100,000 miles

 On New Year's Eve, amidst a blustery winter storm with the entire family aboard, the blue van rolled uneventfully through 100,000 miles.

I managed to grab a picture of us:

We had just crossed Ambassador Bridge from Windsor to Detroit, returning from a truly lovely trip to Toronto.

The weather conditions were pretty rough, mid-twenties with consistent sleet and snow.  Earlier in the drive, I received the notification I knew would come:

That's a surefire reminder that the front of the van was accumulating ice, and is one way of drawing heightened attention to potentially slippery surface conditions.  At the end of our journey, the van looked like a glazed doughnut:

As mentioned before, the radar sensor is behind the Honda badge on the front, and when that gets covered with ice, the radar gets knocked out.

The drive was an optically challenging one.  The sun went down as the drive progressed, and the weather conditions on I-94 west of Detroit were quite bad.  We saw numerous accidents and cars in the ditch.  I know that I-94 tends to be an accident magnet in the winter, so I decided to pick up I-69 south east of Battle Creek and head towards I-80.  My thinking was that I'd driven I-80 many many more times than I-94 - experience matters.  Also, I-80 is further south than I-94, so perhaps the surface conditions would be better.

Fortunately, that turned out to be the case.  While I-69 was pretty treacherous with snow squalls, the conditions improved as we approached I-80.  The conditions evolved from heavy snow to light snow to sleet, and as we started steaming west on I-80, the temperature improved to 33 and the road surface was just wet due to the diligence of the salt-spreading road crews.

We got home safe and sound, though our return trip was a little slower than the trip to Toronto.

Granger --> Toronto

Toronto --> Granger

The van did great on the trip, doing everything a van should do: hauling us in comfort, swallowing our luggage, and putting miles in the mirror.

Round trip Granger --> Toronto --> Granger

We had never been to the city before, and we had a great time exploring a new city, going to the top of the CN Tower, eating delicious food, and reveling in being together.  I was a bit melancholic as, in the back of my mind, this was the last time we would all have this much time off together.  Luca graduates in May, and who knows what the future will bring.

All of the kids will grow older and want to go off and live their lives.  And all of that is natural and good.  And I will miss the sounds of their laughter and squabbling and energy as we continue down life's path.