Before we could leave, I had to run down to Ann Arbor for an hour and then come back and pick Brent up. On the way to Ann Arbor, my right rear tire blew out. In my dress clothes, I quickly hopped out and switched to the spare losing abut 10 minutes. But the spare was low so I carefully drove to a gas station to fill it up. But the little valve stem cover would not come off – so I had to get a pliers to fill the spare up to 60 pounds. Using the spare, I went to Ann Arbor and then back to Lansing where I sat at Belle Tire and replaced two tires where they informed me that my right front bering has a little play. Drat – I just had them replaced a few months back – the new ones must be bad. But I needed to get them replaced under warranty at the place I had them installed – but I did not have time for that – so we will do the trip with a little bearing noise. We will see how that progresses.

With all the confusion, we finally got on the road at 4PM and made it to Chicago at about 7PM. Checked into the hotel and decided to go to the Kingston Mines for some Blues – we arrived about an hour early so we had some food and played video games. We stayed for three hours and watched two bands and then back to the hotel.

Today I have my office hours at 10AM at the Starbucks in Palmer House and then on the road we go. It looks like we are going south down I-57 towards Memphis and Beal Street as our next destination. It looks like this is going to be a music-themed trip rather than a nature themed trip.