Completion of the Juggernaut

It always seems like the third part of a trilogy has two components in the name. It always has a completion or a fullness to it and some word with power like Jedi. Jedis are so tough. Anyway, so my title fulfills both those qualities. Without further ado the completion of my trip.

So we embarked on our journey home still on a U2 high if you will. No, not from drugs, but rather just really good music. I'm still not sure how much sleep I got or what time I woke up with the whole time change and all. It's kind of confusing to find out when to wake up to leave to lose an hour to get home at a certain time. Needless to say we ate our lovely Hampton Inn complimentary breakfast, which was slamming, and got back in the car again.

It was nice to get out of Illinois, although in order to do so I had to leave my check book at the last toll since they had drained me of every other resource of any value. I drove the speed limit the entire way across Illinois and Indiana ... yet somehow reached Toledo, OH in about two and a half hours. If you want good gas, good food, and fairly easy on and off access I highly recommend the exit off 80 for Toledo South Maumee. It's got a Wendy's, well priced gas, and restaurants if you're looking to make your trip even longer.

Jess and I played way too much of the alphabet game along the way. You know the game where you look for a word that starts with the letter "a" and then when you find it you look for one that starts with "b" and so on. Let me tell you "q, v, and z" can be a real bear. We got sick, or addicted it depends on who you ask, of the alphabet game so Jess invented a new game for us to play. We call it "4 in 1" The game has many variations so I'll let your mind go wild. The basic premise of the game is that you are in a room with 4 people for 1 hour (hence 4 in 1) and you can only talk to them one at a time for an hour. Say you were asking me the question you might say, "Keith you're in a room with the following people for one hour: Bono, Sean Hannity, President Bush, and Katie Holmes (pre-Tom Cruise and she's somehow intersted in me). Who do you talk to and for how long? the cop out is 15 minutes a piece, but you find it's rarely that way. For instance I would probably give 20 minutes to Katie Holmes (a brother can dream right), 10 minutes to Bono and 15 Sean Hannity and President Bush. I'm hoping they'd all understand and give me their number to hang out later.

So the person you're with comes up with them for you. And then you switch it on them. It can also be a bad scenario you're in a room with Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, the Grim Reaper, and you cousin Rusty ... who do you talk to. In that case I take Grim for about 59 minutes and 51 seconds. Leaving me three seconds a piece for the other three to say, "You stink I hate you." The game amused us for miles ... hours ... exits. However you want to refer to it. I suggest you try it.

We made it home and it was great to get out of the car. Great bonding, great music, great mileage, great tunes on the way there and back, and a fun new game to play. I had the next 40 minutes to reflect on it ... before I had to get into the car and drive to Pittsburgh for Mother's Day dinner.

But you know what? U2 was worth it.