Jen, opting for the safer course of action, wasted no time to take the car in to Clyde's Auto by our house for a-diagnosin'. Our first time at Clyde's...certainly not the last. Despite a garage full of work, they took the time to test drive the car with Jen and The Ruffians inside. It sounded like the bearings, they a-figured. Just to be sure, they put it up on the lift (still with my family inside) to take the wheel off and be certain. I'm not sure what legal ramifications there might have been if that procedure had gone wrong, which is what makes it so cool that they did that. I like to imagine the girls peering out the windows, curious at the *whheeeeerrr* sounds of the air-powered toolery.
As it happens, we'll be looking forward to dropping up to $500 to get this done, and that assumes the axle wasn't damaged during the Great Cincinnati Voyage of 2009. If the axle is damaged, we'd be able to afford to fix it so long as we would immediately sell the house and move into the car. On the plus, we'd have central air.
So, to recap the trip. Driving, about which I've already pontificated, was a slog, but an uneventful slog. We saw some nice windfarms. Illinois is just as dull as I'd imagined it would be while peering down at it from the cockpit of an Embraer 120 during countless trips to Springfield. I did appreciate the humor of passing from Illinois (land of Lincoln, where the man was born) into Indiana, whose signs proclaimed quite clearly that it was their state in which Abe spent the majority of his youth. F-you, Illinois! I bet New Jersey and New York engage in a similar desperate tug-of-war when trying to lay claim to Grover Cleveland's legacy. Doesn't St. Paul do the same thing with Charles Schultz?
Sunday: we started off in church, which lasted a good 3 minutes before Jen and I relegated ourselves and the girls to the back entryway, where Lily flirted with the old usher for the remainder of mass. Afterwards, our Ohioan family graciously gave in to our constant request for Skyline Chili. I ate the crap out of that chili. It's so bad and yet so good. Not quite as guilty as White Castle, but still...my mind and body could have supped there every day, but I only got the one fix. Drat.
Later, we did some time at a park close to the hotel (pictures herein tell some of the tale). Then off to Cathy (my cousin) and Dave's (her husband) house for a lovely dinner with the family. The girls were kinda on the edge, but turned on the charm when it came down to it. Lily is non-stop motion these days, we can barely keep pace. She was running circles around their house.
Monday: Spent the entire day at King's Island, the local amusement park. There's not much to report about a day at an amusement park, except to say that it was fun and kinda nostalgiac, as I'd been there a few times as a kid. I found myself as a passenger on some frightful rides and managed to not vomit; a real accomplishment these days, as I think I might be slowly inheiriting my Dad's vertigo.
Tuesday: Vrooom! Drove all day.
That's it. Girls, when you read this later in life, now you can know how you spent your second 4th of July. And you can know this: my Aunt Betty and Uncle Jerry and cousins Dennis, Cathy, and Emily and their assorted families all seemed to be tripping over themselves to make googley faces at you guys and laugh at your every silly babble or gesticulation. That's good family.
Day one hundred and forty three.
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