Yesterday’s marathon journey was interrupted by traffic stops for replenishing groceries, getting lost in gigantic Walmarts looking for odds and ends related to camping (e.g. electricity converter, kneepad for work with hose connections under the belly). Then crawling through a major car accident outside Cleveland and a rush hour thunderstorm in Toledo, and finally a 4 hour home stretch racing through fair weather at the 70 MPH speed limit, across Chicago for a wonderful midnight reception with an Order of Saint Lazarus confrere and his wonderful family in Algonquin, a suburb 80 km north of the city.
Sylvie inspects this morning’s sun with my OSLJ confrère Col. Ross, DDS.
This morning we departed with excellent directions from our hosts to get ourselves onto the Interstate Freeway through Illinois into Iowa and beyond into the midwestern states, and we promptly entered the westbound lanes, only to find ourselves an hour later in Madison, Wisconsin of Meryl Streep-Clint Eastwood “Bridges” fame. Yeah, that Madison County. Very romantic.
Which meant another hour’s drive southwest to get back on track followed by loss of cellphone service. Our Canadian provider plugs us into AT&T, which, as it turns out, is mostly blacked out in western Wisconsin. (Reminder to self: Get Verizon next time in Wisconsin).
Which resulted in the following SNAFU which speaks for itself; E-mail received after I hung up on an irate host!
De: Alec Cooper
Date: 18 août 2017 à 22:09:35
Objet: Re : Reservation Cancellation
À: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dear “xxxxxxx RV Park”,
Le 18/08/17 à 19:57, xxxxxxxxxx <xxxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com> a écrit :
Your reservation for tonight has been cancelled; Thanks for letting us know at 6:30 pm, not having your same valid credit card and hanging up on me when you knew we were going to charge you for one night ($35.00) I tried to call you back with no response. We will let our other campgrounds in Nebraska know about your lack of character. DON’T EVER CONTACT US AGAIN FOR A RESERVATION, YOU ARE NOT WELCOME.
xxxxx RV Park
North Platte, NE
There have been locals on facebook pages who are (understandably) apprehensive about hoards of aliens arriving to upset their clean and orderly country life for a 2 minute eclipse… but I am confident in dealings I have heretofore enjoyed with the local landowner family who are renting us some prime eclipse viewing land for the day.
Anyway, as far as today goes, we ended up packing it all in at 19h30 in Rock Island, Illinois. We’re going to give it another try in the morning. Finally booked us online at Comfort Inn, North Platte tomorrow night before the short drive into the zone of totality to set up my porta-privy observatory on Monday. Sylvie deserves that!