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On Angels and Messengers

Thursday, October 1, 2020

DAY 3 -- Long and Bumpy

Mama said there'd be days like this...it's a long story.

The day started well. You may recall from last year that I often go out of my way to visit places that have interesting names. Well, I did that this morning. I went to Lake Nettle (sic) in northern Ohio near the Michigan line. The general store there is called "Nettie's Stop & Shop.


 I bought a $5 jar of peanut butter
and a bunch of old wooden fishing lures for $1.50 each. They'll likely sell on eBay for $10 to $20 each. I learned that Nettie was the legendary lake monster, based in fact on an extraordinarily  large snapping turtle that reportedly was big enough for one entire family to stand on his back for a photograph. (I did not see the photograph.) Incidentally, I recently hooked the big snapping turtle of my own Autumn Lake. Fortunately, he got away.)

I drove across the Michigan line, because I could, and (back in Ohio) I stumbled upon some 2000-year-old mounds, built by Native Americans, Hopewell Indians, because (like now) there's not much else to do in what would become Ohio.  I had now driven across virtually the entire state, east to west. Contrary to popular belief, it is not high in the middle. The mounds were round, but not more than 3-feet high. Perhaps they wer trying to spell out" OHIO" for the landing craft, but (being illiterate) could only manage "OOOO".

I tried to avoid the Ohio Turnpike because of the tolls and the fact that the big trucks drive faster than I do in my trailer which is blowing around in the wind. The GPS on my phone had other ideas and kept trying to put me back on the highway to save me 22 minutes. Somewhere along the way, computers took control, when we were dozing. It got me on the highway, where I have to drive under the speed limit, anyway, with the hope of staying in my own lane, when being passed by tandem trailer trucks.  So it didn't save me 22  minutes -- and it cost me $13.70. OOOO!

But wait.. there's more...

When it started to rain, my windshield got real streaky and I misjudged the entrance ramp to the highway. The GPS bitch "turn left" but failed to mention that the entrance ramp was also an exit ramp with no dividing median.  So I turned directly into the path of a state police car getting off the highway. Needless to say, the trooper pulled me over, looked at me with a puzzled expression, asked a few be questions, and decided I was mostly harmless. So he did not ask to see my license. I was driving very much like an old lady, really pokey. He just kind of laughed it off and wished me a safe cross-country journey. If I had said "Did I do something wrong, officer?" , it might have been different.  Then my troubles began.

I stopped at a rest area and took a nap so I would not have to drive through Chicago during rush hour. It was 9:00pm when I went through the Hog Butcher of the World. I feel like I got mugged without ever getting out of my car -- toll after toll  -- one of which cost  $19.60, because I had three axles. Two axles would have cost only $5.70. New Math -- go figure. I think the toll collector was Mayor Lori Lightfoot, herself. 


 Traversing the
 city was a thrilling ride on a deteriorating roadbed. I get about 10 mpg and was nearly out of gas. 



Do you remember the scene in National Lampoon's Vacation when Chevy Chase exited this same Chicago highway in an RV to ask directions in the ghetto? I do, too, so I stayed on the highway, running on fumes.  Eventually, I stopped safely in the breakdown lane and dumped a gallon of my generator gas into the tank of the Jeep. When I emerged on the west side of the city, I found a safe gas station, but my two phones were dead so I had no idea where I was going. I discovered that I had lost the front wheel of my bicycle on the bumpy highway. Imagine the reaction of drivers of the cars behind me-- OOOO! The latch on the screen door of my RV got broken. I got locked inside the trailer at the gas station.

I had hoped to make it to Vinnie Ha Ha, Wisconsin (truly) but, ha ha, the joke was on me. So I am now camped at a Walmart in Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Yes... there'd be days like this, my mama said.


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