Lincoln, NE

So, how is this for bizzarre: I am staying in Lincoln, NE tonight (with Steve and Carissa, otherwise known as one pair of the plethora of in-laws I married into) but tomorrow night my cousin Ryan is going to be in Lincoln, NE with his band The Vultures, on a tour of the midwest. How random is that?

So, the new car did well, and so far no mishaps on this road trip. We'll see how long that lasts. Let's see...what has happened on road trips thus far...

On the way to Dave and Jessica's wedding in Davenport, my car died at a gas station in Iowa. I got it started forty-five minutes later, then ended up at the Holiday Inn in Davenport when I was supposed to be at the one in Bettendorf. On the way back down to St. Louis my car died at a rest stop in another part of Iowa and couldn't get it restarted until an hour later.

While I was visiting Kathy in the Twin Cities, I got a parking ticket on the U of M Campus because of the stupid plow schedule.

When Kathy was coming to visit for spring break, she went to the left off the road and into the ditch, putting a large hole in her gas tank. This happened about eight miles north of Bowling Green, Missouri. It took about four days to fix it, then we had to drive up Bowling Green to get it back.

I got another parking ticket when I drove up to Minnesota to move Kathy down to St. Louis. This time, it was the street-cleaning schedule.

Kathy and I drove up to Minneapolis for her job interview with IBS and, on the way, we spilled a soda on the floormat of her car. Then, stopping on the East Bank of the UM campus for dinner, our parking meter expired and we got a parking ticket. When we woke up the next morning, we found somebody had shot out four of our car windows with a beebee gun. So, while we waited for the insurance company to figure out how they were going to screw us (only, they didn't because we're too smart for them), we got word that a snowstorm was brewing. The next day, there was about six inches on the ground and the snow was still falling. On the way back down to St. Louis, I got a speeding ticket in Moscow Mills, MO, about 45 miles from home.

On our last road trip, my car overheated in Ainsworth, Iowa. It turns out, the water pump failed and the timing belt melted.

So far, so good on this road trip.