So I'm watching Iowa crush Purdue in basketball. At the end of the game Iowa will be 8-6 in the Big 10 and Pete will officially have won our bet. Oh well.
So Betsy has committed me to a 'blog entry on their visit last weekend, here it is.
They came in on the train, scheduled to arrive at 10:30pm but the train was an hour late. I left the house at 11:30 to pick them up. The temperature was about 6°f.
After I had driven about 3 miles on the highway my car conked out. Fortunately I had a flashlight with me. I could see that there was a bunch of air in the fuel line which is transparent (clever German engineering) after a few minutes of messing around I managed to get it going again and decided to see if I could get to the train station.
I could not. Another 3-4 miles was all I could manage. I got it started again and pulled off at the first exit hoping to find a gas station. The car died again so I got out and walked until I found a pay phone. I called Sandy (sleeping) and didn't get an answer, then called Betsy. They hadn't arrived yet so I had a little time. I ran back to the car and tried to push it to the gas station, that proved to be especially difficult so I tried to start it again and got it to go long enough to get me to the gas station.
I filled it up hoping that I either was out of fuel or that the cold had jelled what little fuel I had and that warmer fuel from the pump would help. Not the case.
I pushed the car into a parking spot and called Betsy back. They were at the station now and waiting. I called Sandy again and asked her to come pick us all up which she did.
Betsy, Pete and Henry were about to be evicted from the train station when we arrived. I think it was about 1:30 or so when we finally got back to the house. Henry was quite cheerful for such a late night.
We all went straight to bed but I lay awake for quite a while thinking about what might be wrong with my car. I decided it was probably a crapped up fuel filter.
The next morning Pete and I drove Sandy to work and then went to work on my car. I put in a new fuel filter which I carry in case all the biodiesel gunks it up (which may be what happened even though I don't use it in the winter). But then the battery died before we could get all the air purged out of the fuel system. So we had to drive home to get the jumper cables. Eventually we got the thing going and drove it back to the house. By this time it was 11am so we showered and went to the 50's grill for some lunch. Henry and I both had hot turkey sandwiches. His was off the kid's menu but appeared to be the same quantity of food as mine and it included a glass of milk all for a dollar less than mine cost. I may order off the kid's menu next time I go there.
We went back home and played trains for a little bit.

That afternoon Pete and I went and got stuff to make beer and Betsy and I went to the grocery store and picked up Sandy from work. We had chicken for dinner and pretty much went straight to bed because we were all so tired.
The next morning Pete and I made beer and then watched the Iowa MSU game. Sandy and Betsy went to the Yarn Cafe and knitted. We had delusions of watching a movie that night but again we were tired and Henry wouldn't go to bed without Pete or Betsy.
Sunday morning Betsy, Pete and Henry had to go back to the train station for the trip home.

We took several pictures outside the station with the train in the background and for some reason in every one Henry has his tongue sticking out. In this particular picture it looks like he's sticking it out at me, but really it was just out all the time and he happened to be pointed at me when I clicked this shot.
Here's the last picture before they boarded the train:

After they got on the train I drove East a couple of miles and staked out a spot along the tracks and waited for them to come by. I thought Henry would like a picture in which you can actually see the train they were on.