Greetings again from Benton Harbor. Let's just do this.

The weather was not exactly what one would look for when planning on spending the day near water. Thus a change of plans and no Lake Michigan. We'd drive to my wife's Aunt & Uncle's near Kalamazoo and find some stuff to do, hang out and eat.

Things got good right away. On the drive there we took I-94. The speed limit is 70mph which means we were doing a solid 85 (unless you happen to be a law enforcement agent, in which case that's just a creative embellishment) - along the way we kept noticing the only cars passing us had Illinois plates. Nothing major, just cars going a little faster than us. That is until the silver car.

I saw him coming from a good distance back and even then could see this guy meant business. As he neared us, I nudged the wife and said, "look at this." The car blew past us easily and in hindsight we guessed his speed at probably around 110mph give or take a few miles per hour. As he passes we spot the Illinois license plate and as a proponent of getting where you're going in a timely fashion I proclaim, "God bless you, Illinois drivers!"

Just as the words leave my mouth, out of nowhere a Michigan trooper's car comes barreling from the other side of the highway straight at us. Now this isn't a little turnaround spot or a median or something like that. The space between the two sides of I-94 consists of a vast expanse of dirt, grass and gravel. This trooper apparently came from the far side of the highway and was closing in directly on my driver's side door all Dukes Of Hazzard style.

I quickly hit the gas and slipped into the next available opening in the 'slow lane' and the cop blew past us still blowing dust and rocks everywhere into the distance.

Now we're thinking this is going to be good. The silver car was already out of sight with the speed he was going and the wide left ahead in the highway. It seemed like forever before we spotted them again. When we did both cars were along the side of the road to the right. The trooper's car was behind the silver car perpendicular to the highway with the back end sticking out just a bit too far. Roscoe meant business! As we slowed with the traffic and passed the scene we saw the driver of the silver car had gotten out of his car and was seemingly bickering with the trooper who himself looked to be all of 19 years old and half the size of the giant scary mofo who was driving the silver car.

We passed and continued our drive wondering how the how ordeal ended, but I'm pretty sure I heard a distant "YeeeeeHaaaawwww!" in the wind.

We arrived at their place with no additional incidents and spent some time catching up as we don't see my wife's Aunt & Uncle too often and they're not too much older than us and are pretty cool people.

By mid-afternoon we piled into their ultra-plush minivan with the cool space-lock doors and made our way to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. The kids dug all the hands on stuff and I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the place. I snapped some pics and got a weird error message. The camera kept telling me something was going goofy with my memory card. I fiddled with it a bit and ended up losing the shots and reformatting the card. The seemed to help but I noticed the photos were writing to the card unusually slow. I'd still the error message every 7 or 8 shots, but turning the camera on and off seemed to fix it. Not a good answer, but a good temporary solution. At about 50 photos, it just went loopy again. This time rather than reformatting, I simply put the camera away.

We left the Museum and got the 'locals' whirlwind van tour of the city and stopped quickly at Best Buy to pick up a new Compact Flash card before heading back for dinner. I played with the camera a bit while the grill got started and food prepared. The new card worked fine, but the old one said it had nothing on it. Whatever. I'm just glad I found the problem before we got too deep into the trip.

We had a spectacular dinner, chilled a bit and were back on the road before dark as the kids wanted to get back to the hotel and swim in the cool indoor/outdoor pool.

Upon returning to the hotel we learned that Miss America (or Miss USA or Miss Something-Or-Other) was staying tonight. Everyone went to the pool, but I grabbed the camera to get those shots of the hotel that I promised in yesterday's update.

I shot the pool. Then the lobby real quick. I headed out front to get the entrance and couldn't help but notice the big white limo parked in the front. It was pulling away just as I made the shot. I think I missed Miss America by just moments. I'm not the starstruck type at all and in my short years on Earth have had more than my fair share of 'rushes with fame' - most stories that you'd swear I was making up if I told you. I was mostly curious to see how attractive one of the girls is in person. Call me a pig if you must, but I speak the truth.

The kids returned from the pool and we called it a night. We hope to be at Michigan's Adventure by noon tomorrow and I can't help but think we'll see an orange Dodge Charger with an "01" painted on the side somewhere along the way,