The good, the bad, the real ugly......

Good morning.
First, the good.
As you read in the last post, we went to Detroit for Craig's BIG 60th birthday.
We stayed at the beautiful Greektown casino Hotel.
We splurged a little and got an Executive corner king room on the top (30th) floor.

Here's the birthday boy with the view we had.
looking left out the window is the Renaissance center, home of GM.
And straight out is the downtown area. Greektown sits on the east side of downtown.
We checked in on Sunday afternoon for 2 nights. Shortly after we arrived, the Detroit Lions, who were playing their last game at Ford field just a few blocks north let out.
See the crowds of people streaming out of the facility?

And just below us sat the Greektown area. Lot's of great restaurants there. We went down to the casino, which was very busy. We did manage to find enough machines to play. We left around 8pm. Craig was up $100 or so, and I was down about 30. I called Pizza Papalis before we left, and ordered a pizza. Went back to our room, grabbed my coat, and went to pick it up. We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and eating and drinking.

Monday morning, we hit the breakfast buffet, then hopped on the people mover, to get a little view of the city. Detroit has lost nearly half it's population over the last decade, and it shows with many boarded up buildings. Yet, there are pockets of life and urban renewal projects going on.

If you look close, you'll see a Christmas tree and ice skating rink. This was in a park about 6 blocks from the hotel.

We ended up going over to the MGM casino. The largest one out of Detroit's 3. We enjoyed this one a lot! Probably because I left with $90 more than I arrived with. :-)

Then it was lunch at our hotel, and over to our casino, which wasn't nearly as busy as the night before. We ended the trip with all the money we brought, plus about $150 extra. Very good!

Dinner was gyro's at another greektown restaurant.

Tuesday morning had us up early and arriving back in Lansing around 10:30.

Now the bad.....

Upon arriving at home, I had 2 messages on my answering machine. It was a very good customer wanting me to go in on Tuesday and do her hair for an unexpected trip to the Mayo clinic in Minnesota. Ugh!

I never work on Tuesday, but decided to go in since she did give me a very good Christmas tip.
I could have just told her the next time I saw her that I was out of town and didn't get home in time, but that's not me.

So, I went in. It was snowing when we got home, but the main roads were pretty good, so I took Kia to work. Did her hair, and headed home.

And now, the very ugly.......

I decided to cut through a neighborhood on the way home to avoid all the lights and a major intersection. Halfway through I went around a tight cure. But I didn't make it.....

As I started the curve, the car just slid forward. It was sheer ice, The anti-lock brakes didn't do a thing to stop me. It was like slow motion as I slid right across the road and head-on into a light post. I was only going about 15 mph, and just bumped the post. The airbags didn't even deploy. I backed up, got out to find my new KIA with a crunched front end. Now back when I had my '61' Ford Galaxie, I wouldn't of even had a scratch, but 50 years later, these cars don't even have bumpers. It's all just molded plastic, which in my case, split right open.

So after 40 years of driving, my first accident. I suppose I should be happy I didn't hit another car, or that I didn't get hurt, But I felt terrible!

And no, I didn't take a picture of it. It's in the garage where I can't see it. And it'll stay there until we take it in next Monday for an estimate and repair.
They say, no good deed goes unpunished. Well, they're right.