A long day, but a good day. We left at 10am to drive into the city. We picked-up our buds Barry & Buffy, and then it was off to Michigan to my sister Diane's house. It looked pretty crummy when the day started, but by the time we got up there the sun was out and was gorgeous. Melinda ran to the butcher and picked up some fresh hot dogs and chicken brats for lunch. Wow. We're going up to Michigan next month for a couple of days and we're going to be bringing coolers and our vacu-sealer and hit the butcher before we leave so we can smuggle some quality meat back to Illinois. Diane's birthday is coming up next week, but she and Melinda will be driving out to Yellowstone and back for a cool road trip, so we brought out birthday gift over early - a Remote Control Shark for the pool! Lots of batteries, though - 4 AA's, a 9 volt for the receiver in the shark, and a 9 volt for the tranmitter (which floats!). And the AA's don't last too long. But the shark was way cool. We played with it all afternoon. For dinner, we drove down Red Arrow Highway into Union Pier to go to Miller's Country House. Very good food - in fact, way better than I had expected. There's something that does defy description, though... the room we were in had large windows that overlooked a garden and woods. During dinner, we looked up, and there was a tree moving in the garden. I mean, moving - like walking across the lawn. Sort of like a performance art piece. Odd. Strange. Weird. After dinner, back to Diane's to pick up our things and then the long drive home, which was traffic-free but with patches of fog. I love going up there.