Nothing But Driving

Thursday, May 10, 2018

"Are we there yet?"

Today was the only day when I really felt pressure to be someplace by a particular time. Today was our last leg of the drive to Madison, and we had a rental car waiting for us. They closed by 5:30, and I did not want to be too late to pick the car up. However, it is clear to me that we are no longer the “get up and drive within an hour” people. For one thing, I slept very late--until a little after 8:00! Also, we wanted to take showers, we needed to dump our holding tanks, and we had a couple of other small things to attend to. Including climbing up to check on the roof-- last night we had heavy rain and thunderstorms, and we heard a loud THUMP on the roof. That, at least, was a fast fix-- I climbed up the ladder with no problem (pretty good for an old lady!) and Joe handed me up a broom to knock down a 6“ piece of branch which had caused the noise we’d heard.

As all these things were going on, I was obsessing about what route we should take. There is a particularly awful stretch of I-80 which runs from Gary, Indiana to south of Chicago. Last year we’d ended up on this route (for the 2nd or 3rd time) and I swore we would NOT go there again--it is packed with trucks, there is a lot of merging of other roads, and there is always congestion for one reason or another. I spent a lot of time debating with myself and with Google Maps, but I was also worried about time, and Google insisted the fastest way included that segment of highway, even though by the time we got close, there was a 20 minute delay there due to an accident.

Just before we left the campground, though, I made the happy realization that we would gain an hour! As a result, we were JUST about on time when we left.

View of Lake Mendota and Park

The drive was uneventful (for which after Tuesday, of course, we are grateful.) But we DID end up on the dreaded Route 80 anyway. And as predicted, it was awful. We were extremely happy to leave it behind at sometime around 2:30 pm, and head north on I-90 (which in Illinois is a toll road) toward Wisconsin. We arrived at the car rental at 4:30 pm, and it was quite convenient--we were able to park the RV at the curb on the street outside the Hertz place, while I went in to pick up the car. It is one of those new keyless wonders-- press a button and it works! Not my usual style! Then I drove to the campground with Joey following behind in the camper. We both set our phones to the same map, to make sure that we were in sync with each other. It went very smoothly.

We’re now ensconced at Mendota County Park, which is right on Lake Mendota in Middletown, which I guess is sort of a suburb of Madison. The lake is beautiful, with places to dock boats, swim, etc.  The campground is small and just off a main road, but it is surprisingly quiet anyway, and very convenient for our purposes. It’s about half-full at the moment, and I overheard someone saying that they were here for their granddaughter’s graduation Saturday, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the main draw at the moment. It’s certainly not the weather-- although yesterday was a deliciously cool spring day, the rain started last night and we are in for rain showers on and off more or less constantly for the next two days. And it’s COLD-- only in the 40s! But we are snug in the RV, with our furnace running last night, and we are not worried about it except insofar as we will be bundling up for graduation tomorrow.

Campsite and Rental Car

After we got here, we connected with Natan, “our” graduate, and his fiancee Ruby. We made plans to meet them for dinner, and then drove to meet them at Cafe Hollander. Driving through Madison was very easy, and we had no trouble finding our way. Dinner was fun, we enjoyed spending time with the kids before things got so hectic. Then we came back home. By this time, Joe was in significant need to just rest (he drove all day, refusing to let me help.)

So we are perfectly happy that most of Friday we will just hunker down at “home”, reading, napping, and waiting for the graduation festivities to begin. I had thought that perhaps we’d go sightseeing a bit in Madison and/or the campus, but I would rather have Joe resting up so that he is more comfortable on Saturday, when we have the big commencement ceremonies and then Natan’s commissioning ceremony in the evening. And anyway, who wants to walk around and sightsee in the rain and cold? We will be happy with some down time. Monday is supposed to be beautiful again--we can always spend an extra day here if we are so inclined by then, and see more of the area before we leave.