August 2013

So today we made our way up the Fox River Valley to the next stop of our vacation, and that is the EAA AirVenture going on in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This is the second time that I have been to Oshkosh for this event; my first visit was in 1984, just after my 16th birthday, with Grandpa Country and my dad. I'll probably write more about that connection tomorrow.

Staying true to our plan, we tried to take the non-freeway route as much as possible while keeping the adventure to a reasonable timeframe. Our first stop was at Starbucks in Crystal Lake, Ill. for a little caffeine jolt in the way of the unsweetened, shaken iced green tea that we are fond of. From there, we crossed into America's Dairyland and found ourselves in Milwaukee.

I have to admit that I watched for the "Welcome Milwaukee Visitors" sign on the tower that one would see during the beginning credits of Laverne and Shirley, but we never found it. While I navigated city streets, Earl Yelped our way to Lulu's Cafe in the Bayview area of the city. The atmosphere was right up our alley with the high ceilings and the exposed brick walls in this repurposed building along a fairly busy street in the area. With Lulu's Cafe we added the "avoid chain restaurants" option to the vacation. Let's see how long that holds.

Though AirVenture is taking place in Oshkosh, we are staying in nearby Appleton, Wis. until Monday, and to get there, we decided to go around the opposite side of Lake Winnebago. It was a pretty drive that was reminiscent of the Finger Lakes in Upstate New York.

Once we were beyond the drama of our hotel reservation (see the blog entry entitled Travelocity — grrrrrr in a bad way), we drove down to Oshkosh to see where we had to be tomorrow morning and then to enjoy the downtown area which had a fairly artsy vibe going on. There was a lot of music in the area and quite a few people enjoying the various taverns and the like.

Reacquainted with Oshkosh, we headed back to Appleton, where we decided to try the local theatre chain and saw "The Way Way Back" (highly recommended).

Overall the trip has been a smashing success and we are just getting started. I am definitely feeling relaxed.

#share

So we pulled into the Hilton Garden Inn in Appleton/Kimberly, Wisconsin, excited about this next part of our adventure. My partner gave his last name at the front desk, the customary way of checking in for the night.

No reservation.

I gave my last name, remembering I had booked the reservation through Travelocity. One of the things about this particular reservation is that I had snagged one of the last one or two rooms in the area due to the EAA AirVenture (http://www.airventure.org/) currently taking place in nearby Oshkosh (the reason we're in town here).

No reservation.

And they were completely sold out.

Using the Travelocity email that was provided to me when I booked the room back in April, I showed the front desk clerk my reservation number, which apparently did not have enough digits nor did it even resemble anything that they had ever seen before.  The fact that "Your credit card has been charged" was emblazoned across the bottom of this reservation escaped no one's notice.

The hotel clerk was very apologetic and if you're ever in the area looking for a hotel, I can vouch that Amanda at the Hilton Garden Inn is very friendly and professional, even when dealing with Travelocity on a customer's behalf.  They arranged the refund to our credit card for us and even checked into the nearby Hampton Inn to see if there was a room available.

We snagged the last room. It's a room with one double bed but they're providing a cot (we're big boys) so all is good.

However, Travelocity has been a complete fail.  Not knowing that the clerk at Hilton Garden Inn had arranged for our refund (we were driving across the city trying to get this last room at the Hampton Inn), we were on hold for over 25 minutes listening to really bad hold music and a woman with a Brooklyn accent letting us know that someone "will assist ya soon" ever 15 seconds. When I finally reached the customer service representative, he made the mistake of asking how I was doing today.

"I am aggravated."  I think he was taken aback by my response. I was just being honest.  That's the first time I actually answered how I was really feeling. It felt good.

I have to wonder how many people have traveled the world on reservations through Travelocity and had to deal with this sort of thing. Is this some sort of freak accident or is this something that happens regularly for Travelocity customers?

I can say with no trace of humor or uncertainty in my voice that this is the last time that we're using Travelocity.  The Hilton Companies have gone above and beyond for us today and there's a reason that we maintain a loyalty to their brand (my husband is a Diamond Club member due to all the travel he does for work).  

From now on I'm sticking to reservations that I know are real and leaving the middle man out. It's not worth the aggravation.

#share  

One of the things I love about travel is trying things that we can't do around home, even if what we're doing would seem mundane to most.

We are currently sitting in a Starbucks in Crystal Lake, Illinois. We are en route to Oshkosh, Wisconsin and are taking the back roads to get there. We are becoming well acquainted with Illinois Route 31.

Our little nook in Upstate New York lacks Starbucks. Many find this hard to believe. We are surrounded by dozens of Dunkin' Donuts franchises, and there's nothing inherently wrong with DD, but their stores lack a certain warmth and "technology comfort" that one finds in Starbucks. Plus, DD doesn't serve a Trenta unsweetened, shaken green tea. This is one of my favorite, fairly guiltless drinks. There are two ways for us to enjoy Starbucks at home: drive 50+ miles to the nearest location or to illegally sneak through the backside of one of the nearby New York State Thruway service areas and pay exorbitantly high prices for the aforementioned green tea. Plus, the service area franchisees don't believe in attaching scanners to their point of sale systems, so the clerk needs to manhandle my phone and manually input my Starbucks account number, whereas at a real Starbucks it's just a quick scan and we're on our way.

Sometimes it's the simple things that make a vacation a little extra special. And right now, it's sitting at a table in a real Starbucks, drinking a green tea that's getting this day off to a good start.

#share

So the Great Jeep Tour 2013 continued this morning. The task of the day was to secure an apartment in Chicago for Jamie, who is headed to college later this month. He will be attending the School of the Art Institute Chicago as a photography major.  He is a talented man (see jmmoorephotography.com).

Google Maps (and the mildly schizophrenic Apple Maps) both agreed that it would take a little over four hours to make the drive to our destination.  We left shortly after 9:00 a.m., which would have given us plenty of time to get to our 3:00 p.m. appointment, especially since we were traveling from the Eastern time zone to the Central time zone, which bought us an additional hour.

Four hours and some change. Piece of cake, right?

Not when traffic is backed up on the Indiana Toll Road. Not once, not twice, but three times.

We lucked out on the third traffic backup because we ended up stopping right before one of the South Bend interchanges.  A quick consult of the map and before we knew it we were in Michigan, trying to make our way to Interstate 94 via US Route 12.

Except the trucks that were apparently using the same mapping software thought to do the same and were chugging their way through the back roads just like we were. By chugging I mean they were moving no faster than 40 MPH.

We finally made our way onto Interstate 94 and as soon as we crossed back into Indiana, we hit traffic again.

The idea of four hours and some change was now just a memory and Earl was making a call to the apartment guy to let him know we were running late.  He understood.

Interstates 90 and 94 through Chicago were at a standstill, as to be expected, but so was Interstate 55 and Lake Shore Blvd.

So we spent most of the day looking at the taillights of whoever was in front of us.

We finally got to our appointment seven hours and 10 minutes later. The deal was signed in less than an hour and we were on the road again. 

Apparently more traffic was trying to get into Chicago versus the likes of us trying to leave, so we only hit a few snags on Interstate 90 as we headed west out of the city. I did manage to snag a photo of an American flight coming into O'Hare as we sat in traffic near the Des Plaines Oasis. 

By the time we arrived to visit family in St. Charles we were in the mood for the excellent home cooking and conversation. So the day of frustration ended on a high note.

A couple of things I noticed along the trip today:

1. only about 1/2 the men in a toll road service plaza wash their hands after using a stall with a door in the rest room. I'm not sure I like this trend.

2. There are a LOT of angry lyrics in some of the music that is blasted out of windows in a traffic jam. 

3. There are a LOT of loose license plates frames rattling to the angry music that is blasted out of windows in a traffic jam.

4.  FitBit does not count the number of times you step on a clutch in a Chicago traffic jam.

5.  I'm a country boy through and through and damn proud of it. I may be able to adapt to city living but my heart will always be in the farm land in the middle of an open field.

#share  

So today my husband and I started our big summer Jeep tour. For the next 10 days we will be on (and probably off) the road in our 2011 Jeep Rubicon, exploring the midwest.

Our first target destination is Chicago, Illinois to take care of some family business. Since we both had to work a half day this morning, we were on the road by 2:00 p.m. and slowly headed west through the Finger Lakes of Upstate New York and then across the Southern Tier. Now, as of 11:30 p.m., we have settled in for the night in along the Ohio Turnpike in Fremont, Ohio. This will make for a short drive to the Windy City tomorrow.

I wish the Interstate system was more interesting but I'm looking forward to doing some exploring in the very near future.

This post was originally written in Google+. If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. Wicked cool. #share