Howard Road Trip

Ok, everyone, we have an ALL NEW blog site. The web address is: http://emmahatrip.travellerspoint.com (that stands for the first 2 letters on our first names). We've posted a new blog and we have pictures! YAY! Oh, and I also have a request: I've been reading this series of books called Pendragon (I know at least one person who reads them), and I just finished the 6th book,... and the book ended with that 'to be continued'. I hate 'to be continued', and I have no 7th book. If you have that book, you should tell me by commenting on our new blog site. See you at the new blog site!!!
Hay Hay

My friend, Marianne (roommate of mine at University of Arizona many years ago), took us on a tour of Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan yesterday. Ann Arbor is a really cool town, somewhat reminiscent of Berkeley, CA. The campus is huge! There is an art fair on campus this week, supposedly the biggest in the nation, and in 4 hours there we didn't see it all. We ate at a great vegetarian restaurant, had fun watching street entertainers, etc.

Northville, where Marianne lives, is a nice suburb of Detroit. The downtown is totally quaint - it could be the downtown in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

This blog site won't let us publish anymore photos until August - there's a 10 mb limit per month, and you can't even pay for more if you want to.... So when we get to Chicago in a couple days, we may start a new blog, maybe Howardstrip, so we can get more pix posted. Stay tuned!

By the way, the girls and I have passed through towns with some interesting names, like Ogallalla (NE), and Ypsilanti and Paw Paw (MI).

Emily

Now we are in the town of Northville near Detroit, with my mom's old college roommate, Marianne. The cornfields are gone (sad), and the time has changed to eastern time. Anyway, back in Illinois, we had a fun last day. My mom's college friend Sue Huelet has some friends who fish, and they taught us to fish. I caught nine fish, but we only kept two. I even got to drive the boat back to the dock (haha me driving...scary)! Now in Marianne's house, I was told some funny stories about them in college (example: They would pretend to be blind on elevators. My mom was the blind one and Maryann was her "guide"). I hope everything's great in Oregon!
- Howie (don't ask)
aka Hayley!!!!!!

Yesterday we had a nice boat ride on the Mississippi River. Then we headed to Galesburg, IL, where my old college friend, Sue, is a professor of political science. It's also the birthplace of Carl Sandburg, so there's Carl Sandburge Park, Mall, Street, etc. Also, the only remaining building where one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates took place still stands on the Knox College campus. Apparently throngs of people came from miles around to listen to the debate, which lasted 8 hours!

This afternoon, my friend took us out to a local lake where she taught Marina and Hayley to sail on her sailboat. They all ended up in the water at some point, but it helped keep us all cool - it is hot and muggy today. Tomorrow we'll get a student-led tour of Knox College, and then some friends of Sue's will take the girls fishing tomorrow night.

Wednesday, we're headed to Northville, MI, not too far from Ann Arbor, home of University of Michigan. We still cannot believe how much corn we've seen growing for miles along the sides of the roads as we'ver travelled east!

Catherine, "yes" to your visit in August - more later.

ESH

Hey guys! I bet you've been dying to read another blog of mine for a while. I promise this blog will be fun and highly stimulating. Today, we drove through Iowa. It was very beautiful, with rolling hills and trees, unlike Nebraska's monotonous corn feilds (there have to be enough corn fields in Nebraska to feed the entire country!). First, we stopped at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa and I enjoyed the small university very much. It was overall a stimulating experience (stimulating is my word of the day f.y.i). Then, I got to drive to Amana (a preserved historical German town) and no, I didn't spit as much as possible as I talked out of consideration for the THIRD PLACE Germans in the World Cup (at least not around my mom). Anyway, I got some cold, yes cold, hot chocolate there and it was a very stimulating experience for my taste buds (yes, stimulating- don't dis my word choice). Then, we drove off to Iowa City and I saw the University of Iowa, which was, you guessed it, stimulating. It was very pretty and really huge. It was the biggest campus I've visited yet. Finally, we went across a very stimulating freeway to the stimulating town of Davenport, which is right next to the most stimulating river in the US- the Mississippi (I just love writing mississippi- it's so stimulating). Tomorrow, we're going to go on a boat on the Mississippi, which promises to be a very stimulating adventure. I'll keep you posted and I'll try to write more often, because some people's blogs just aren't as stimulating as others.

From stimulatingsville USA,
MARINA THE STIMULATING