Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 7 years and 5 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Yesterday we spent Thanksgiving with family but today it’s back on the road as we start heading for home.

We had loaded most of our stuff into the Highlander the night before and at 8:00am we were back on the road. Being the weird road trip people we are, we started driving north, to go south: we took I-90 West towards Toledo and then I-75 North (again!) toward Michigan. Since we didn’t do our Frankenmuth trip on Wednesday, we were doing it now. We crossed the border into Michigan around 10:00am and by noon were pulling into the parking lot of Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland.

After doing some Christmas shopping in the Black Friday madness of the world’s largest Christmas store, it was finally time to head south. We took US-23 South and, keeping with our college visit theme, took some time to drive around the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. (The next day, the Ohio State Buckeyes would defeat the Wolverines in double-overtime).

We left UM around 2:30pm and crossed into Ohio two hours later. Then it was back on ol’ familiar I-75 South. At 7:00pm we stopped just north of Cincinnati to meet some old college friends for a leisurely dinner (at Marion’s Piazza again!). Afterwards, back on the road, we stopped at Graeter’s in northern Kentucky around 9:45pm for dessert since we had been snubbed on the way up. 45 minutes later we were checked into our hotel for the evening in Florence (y’all). Tomorrow will be our longest driving day.

Driving stats: 10 1/2 hours; 606mi