Last week, while Daughter Number One was visiting, her car needed to get the oil change. She made an appointment with the dealership, and she and I showed up there at the appointed hour. They told her that, not only were they not ready for her, but that she should expect a wait of at least an hour and a half before her car would be ready.
We decided we would rather go for a stroll than wait at the dealership, and headed out into the drizzle. Jackson Road, home to most of Ann Arbor’s car dealerships, is not known for being scenic. We turned down the first long commercial driveway we came to, and saw something that lifted my spirits considerably: the grass was green.
We had more rain during D#1’s visit than we’d had in weeks. Our corner of green and abundant Michigan had become increasingly brown as the drought continued. Now the rightful order of things was being restored. By the time our daughter returned to her home state, this area looked like part of Michigan again.
We also saw an oversized dump truck drive by, one with a fancy custom paint job. A few minutes later, a resounding crash stopped us in our tracks. It turned out to be the sound of that fancy truck purposely banging the dump bed on the ground to dislodge the last of its load. What Google identifies as the hydraulic cylinder—the part that lifts the bed for dumping—was fully extended and a marvel to behold.
We wandered back out to Jackson Road and found we were next door to a strip mall. We walked along it and stopped in at a vacuum cleaner store. For the past several years, I’ve been looking to replace our vacuum cleaner. It works perfectly well, but it’s become too heavy for us. And guess what? It turns out there exists a light-weight vacuum that self-propels. It doesn’t do any other tricks or have attachments, but the self-propulsion in awesome. That vacuum now lives at our house.
Further down the strip mall, we came to Planet Rock, a climbing gym. Neither of us had ever seen one, so we went in. We were welcomed and told that, certainly, we could go watch climbers in action, but we’d have to fill out waivers to enter that part of the facility. D#1 completed hers on her phone, which auto-fills, but it still took a long time.
We asked if we’d be able to see anything if we just looked through the glass doors, and the man at the counter said that would be fine. On our way to the doors, we noticed an internal window in the wall that separates the entry area from a free-climbing area, and stopped there first. It didn’t look quite like what we’d expected, in that the people on the wall were using ladders.
We were engaged in animated conversation on the matter, when the man from the counter joined us at the window. “They’re in there setting new routes,” he told us, “moving the blocks on the wall to give climbers new challenges.” He said the woman was particularly good at doing this, and at testing the work. “When she’s finished, the new routes will be interesting and safe.”
Then he said, “Do you know what? I’m the assistant manager, and you can go into the facility without a waiver if you’re with me. My name is Will. C’mon, I’ll give you a tour.”
He showed us an extensive facility that goes deep into the site, with the various areas dedicated to different types of climbing and levels of skill. The facility also goes deep into the ground. “We couldn’t get planning permission to build upward,” Will explained, “so we went down, well below the water table. We have fifteen sump pumps going all the time.”
When you get to that area, it’s as if you suddenly find yourself partway up a mountain: there’s a lot of mountain below you. You expect hawks and eagles to come flying past, below eye level.
We saw a climber using auto-belay, a system that catches you if you fall when you’re climbing on your own. We also saw climbers using partners to belay them.
Will also told us that climbing teaches humility. He said there are two staffers whose skill level he rates as excellent. He himself has been climbing for about fifteen years and considers himself decent. “But,” he added, “there are twelve-year-old girls who can smoke me.”
Thanks, Will. The tour was fascinating. Best time ever spent waiting for an oil change.
25 September 2026