We decided to get an early start on our next segment of our trip, leaving on Christmas day at around 1:00pm. We went to the Christmas vigil Mass on Saturday and had brunch Christmas morning at our granddaughter #2's new apartment (the first time any guests have eaten a meal there). We were pretty well done by noon and since our son had to go in and check on how his three restaurants in Houston were doing, granddaughter #3 had to go to work (she a bartender), granddaughter #2 and her boyfriend had to go to his parent's house and granddaughter #4 went out with friends, so we decided to start back early. We stopped for the night in Marshall, Texas.
Now the biggest problem with traveling on Christmas day was that nothing was open. When we stopped on Sunday night, the only place to eat that was open in town was the 'Waffle House'. It turned out not to be that bad even though the service was slow (being the only place open, they were slammed).
Monday night we made it as far as Mount Vernon, IL. The last hour and half was a mix of rain and snow but we got to our hotel okay before it started to freeze.
At least the hotel had a restaurant so we didn't need to go out again.
We had no problems yesterday driving up from Illinois to Michigan. Despite the freezing rain/snow mix the night before, when we got ready to leave there was no ice on the car nor on the streets. We did sleep in a bit and after having breakfast, we finally hit the road just a bit before 9:00am. The drive was smooth with no traffic or road condition problems just really cold conditions. We finally got to our original destination, my wife's sister's house, just as it was getting dark. We were only four days late 
As for statistics, at our 'half-way point', we've driven 3156.1 miles (of course, this number is greater than it would have been if we hadn't been diverted to Texas) and have averaged 30.5 MPG. Our average speed was 61.8 MPH. As for gas prices, except for what it cost to fill-up before we left California, the most expensive gas was in Kingman, AZ where is was $3.499. The cheapest was $2.359 at a COSTCO in Katy, TX. The last fill-up was in Terra Haute, IN where we paid $2.669. Note that all prices was for regular (86/87 octane).
OCU
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