An Eventful weekend.

On the 13th we decided to take a trip up to Ann Arbor to visit the Abernethy's. We had a relaxing drive there... well, almost relaxing. We got about an hour and a half out of Columbus when it started raining. It was heavy, can't-see-through-the-windshield rain. That's kinda scary on the highway going 60 miles an hour. The trip to Michigan usually takes about 3 hours, but we were delayed by the rain. It was pouring when we got there. All the fun outdoors plans we had were shot because of the weather. We decided to make the most of it.

The Abernethy's wanted to show us around the city. We went to the farmer's market and on campus to the Museum of Natural History. Tristan was really excited for the museum. We drove up, found a place to park and walked in the museum to find they were closing in half an hour. We headed right for the dino exhibit. The half hour went quickly and we found ourselves leaving after only seeing a small portion of the displays. We headed back to the undergrad science building to get back into the parking garage and the door was locked. Of course, why would it be open Saturday at 5pm. We wandered about looking for a way in. Each door we came to refused to open. Finally we reached the top of the parking garage. We road the elevator to the ground floor. when we exited, we found this was the wrong parking garage! Pretending we were cars, we headed for the exit. Once outside we found the correct garage. Ignoring the 'Cars only' at the entrance we walked past the gate operator to our car parked in side. Whew! We headed back to Katie and Kevin's apartment to have pizza before heading home.

We left Ann Arbor about 7:30 for the drive home. We got an hour away and thu-thunk! thu-thunk! Our tire was flat. We pulled off to the side of the road to change it. It took a while to get everything finished, especially those airgun tightened bolts holding the tire on, but we got the tire changed. We get back in the car and it won't start. We'd left the lights on so we wouldn't get hit in the dark on the side of the road and drained the battery. We say a quick prayer and call the Abernethy's to get us the number for highway patrol. We called and waited for the troopers to come give us a jump. Thankfully, the rain that had persisted throughout the day had stopped so we didn't have to wait wet. Once we got the battery going we decided to head back to Ann Arbor rather than drive the remaining two hours on a spare tire. The Abernethy's are on their way to follow us just in case. We pulled over in a town called Bowling Green to check the tire pressure on the temp. We figured we might as well check the other tires too, when we discovered the rear passenger tire had a leak in it. There was no way we were driving on that tire tonight. By this time its about 11:00pm and the Abernethy's have met up with us in Bowling Green. We filled the tire as much as we could and drove it across the parking lot to Walmart's parking. We planned to have them patch the tires Monday morning. In the meantime, we headed back to Ann Arbor in the Abernethy's car. What a night! Two flat tires and a dead battery! That's what we get for going to Michigan.

Monday comes around and Katie takes us back to Bowling Green to get the tire repaired. We do a whole lot of running around to find out that we need to replace both tires. They can't be patched. So we do a lot of back and forth across town from Walmart on one end to this tire shop on the other (Walmart doesn't carry the right tires). Luckily, town is short. We get both rear tires replaced and we are two hundred dollars poorer, but on our way home.

The first evidence of the storm we'd missed came about twenty minutes north of Columbus. All the traffic lights are out. We can see trees lying on the ground. Once we get back to our apartment at Golf Pointe, we learned of all the excitement we'd missed. We walked in and are greeted by a hungry Saphira. Not that I blame her. We didn't plan to be gone two and a half days so we didn't leave food. Sorry kitty. The time on the stove and microwave are blinking. We concluded the power must have been out. We didn't worry much, because we obviously had it back. Our upstairs neighbors came to visit and invite us to a barbecue. It'd been planned assuming the power would be out longer than it was. Since all of the apartments run off electricity, the barbecue would be the only way to cook anything. At dinner we learned about the 75 mile an hour winds that had ripped through Columbus. The storm was a remnant from hurricane Ike. The winds caused power outages all over the Midwest, some of which are still out of power now, more than a week later. The rain that we'd had in Michigan was also hurricane Ike. Maybe we weren't supposed to get home Saturday night and the flat tires were a means of keeping us off those roads facing high winds. We are glad we were safe that night and not on the road.