The Bunker

Monday night, our car broke down on our way home from the grocery store. Steve had been telling me earlier that he thought the car was running rough, but we have a bad wheel bearing anyway and I didn't think it sounded any worse than the last time I drove it. Luckily, we were only a block from our apartment and I have 2 VW mechanics in my family.


Talked to my brother and he told us how to check the timing belt to see if it's broken. We were quickly able to confirm that it was. I had the car towed to dad's garage. He had our car on the road the next day, but in Freeport, MI.

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Yesterday, we took the train to Battle Creek. This is the platform at the A2 train station. I don't want to be too optimistic, but there are railroad related construction materials about, there are stairs from the Broadway bridge to the other side of the tracks, and if there were another set of tracks, it would look just like the 60th Street MAX station in Portland, Oregon.




Riding the train is much cheaper than I thought it would be. 2 tickets to Battle Creek from Ann Arbor was $28. From the train, you can see the oldest parts of many small towns in Southern Michigan; Dexter, Chelsea, Marshall, Albion, Jackson, and Battle Creek. Blurry, but this is historic Albion.


All along the tracks lie huge feilds filled with Purple Loosestrife, an invasive species from Europe nicknamed "Purple Death". Projects to release loosestrife eating beetles are underway in some parts of the state.


Mom and Dad DesJardin were nice enough to take us from the train station in Battle Creek to the VW dealership in Freeport.