Unexpected Road Trip

Quick. How long does it take to drive from Detroit to Washington, D.C.?

Shelly and I spent the weekend near Ann Arbor, Michigan, to celebrate Brad and Laura's marriage and meet Laura's ultra-fun family. (Thanks, Larry & Linda, Heather & Mike, Julie & Ben and Rob & Lilly ... you all made it a very memorable weekend, and thanks, Brad and Laura, for the excellent dinner on Friday evening!) On Saturday morning, Shell and I hit the Ann Arbor Summer Art Fair, where the crowds became more and more Tokyo-like as the day wore on, and we saw loads of cool -- and not so cool -- things. Need a big, glass fish to hang from your ceiling? (Pretty cool.) A sculpture made out of old brass instruments? (Very cool, especially the one based on the baritone horn.) How about a photo collage of outhouses? (Not my style, though that's not to say it wouldn't have been appealing to me in my bachelor days.)

The coolest, though, was a banner screaming "Cold Pop," proving I was back in the Midwest and prompting a good ol' pop vs. soda discussion later that day. I'm actually not sure how I became a "soda" person when Iowa is so heavily "pop," but Brad and I both are, and we have converted Mom, as well.

Saturday night Larry and Linda threw a great dinner party for 40 people, which gave me a chance to catch up with Mom and Jerry.

Now, here's where the fun begins. Being cheap, I had spied -- and purchased -- two cheap tickets from Washington National Airport to Detroit, saving us something like 400 bucks over flying out of Salisbury, and getting us to DTW non-stop, to boot. We're used to driving two or three hours to save some serious money on flights -- four airports within a three hour drive all have one or more discount airlines, which means we can almost always fly for less from Washington, Baltimore or Philadelphia than we can from Salisbury, even when we're not flying one of the discounters. The only downside is landing late in the evening and knowing you still have to drive two-and-a-half hours to get home.

We arrived at DTW around noon on Sunday and headed to the check-in kiosk. I swiped my credit card, confirmed our names and destination, and was rewarded with a screen indicating our flight would take off at 10:25 a.m. .... Monday morning. With nothing, nothing available to Washington or Baltimore or Philadelphia or anywhere significantly closer to home.

"Wait," the Northwest agent said. "I might have something here. Let me call Delta."

Things were looking up. Maybe we'd make it home after all. It wouldn't be ideal, but flying home via almost any route would be a better option than spending all afternoon and evening in a Best Western by the airport with no transportation to anywhere but the airport.

"Sorry," the agent said. "I can get you to JFK, but can't get you from there to Washington, so how about that hotel voucher?"

We took the voucher, he checked us in for our flight on Monday and we headed downstairs to ponder our next move. Shelly had been away from the office for almost three weeks. I had deadlines on Monday. The motel voucher did not promise an entertaining Sunday in Detroit. And I thought I had the perfect solution.

"I bet we could drive it in six or seven hours," I said. After all, my Northwest itinerary says it's only 391 miles between Detroit and Washington, at least as the jet flies.

We found a car that needed to be driven back to the DC area, so Avis cut us a little break on the rental price and, by 1:45 Sunday afternoon, we were heading south on I-75, bound for Toledo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and, eventually, Maryland.

Most of our trip was uneventful -- driving as quickly as possible without getting a ticket, taking extremely brief rest breaks and trying to find something other than the Indians game to listen to in northern Ohio. But, in Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where Interstate 70 leaves the Pennsylvania Turnpike and heads south to Washington, I saw something I had never seen before: an Interstate highway running on local surface roads, complete with stop lights. This short strip of I-70 is choked with gas stations and fast food joints and is, as far as I know, the only place in the country this situation occurs.

That short detour aside, traffic was quick, and nine hours after leaving Detroit Metropolitan Airport,* we pulled into the rental car lot at Washington National Airport, swapped cars and headed home, unlocking the back door at just a few minutes past two o'clock.

Is it any wonder I'm sleepy today?

* Gee, only 50 percent more than my guess of six hours which, as I think about it now, was absurdly low.