That’s a really lovely drive at night – up some big road, approaching the capitol building, much like going up any one of the approaches to the US capitol. Beautiful lit, a really gorgeous building. Impressive!

And I had no idea Madison was on an isthmus – I look forward to seeing it in the daylight. On the drive back to the airport.

The flight was fine. Michael The Baby did very, very well, and confounded the skeptics who doubtless looked up from their laptops and cels and spreadsheets with dread as we approached. Of course, the flight to Detroit takes like fifteen minutes. At the Detroit airport, our gate was right across from 3 gates for international flights – London, Frankfort, and scads and scads of people going to Amsterdam. HEY! I’m GLAD to be in…Madison! I ate a wrap of some sort in the waiting area, bites alternating with setting the things down and chasing the baby, who does not want to stay near me, but, for example, gets sight of a bottle cap that some woman has lain down beside her baggage at the window, and durned if he isn’t going to get that bottle cap. No matter where I set him, no matter what direction I point him, he twists back around to get the bottle cap. I suppose I could say, "Hey lady, pick up your bottle cap." But I don’t.

Sat on the runway in Detroit for at least thirty minutes. My goal had been to keep the baby awake the whole time so he would collapse in the hotel and sleep for hours and hours and hours. That thirty minutes on the runway did him in – and me, too, and so I let him fall asleep. So far, though, my fears at a wakeful night have not been realized. He slept most of the way here in the car, slept through check-in, and is now on his king-sized bed…collapsed.

As always, I am so grateful for those who take the time to smile at a baby and ten minutes out of their lives to play peek-a-boo over an airplane seat. As I’ve said…little things make other people’s lives easier. LIttle things.

Oh…and on the elevator up to my room, a young man said to me, "Are you Amy?" Well, yes. Turns out he is the Loyola sales rep here in the exhibit hall..er..room. Gee, how did he know it was me? Did Loyola say, "Look for the wiped-out looking woman barely hanging on to an inexplicably heavy baby?" Or what?