DELAY

Hello there, sorry its been so long. We are in (mostly) the new apartment now. We are not sleeping there yet, but are there all day and there is not internet yet and I WOULD use my phone to post, BUT I dropped it and shattered the screen. :( POOP!

Were going to get a new phone for me one of these days...

We get internet Monday. Then you may get a blast of posts all at once when I can actually use my laptop.

Thank you for your patience... 

Day 11 / Virginia DAY ONE

We got to our reserved hotel last night at 11pm. La Quinta, Midlothian.

We tried to park, but were surprised we couldn't find a handicap spot in the parking lot at all. We drove far enough away to have room for our ramp for Michael to get out of the car.
As we walked up to the front "grand" entrance there was not a ramp for a wheelchair on the entire front. I quickly go inside and ask where the ramp for a wheelchair is, the reply I got was, "Ramp? Oh, I think there's one near the back." The back, where the smokers go, by the service entrance, not lighted, classy...

Michael goes all the way around the building, without a ramp onto the sidewalk he goes through the parking lot. He finds the ramp and gets in. We get to the desk and try to check into our handicap accessible room; we are informed that they don't have one. OK. So what's the point of reserving?

"There is one room here that is what you want but someone has it reserved for tomorrow night." I didn't see the connection. We are staying for 4 nights. If the first night and the third and fourth night are available in the handicap room can't we just switch rooms for the second night? "No. We never allow room switches." Says the Desk Minion.
Michael asked in a different, more diplomatic way which gets the Minion to call management. She comes back happily with this reply, "Yes, the Handicap room is available all of the other three nights of your stay but is booked tomorrow night."
Ummmmm that wasn't ever being disputed, we wanted to know if we could switch rooms? "No. We never allow room switches."

I was VERY tired after such a long day and was cranky enough I knew I should just keep my mouth shut! What I WANTED to do was slap the Desk Minion. But Michael was calm, polite, and gracious as he always is in such situations, and as I am always so unable to be. (He completes me lol)

So, fine, we will take a King deluxe room. "It should be ok for him" the Desk Minion says to me completely ignoring Michael even though he is the one speaking to her, the one with the credit card, and the one who's name is on the reservation. OY vey!
So we take the "deluxe king" thinking it would be big enough for Michael's chair to get in.

I go out to move the van into the back (which faces, didn't I tell you, the local Hooters) which is near the only handicap ramp, and there are two handicap spots. NEITHER is van accessible. The hotel basically took two regular spots and painted the lines blue. So no room for our van's ramp. Now we have to park far away on the SCARY side of the hotel to have room.

Michael goes up to the room while I take Penny for a quick stretch. He comes down, huge grin on his face. It's the kind of grin you get when things are either VERY good or VERY bad. As it was midnight after a LONG day I knew it wasn't the good kind.
"This isn't going to work" he says.
The hotel hallway stinks of marajuanna. There was a loud drunken wedding party roaming about. The actual room was to narrow for Michael to enter the door or to turn around if he HAD gotten in. It was creepy, scary movie creepy.

I get on the phone to try and find another hotel while Michael goes inside to get his money back.

I call the Hampton Inn we stayed at last time. They are about 15-20 minutes from our apartment BUT are very good. Clean, cosy, amazing front office staff. Just a good vibe there. They have the EXACT room we had last time available for not only that night but for the next several nights. It is PERFECT.

Michael comes out of the hotel with a very different expression. There had been a new minion at the front desk; a cranky "I hate my job and I hate you" kind of minion. He not only argues with Michael, but refuses to give him his money back. Telling him that since he was offered the other room (the "deluxe") that should suffice for them not having our handicap room. He was rude, unkind, and told Michael "I'm sorry sir, this isn't my problem."
When Michael asked about the number of handicap rooms at the hotel the Minion replies, "exactly what the law says we HAVE to have, Sir, two."
I have to admit, before I married Michael I had never before asked for or stayed in a handicap accessible room, but since we've been married I've stayed in over 30 different hotel rooms that have been accessible, from Wisconsin, Ohio, Hawaii, Florida, California, and this ENTIRE ROAD TRIP. We have always been able to find a room that has what we need and never have had to leave or change rooms EVER. So for this Desk Minion to say such a thing was fairly ludicrous. He refused to credit Michael his money back and only did so when we threatened to stop payment through the bank.

It's about 12:30 now. We drive over to Hampton Inn. Are warmly welcomed by their night desk clerk, Nicole. Who even offers to help us unload the car and bring things in for us. We love our Hampton Inn ;-)
Sleep now. Must...



Sent from Kylie Clapper

Day 10

We left Ohio today. It's the Sunday of memorial weekend and knowing what kind of traffic DC normally has we have decided to push through and go alllllllll the way to Midlothian today. It should take about 10 hours of driving. No problem right?
Can anyone say DOUBLE SHOT!

Pack Mule Mike

In case you were wondering how we get all our things into the room each night :)

Heeaww Mule!


So far we have hit 13 states,
driven over 3,000 miles,
 been to three dog parks,
 been through two thunderstorms,
listened to one political thriller book (which did NOT have a satisfactory ending, no matter WHAT Michael says...),
one speeding ticket,
and MANY good laughs.

We are staying with Michaels family in Ohio for three days to visit and rest (and do laundry.)

Its awesome! After my nap today I feel like I could go for another 9 days easy. Its a weird feeling, being excited to keep going, but knowing that when we get "there" we have to start over. We have to unpack, paint, get furniture, (we have NONE, not even a lawn chair) so we shall see how we feel after these three days and even more good family goodbyes. 

Day Nine

Today was fun. We hopped over and got gas and coffee in Michigan.
























Then we drove to BGSU (Bowling Green State University) I have always wanted to see it in person. My junior year I had two roommates from there and Michaels parents also both went there. ALSO The famous figure skater, and my personal favorite, Scott Hamilton went there.  I have been hearing about BG for years :) Today was the BIG DAY I finally got to see it for my self.

The school seal is off the main quad in a wooded area beautifully landscaped. The legend is that if you kiss your sweetheart at the seal you will "Seal the Deal" and be together forever. In 1970 Michaels parents stood at the seal and kissed, this year is their 40th wedding anniversary. When Michael was a little boy his mom showed him the seal and told him that one day he could kiss his sweetheart there too. Today we did. 

This is where Michael's dad asked his mom to marry him on campus at BGSU. Still there :) though now it is a bank not a Dairy Queen, which moved next door. 

Day Eight

 Woke up early, Penny let us sleep, so we slept in till 9am. It was great! then we left grabbed a Starbucks and headed to Chicago. Today we got to drive over the Mississippi River. I totally thought of Tom Sawyer.

The Mississippi River

We get about a half hour from the city and still couldn't find a hotel room. (with a roll-in- shower and good location for Penny) We decide not to stay the night and just to take a tour through the city. As we approached the city we got on goggle maps and saw this.

Traffic upon Traffic upon Construction

so we decided to keep going and head to South Bend Indiana thats where Notre Dame College is. We got to drive around the campus and it is beautiful!

After checking into the hotel we went to dinner, we actually got to sit down at a table! 

We walked the pup and got in the room and it started raining, then lightning and THUNDERING. Penny has no problem with these things, but I, being from California, where we never get these kind of huge thunder storms I'm not used to them. Last time we were in Ohio our hotel got struck by lightning and fried the electrical system in the room. So tonight I am hoping the storm passes quickly. BUT as the Weather Chanel says, watch for flash flooding and thunder storms with heavy cells till morning commute. I hope we (I mean I) can sleep. It's so strong it shakes the building.   

Day Seven

We had planned to go to Des Moines to stay tonight, but we made such good time and were feeling so good we pushed ahead 2 more hours and made it to Iowa City. Now we can make it to Chicago tomorrow and have some more time to sight see, hopefully.
Today all our belongings that we packed into our cube back in California were picked up by the Relocube people. I hope we packed it well enough and that it makes it all unharmed to our new home.

Day Six

Today made up for yesterday being so rough. Penny let Michael and I sleep all night. We woke up and went straight to Mt. Rushmore. It was really cool! We each were struck with how much more interesting it was than we were expecting. We would actually not mind going back.

After driving for hours, we get into Minnesota.

We crossed over another timezone and so getting in at 9pm was actually 10pm on a sunday night. That basically meant that EVERYTHING was already closed except the McDonalds 24hr drive through and the gas station mini-mart. So much for a gourmet meal lol. 

Day Five

Today was a LONG DAY. Penny had a tummy ache and kept us up till 2am and up again at 6am. We then had a 7 hour drive, with a slight detour into Montana.  We got back on the freeway after collecting our all important state sign, we start driving up up up a mountain road in Bighorn National Forest.
We get ALLLL the way to the top and Road Closed return to highway. Well bummer! It was a delay that cost us 50 miles and my FIRST EVER speeding ticket. It was a rough day. 

This map is not entirely accurate. We drove up into Montana, and also drove around to the south of the national Forest which added more miles than we had anticipated. All in all it was about a 3 hours of extra time. 

The Open Road

South Dakota

Montana 

This is one of the MANY road closed sign they have here. Guess what, even if it's the ONLY way to where you want to go, or is THE MAIN highway, it can still be closed! As we found out.

This is where we had to turn around.

We got into the hotel at 10pm. 

Wendy's for lunch and Taco Bell for dinner. Our FIRST real fast food day

.

Day Four

Wow! AMAZING! I LOVE buffalo! We drove through Yellowstone and got to see Old Faithful erupt. It was definitely worth the drive. We got a good laugh, we saw NO animals (except one lone chipmunk) in Yellowstone until the last 3 miles of the park on our way to the exit. THEN after we left we saw a TON of mountain goats, a moose, and buffalo. It was beautiful. We then drove into Buffalo Bill's National Park and are sleeping tonight in Cody, Wy named after Buffalo Bill himself. 

Day Three

Today was a LONG day. Last night we had dinner in Logan, Utah. We liked it then, but by 3am Michael got the WORST food poisoning. Lets just say we didn't sleep much. By check out time at the hotel we had decided it was "simply" food poisoning and not the flu and we should be fine to travel. We got in the car and started off. We drove from Utah to Idaho then to Wyoming. Both Michael and I were surprised at how much we enjoyed Utah. It was so beautiful and just everywhere you look you see amazing landscapes. In Idaho we got to stop at the Oregon Trail museum. When we got to Wyoming, you really feel like your in the Old West. There are cowboys and antlers EVERYWHERE. I think today was the hardest day of driving yet for me. Being so tired, and having the speed limit change so frequently was hard. We'd go from 30mph to 80 to 45 to 65 all within one town. On the other hand, I did love getting to be in three states in one day