stop (one of many such times) because of a traffic jam, and this guy behind us had to partially drive off the road to avoid hitting us.

Then probably 30 minutes after we got home Tim was unloading the last few things from the truck and I was watering the flowers in the front yard when we heard a rending screech of rubber on asphalt that went on and on...and ended in a solid metal *whap*. The first words out of Tim were 'should I call 911?', and I set down the watering can and got on my bike and rode the 1/4 mile out to the main road to see what had happened. Someone had gotten popped pretty good out there, and there was already a small crowd and traffic jam forming. We have at least one serious accident in this exact same spot per year, it seems. The spot we'd just driven through, and the spot past which we walk nearly every day to get to the dirt road we use for our long walks. We wonder how many accidents it's going to take before a small bypass lane is built so high speed traffic can get around vehicles waiting to make a left turn. It will probably take a fatality. In a matter of minutes there were 3 or 4 police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck on the scene. Followed by a life-flight helicopter. We went out for dinner, and when we got back at 9pm, the entire road was still completely blocked for the investigation, more than 3 hours later.

We had a good camping trip. We really did. But it's really, really good to be home again. Here's a bit of what we got up early to do this morning. It's something you can only do today, each year. Any guesses as to what it was?