Back in Wichita, after spending the better part of a week in or near Detroit. We went to visit Laura's father, 91, living alone in the small Oak Park house Laura grew up in, and doing pretty well, all things considered. We flew this time. I'd rather drive, but it's an even thousand miles from Wichita to his door, two days and a lot of corn each way. I find the drive relaxing, but it wears on Laura, and pushing it undercuts the pleasure.

Another advantage to the car is that we can pack liberally -- I usually take some reference books, a tool box, and a cooler, which in the past let me pack home some Karoun yogurt. But flying called for minimal packing, and limited what we could carry home. When we got there, I did some work on the house, limited by my lack of tools. I also did less shopping than I would have, making notes on books rather than buying, not even bothering with the food stores. I had looked forward to the used CD shops, but only managed to get to three -- Record Time in Ferndale and Roseville, Street Corner up in Bloomfield -- winding up with a mere 18 CDs and a sore back for my efforts. Only got to two of the four bookstores I normally drop in on, and found very little I didn't already know about.

Plane trip out was uneventful, with a stop in Chicago. Trip back was delayed out of Detroit, then delayed further in Chicago, where we were queued on the runway when a squall line forced the airport to shut down. We caught a break in the weather after an hour or so, and took off before another line stormed through. Read the next day that 250 flights were cancelled in Chicago that day, so we were fortunate not to get stuck. Everything was secure when we got back.

Didn't take my notebook computer -- discovered just before packing it that the screen is burnt out, rendering it useless for travel -- but we did have a computer available there. Was able to check mail, and made some notes on web browsing, but otherwise couldn't get into my writing. Also couldn't listen to music: didn't bring any, and had no way to play anything I picked up. I've often said that music is what keeps me sane, so it's not surprising that by the end of the trip I was more than a little ragged.

We did, however, eat well: a middle eastern joint called Flaming Kabob had saganaki, a salad with spinach and chicken shwarma, and lamb kabobs; Beau Jack's had parmesan-crusted walleye; Bastone's, a Belgian restaurant in Royal Oak, had good mussels; a Polish restaurant in Hamtramck, Polish Village Cafe, had good potato pancakes, kielbasa, chicken livers, and pork chops; and of course we had lunch at the Bread Basket, a Jewish deli we've frequented nearly every trip.

Weather was surprisingly cool, but we caught a lot of rain, with reports of flooding, especially in Dearborn. I tend to black out on news when I travel, but I gather there was quite a bit of flooding in Texas/Oklahoma as well as Michigan/Ohio during the week, not to mention a big-ass hurricane down in the Caribbean. Got rain when we got back here. It's unusual to see green grass this late in the summer here. Don't seem to get much travel in these days. Was hoping for a nice car trip, at least this fall, but this one turned out to be pretty uncomfortable. But was good to see Kal, and help out as much as we could.