Real Life Travel Days… Off on the Wrong Foot!

I left you with us planning on going to St. Louis, MO (on Monday 7-8-19) and I wake up to the fact we’re going to Wisconsin Dells, WI (on Sunday 7-7-19). What-the-heck!? I had already made reservations at a cool spot in a COE (Army Corps of Engineers park) close to St. Louis so I could see the Arch up-close-and-personal! It’s on my bucket list! I had reservations! I wanted to go see the place!!!!! But….. I had to ask…

“When did the plans change, hun?” I thought we’d already discussed this? We have reservations for a couple days in St. Louis, MO…. but we’re doing what now? In one breathe I asked, “What is The Dells? Wisconsin Dells? What is this – where is this? I’ve been through there before, years ago, but we didn’t stop… what are we doing?”

I quickly look at the map and realized; on this new route, we are a only a stones throw from downtown Chicago, literally. No way do I want to do Chicago on a Monday morning, afternoon, or evening! Or anytime actually, but Sunday afternoon seemed better. Or so I thought. It was the end of July 4th weekend. Need I say more?

I get online quickly and make reservations, in one of our club memberships through Thousand Trails/Encore Parks, for two weeks at Arrowhead RV Campground in Wisconsin Dells, WI. We’d already bought the membership a while back, so no “no-out-of-pocket costs” (we’ve already paid upfront for the membership), but it’s a 500+ mile trip from where we are!

Today is Sunday, July 7, 2019… it’s noon. I finally buck-up and say (actually half way demand), “If we’re going this route, to get the Wisconsin Dells, we need to leave now to get on the other side of Chicago before dark. We’ll find somewhere to park for the night.”

You guys have heard me say before… I hate travel travel/moving days and having one SPRUNG on me is even worse. I hate planning but I like being planned. Does that make sense?

All of a sudden, I find myself not a happy camper. I wasn’t expecting this and as I pushed his buttons to get on the road today; after I was informed of the new plan, he was no longer a happy camper and he started pushing my buttons.

I got the word to “close it up.” So in the slides came and everything got battened down. And off we went.

This is where a lack of communication in a small space takes hold. Today we experienced real Small Space Living and communication at it’s worst. It’s not all rainbows and daisies out here. Maybe if we’d sat in the Hollywood Gaming Dayton parking lot for the day we would have figured this out, but we didn’t. I was ticked because plans changed all-of-a-sudden and he was ticked because I didn’t want to wait until Monday to leave. My thoughts were to get through Chicago, period! I thought Sunday was better than Monday and we left out – at 1:00 p.m.

Bye Ohio!

Next thing I know we’re in Indiana. I have a very sketchy idea of our route and I could really care less – it was his idea to change plans last minute; not mine, and that’s all that matters.

I had to cancel the St. Louis, MO reservations which costs us $20… but the scenery got really good and I started calming down. This is a day in the life! For real! We didn’t speak for the first couple hours of this trip.

Finally we arrive in IL. We picked up a lot of bugs along the trip!

Then before I knew it…. Hello Chicago! Sunday afternoon and THIS is the traffic. I wonder if this is normal or just the close of holiday week? Look far in the distance of the photo…. it’s like a parking lot!

But I did get an up-close and personal look at the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis Tower). This kinda life would not be my cup of tea. Sorry city-dwellers – my lifestyle probably wouldn’t suit you either.

Chicago skyline – pretty amazing with the Sears Tower in there!

This is getting a bit long… so I’ll pick back up tomorrow after we get stopped and settled for the night. We took a wrong turn but we made-up with each other, after a really long day!