It's summer vacation time! Our first trip is off to WV and to see the Riches. Matt and Sarah, along with Will and Sam will be arriving from NC, and Debbie and Jeff Higgs and their two kids Matt and Andrew will be there from Pittsburg. But on the way, only an hour out of Madison, our car broke down in stop-and-go traffic in Chicago. We pulled into the nearest Oasis to discover green liquid leaking out the front and bubbling antifreeze. A quick call to AAA, and we had ourselves a tow to a local mechanic. It turned out we needed radiator and motor fan, serious operations that would take all day.

So to bide our time, we played some games we'd brought for the whole family. We set up shop at the Comfort Inn across the street, taking over a table in the lobby, and began exploring the french countryside with Carcassone. We also pulled out Gene Pool, a game I'm currently working on, and whiled away some more time creating mutant genes.

We could not survive on games alone, so we had a bite to eat at Tiffany's Restaurant, where they seated us at the same table for both lunch and dinner. After 7 hours, we finally were able to get back on the road again. With most of our day spent, we only made it to outside of Cincinatti that night, finding a nice Comfort Inn to sleep and head out again the next morning.