Just a Few More Hours ...

Heidi and Lee are all packed and ready to go -- as, we're certain, are all the others set to join us tomorrow in Detroit (arriving from Cleveland, Chicago, Cincinnati and Boston mid-morning for our mid-afternoon departure) as we begin our two week journey.

The Hartts and the Coates have already flown on ahead to Osaka and are awaiting our arrival on the other side of the international dateline. The Boddes will be winging their way in from Germany; the Brights, from Seattle.

the gathering of the RAKAN begins ...

Let the good times roll!

And how does one spend the week before embarking on such a much-anticipated excursion? Well, we can't speak for everyone, but Heidi and Lee took off (via the Megabus) last weekend for four days in Chicago where we visited the Lonergans in Oak Park, motored on down to Champaign to surprise Julia on her birthday, then returned to the Windy City to spend a night with Evan and Oliver (while Sarah flew out to Cleveland to be with her parents when her father underwent a -- successful -- heart catheritization proceedure).

Whew!

Not only that but, back in Cleveland, the two managed as well to take in a Thursday performance of Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" at the Great Lakes Theater Festival, a Friday late afternoon showing of "Across the Universe" (truly a wonderful film!), two of the Cleveland Indian' play-off games and "Mostly Martha" (a gem of a German film)!

This may well prove to be a quite relaxing trip in comparison ...