Leaving Camelot

The Last Supper in Ann Arbor was actually a roadtrip brunch. After we closed the door at Packard Street the rental car pulled up at the curvaceous silver caravan in the Zingerman's Roadhouse carpark for some cold-brewed espresso and a paper bag of warm doughnuts: crunchy and dark, encrusted with sugar, and with a hint of spice and citrus. Devoured on I-94 before I could scramble up the camera to commemorate the moment.

The iPod seemed to sense the mood and dialed up some tracks suited to the melancholic drive away from the place we had made our home for nine months: Paul Weller's Sunflower ("I miss you so"); Powderfinger's These Days ("It's coming 'round again, slowly creeping in, time and its demands"); Sia's Breathe Me ("Be my friend, hold me, wrap me up"); Death Cab's Transatlanticism ("I need you so much closer").

We broke the drive at Chicago's Navy Pier for squishy-soft hotdogs and some bracing breezes off Lake Michigan.


Our last meal in the US was dinner at the O'Hare Wolfgang Puck outlet, where I had a surprisingly tasty butternut pumpkin soup with a typically American salad of caramelised pecans, blue cheese, apple wedges and spinach leaves.