Michigan Adventure

After a full year without stepping foot in the Great Lakes State, I finally returned home last weekend for a sweet yet brief few days.  My mini vacation wasn’t anything exciting or extravagant like a beach week or a trip to an exotic, foreign country—it was simply a trip home to my dear Michigan.  Yet the best vacations are those that scratch those deep heart itches.

I stayed with my oldest brother Jeff and his wife Val in Ypsilanti.  With ten years between us and paths that have taken us in different directions, I have not always been that close to Jeff, and so it was very good to spend four days with Big Bro hanging out, relaxing, playing board games, catching up, laughing—all the simple things in life.  Again, a good satisfying scratch to one of those heart itches.

The functional reason for my Michigan trip was to buy a car.  The Fellows Program requires that each fellow has a car up in D.C., presumably so that we can be self-sufficient in getting around without being a burden to our host families or each other.  And at age 24, it was high time that I get a car.  The problem is that I know cars like I know Spanish—not very well.  And as someone who is car illiterate, I knew I would be a little baby lamb among wolves the moment I stepped foot into any car dealership.  I needed a wolf of my own.  Jeff was my wolf…and he was a great wolf.

Friday ended up being a perfect day.  After a clean check-up at the dentist, we were off to car hunt.  We quickly found my new baby with everything but my name literally written all over it.  It was a beautiful used Buick, which should last me through law school and beyond.  Every part of the transactional process was seamless.  Even my unsuccessful trip to Angola, Indiana to try to finance my car through my own bank, Wells Fargo, gave me a chance to take my new car to a trusted mechanic in Coldwater for a good look-over.  That was priceless peace of mind that I otherwise would not have enjoyed without a trip to my own bank.  In the end, there were a few financing and insurance hurdles to overcome, but we were even able to clear these before day’s end.  Sometimes car shopping can take multiple days or even a week.  And so I was thrilled to accomplish all this in a single day.

That left the rest of the weekend for quality time and rest.  It was good to catch a meal with my former college coach who now coaches for University of Michigan.  It was good to catch a meal with my family in Pennsylvania during my drive back to Virginia.  It was good to sink my teeth into Val’s sumptuous cooking.  It was even good to watch some of Jeff and Val’s favorite TV shows with them considering that I have watched very little television this past year.

A couple times we played a particular board game called “Life: Twists and Turns,” in which the object of the game is to score the most life points.  Sometimes during the game, you buy a house or have a child, and these developments increase your life point score.  Or perhaps you draw a chance card that reads, “Your cat dies.  Lose 50 life points,” and so you lose life points.

Life points.  Kind of a funny notion, that the experiences that make up our lives could be quantified into numerical values, and that our goal should be to try to maximize that score.  Such a concept works well for a board game, less so for real life.  But if our experiences could be quantified into points, I know that my Michigan Adventure would be worth a ton.