Heading Home

We had a fun vacation, but as always, they have to end.  I wish we could have stayed for another day or two, but the girls wanted to be back home for New Years, so we packed up our stuff and said goodbye to the Sunshine State, although Kris, Alison and I will be back in a little more than a month for Cheerleading Nationals.

Driving home was much better than the drive to Florida, mainly because we didn’t hit any of the traffic we hit on the way down.  We did have one thing happen just south of Atlanta that didn’t make me happy.  I got stuck behind a dump truck, although not quite a dump truck.  It had a longer and shorter bed on it.  But it was kicking off tiny bits of gravel, a little bit larger than sand.  So driving at 85 mph was like having the front of my car sand blasted.  And I wasn’t even right behind the truck, I was a good amount behind it, and at times there was even another car between me and the truck, or I was in the left lane while the truck was in the center lane.  But it didn’t matter apparently, because later on I could see all sorts of sparkles on the windshield, each one the result of a very tiny chip.  I was not happy AT ALL!  

Other than that, the only slow spots were thru Chatanooga, which we know is always going to be a bottleneck, and we hit a slow spot in Nashville as well.  But we found out that the reason for that was that the Music City Bowl.  Add to it the fact that Tennessee was playing in it, and it makes sense as to why we were moving at a crawl past the stadium downtown.  But that only lasted about 15 minutes, and once we were past it, it was smooth sailing.  We also made more pit stops on the way back home for bathroom breaks and to grab food.    

Since I am always looking for the fastest way home, and because I really hated the roads in Indiana on the way down, I decided to look for an alternate route home.  I found one where we bypassed Indiana altogether.  From Nashville, we stayed on I-24 thru Nashville and into Western Kentucky, thru Paducah.  Then took I-57 north the entire length if the state of Illinois, to the western suburbs of Chicago where we met up with I-94.  The overall distance was 30 miles longer (according to the Garmin) but because of traffic it only took an extra 5 minutes.  Not too bad, and it saved the hassle of the traffic thru Chicago and the crappy roads of Indiana.  I am going to have to remember that if we ever decide to drive again.  I am also going to have to remember to plan for times for rolling thru large, metro areas to stay out of traffic jams.  Either that or keep working on better, alternate routes.  I mean there has to be a better way to get around Chatanooga.

Seeing the Ocean

Since we were done at Disney, we were looking for other things to do during our stay in Florida. The girls wanted to go to the beach. Since we had been to the Gulf side a couple of times, we thought that it might be different to go over to see the Atlantic. We had done it years ago when the girls were very little but the beaches had been closed due to erosion from hurricanes that had rolled thru the previous summer.

In trying to figure out the best place to go, we decided on Daytona. We thought it would be the best, quickest place to get to. Well that was a little misleading. I was figuring on about an hour to get there, and with the traffic in Daytona itself it took more like an hour and 45 minutes. It also took a little time to figure out exactly where to go where we could have access to the beach. I know you can drive on the beach in Daytona, but I really didn’t want to pay for the privilege of being able to do so.

We ended up finding a public lot right next to the beach, by a run-down looking hotel. I wasn’t quite sure about that, but since I could still see the top of the car from where we were on the beach, I figured it would be fine. The beach itself wasn’t very pretty. In fact, I would call it down right depressing. It was almost like being on a large, long parking lot that gradually faded into the ocean. There were no soft, sand dunes... No shells… Nothing that gave it any charm at all.

And it was very strange in that all the people that were sitting out on the beach were, uhhhh… How can I put this gently, “rough-looking”. It seriously looked like about 75%-80% of the people we saw could have been in an episode of COPS. 

It was also pretty windy down on the beach, and while it was warm, it didn’t feel like there was a very intense sunlight. It felt like the sun was shining thru a haze. I tried to roll up my sleeves, but I just felt like it wasn’t a good place to get a tan. I felt like I had a coating of salt and sand covering me when we left. So as beaches go, on a scale of 1 to 10, this one was about a 2. Next time I think we will definitely consider going to the Gulf side again.

Daytona is sort of…. Seedy

I don’t know if the people that live there make a big distinction between Daytona, and Daytona Beach, but let’s just say the whole area that we drove up and down the beach looked a little sketchy. We ended up parking a public lot right next to the beach, next to a run-down looking hotel. It was a little scary pulling up and parking next to a couple of black guys who were just sitting in their car, windows blacked out, listening to rap music. It seemed odd to me that they were just sitting there. But I made sure to lock everything up before we walked down to the beach.

When we got to the beach, it dawned on me that I left the Garmin on the windshield mount, which probably wasn’t the best idea. So I ran back up to the car to get it. As I got up the steps, to the parking lot, I walked past a big, shirtless black guy with a big ‘fro who had a skinny white guy cornered against the cinder block wall surrounding the parking lot. I tried my best not to stare, or look at them, because it looked like something shady was going down. I heard the black guy saying “I provided you a service”, and something about being paid. Then there was “At this point I want the hat”, assuming he was referring to the skinny dude’s Oakland Raiders baseball cap. Like I said, I made my way away from there as fast as I could. I got the feeling it was some sort of drug deal, and the white guy wasn’t paying up for what he got. About ten minutes later I saw the same, shirtless black dude walking down the beach away from us wearing an Oakland Raiders baseball hat, presumably the one the white guy had on his head when I was up by the car earlier. At least there wasn’t a body, or any cop cars in the parking lot when we left.

Last Time At Disney

We had one day left on a week-long, no expiration date, ticket at the Disney parks from when we were there 8 years ago. I thought we should probably finally use it up, so I asked the girls which park they wanted to go to. I thought with Sarah being 18 now, it was probably going to be the last time that we all went to a theme park as a family, so I wanted them to be the ones to decide. Both said they wanted to use it up at the Magic Kingdom.

I have heard horror stories about going to the theme parks at certain times of the year; Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving…. the big vacation times. I felt like, big deal, the girls were older, we were in no hurry to go anywhere or get on any rides and we would just ride out the crowds. Was I ever wrong! The crowds at Disney were insane. But more on that later.

As we were walking around going from attraction to attraction, both Sarah and Alison came to the realization that the Magic Kingdom really was for little kids. As we were looking for things to go on (read that as lines to stand in) Sarah was of the opinion that she didn’t want to stand in line for 2 hours to go on a ride that was more or less looking at animatronics. I told her and Ali that I tried to tell them that when they were deciding where to go, but I didn’t want to dictate, it was their decision which park they wanted to go to. I will say that the Magic Kingdom does have some of our favorite attractions, such as The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. But more and more they realized that some of the more popular areas, like around the castle, and walking down Main Street, were more for the children.

2016

2008

I thought it would be nice to compare the girls in the tea cups today vs. when I first took them on the ride almost 10 years ago.  

Note Ali's enthusiasm at "It's A Small World"

Sarah got squirted with a water jet right after I took this. HA!

Awww...  How sweet.

I had Sarah use the actual camera to take our picture, not a phone.  Apparently I need to teach her how to center your subject in the frame.

Sarah always seemed to be on her phone instead of enjoying the sights of Disney. :-(

Another thing that the girls wanted to do was to take their photo together in front of the castle. It was something that didn’t really dawn on me when we first got there, probably should have been done early in the day. Because as the day wore on, more people tend to congregate around the castle for pictures, especially around the times of the parades. Good luck trying to get a shot alone. Or at least alone enough where there aren’t others crowding you. We tried the first time thru (during the first afternoon parade) and weren’t really able to do it. Then as we were coming back thru around dinner time, it had thinned out enough that I was able to take their picture without anyone within five feet of them. Those are the types of little things that you don’t tend to think about when you go to theme parks.

Since the Magic Kingdom was open late I thought we would stay as late as possible for the girls to go on all the rides they wanted one last time. That was easier said than done since we ran into the parades. When we got off the Haunted Mansion, we hit a parade, and had to wait to get to where we wanted to go because the walkways were clogged with people and some were roped off. Then later in the day around dinner time, we ended up hitting another parade. We were going from Tomorrowland to Adventureland, but since the parade was about to begin, we had to wait to go across the main path in front of the castle. It was seriously a pain since we didn’t really care about the parade, so we ended up going into some of the shops on Main Street and loitering inside until we could cross.

Then when we finally did, we had to wait to use a fast pass at the Jungle Cruise so the girls wanted to go on the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride (which incidentally was the very first ride we took the girls on at Disney in 2004). The sign said the wait time was something like 25 minutes, so we figured, sure, Kris and I would just wait. What was supposed to be a 25 minute wait turned into about 45-50 minutes. Obviously the wait time was incorrect. While we were standing around waiting, Kris and I struck up a conversation with a guy who was also waiting. He was from Canada, and was looking frazzled. I forget the actual question he asked, but it had to do with the lines, etc. We told him that typically it isn’t this bad, but because of the holiday, the crowds are insane. We had actually heard that they had closed down admittance to the park early in the afternoon because it was at capacity. He told us he had gotten to the park around noon, and this was the third attraction his children had been on (it was about 6:30 PM), the rest of the time was spent maneuvering thru crowds and standing in lines. Like I said, we felt really bad for him since we know what it was like when the girls were little and how they look forward to being there. Hopefully they had multiple day passes and would be able to come back if they missed anything.

The Jungle Cruise was actually pretty fun, much better than the last couple of times I had been on it. By the time we got on, it was totally dark, so they had to light the scenes, plus, they had it decked out in Christmas lights for the holiday. Something I had never seen before. As anyone who has been on the ride knows, the “guide” spends his time interacting with the guests and making bad puns. This time he was making Christmas jokes, so again, it was something new, which made it a little bit better. 

When it came time to leave, we once again, ran into a parade (the third of the day). It was the nighttime, Main Street Electrical Parade. Then of course, after the parade comes the fireworks. Since most people stay to see the fireworks and then leave right afterward (clogging up the monorails and taking forever to get back to the parking lots) we thought we would get out ahead of the crowds. The girls had been on all the attractions they wanted to do, and we didn’t really care about the parade or the fireworks so it was perfect timing.

It was sad leaving, knowing that the girls will never have that glimmer in their eyes when going to Disney again (at least until they have the joy of seeing it thru their children’s eyes, like we did when the girls were little). But at least they enjoyed themselves. I remember when Sarah and Ali were little thinking that it is all about building memories for them. I think that we were able to do that.

Disney Crowds – Never Again

As I had mentioned earlier, the crowds at Disney were insane. I thought that perhaps we would be lucky and it wouldn’t be as bad as what I thought they might be because of the holiday. But apparently Disney is the place to go when it is an officially sanctioned (school) vacation. One other thing that I forget is that Disney World really is a worldwide destination. We saw people from all over the world there. Forget about Euro-Disney, or Disney-Japan, or China (I think there is one in China, right?). Florida is the place to go!

We saw on the news that the theme parks around Orlando had all reached capacity on Christmas Day (Universal, Sea World, and Disney) and today was no different. Apparently by 3:00 (from what we heard walking around) They had stopped admitting people into the Magic Kingdom (who knows, it could have even been earlier). I didn’t think the crowds would bother us much because we had been there many times before and were in no hurry to get on any particular attraction. I was wrong. The crowds drove me (and Kris) nuts. And I have to say that there were certain “groups” of people that were much ruder than others. In particular the Indians. After thinking about it, they must not care because they are used to living and moving around in crowds in Calcutta and New Delhi, etc. But they have got to be the rudest people in the world! As we were waiting in line at the Pirates ride, there was a group of about 20-25 Indian people behind us. Before you get up to the turnstiles where they position you to get into the boats, they have large, roped paths zig-zagging around (as everyone knows). And I assume they are as wide as they are as to accommodate the greatest number of persons so that the line doesn’t wrap halfway around the park. However, you would think everyone would be able to see around them (meaning who is in front, and who might be behind) as far as the numbers in your group, or party. I guess they don’t care about that in India, because these people just pushed their way in between Kris and myself and the girls. In fact, at one point, I there were at least five of these Indian people (I say India, but they could have been from any of the countries in the sub-continent area) between me and Kris. When it came to one turn in the queue, I ducked under the rope to get back with Kris and the girls. It was absolutely ridiculous. And the people behind us had were pushing their kids (who appeared to be in the 5-7 year old range) to keep them moving and possibly improve their position in line. NEWS FLASH!!!! The ride isn’t going anywhere! And it isn’t as if you are going to get on the ride any faster. You might make it a boat or two faster. BIG DEAL!!!! It was amazing how inconsiderate they were.

Then as we were waiting for the girls on the magic carpet ride we noticed a group of people that were letting their children climb over the fences, and play in areas that at least I would have considered off limits. It was around the Enchanted Tiki Room. There was a pond/pool in front of some rocks and the outside wall of the building. Apparently in their country, there is no problem with just letting your children go climbing and exploring areas that are separated from normal foot traffic for a reason. Again, very rude and inconsiderate. But people have problems with Americans. If I had cared more, I might have said something, but Kris and I sat quietly and just observed. It really is amazing the things you see when you “people watch” at theme parks, or other large congregations of people (fairs, festivals, etc.). It is actually one of the things I like to do when I go to those types of places.

But now that I know what things are like during these times of the year, I think I will avoid them in the future. Plus, I think it may be time to go to some of the other theme parks we have never been to before, like Busch Gardens in Tampa, or Universal Studios, or even make a return to Sea World instead of always going to Disney.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from Florida. 

It is hard not to have my tree with all the ornaments, but it’ll have to do. I will say it is better to be able to walk outside in a short sleeved shirt and shorts that to have to bundle up like an Eskimo to go to Christmas mass. 

The girls even got pick the annual Christmas orange of the tree in my parents’ backyard.

A little later in the day my mother's friend Roberta came over.  My mom had given her a Peanuts music box, and I snapped this picture of her "playing" with it.  I have never seen anyone so happy.

Stranded in The Villages

Our first full day in The Villages was relaxing. Nothing beats getting out of the car and being able to stretch. All day we were hearing about a neighborhood that was all decked out in Christmas Lights. For anyone reading this who is from the Milwaukee area, think Candy Cane Lane on the south side. So since we had nothing else to do, we thought we would partake of some Christmas cheer and drive over to see the lights in the golf cart.

The only problem is that to go with Kris and the girls, we would need two golf carts since my parents only have a 2-person one. Luckily, my aunt let us borrow hers. So Kris and I took my aunt’s cart and Sarah and Alison drove my folks’. We were in line with all the other carts, slowly moving thru the neighborhood looking at the lights and listening to the Christmas music they had blasting. I even took a few photos with the new camera. Between golf carts, regular cars, and people who had parked a couple of blocks away and just walked thru to see the lights, it was quite crowded.

Everything was going along great until we were ready to head back home. As we were driving around all the lights I had noticed that the lights were starting to dim a little and the battery meter was hovering down around the low end. I thought we had better get back home quickly. And wouldn’t you know it, as we were going thru a tunnel, the cart came to a stop. So now we were stuck in a tunnel, with carts behind us starting to back up, and other carts coming around the corner from the opposite direction. I was able to move it slightly so we were out of the tunnel by letting it sit for a minute, then turning the key back on and going about 10 – 20 feet at a time. This continued for a little while, and I found that I could get more power for a longer run with the lights off.

After 10 minutes or so we had moved up the hill and were about ready to cross the street. Most people were very nice, slowing down and asking if we had a problem, or if they could help. But there was one women who felt the need to drive by and yell at us to get out of the way, or maybe it was get off the path. Either way we were yelled at for blocking her way. I responded to her request with a warm, Christmas, “F-You!” (Yes, I was just full of Christmas cheer).

After a few more minutes of letting the cart sit, and waiting for the traffic to lighten up so we wouldn’t block any carts, or cars that were trying to get thru the gates we managed to make it across to a starter’s shack at one of the golf courses. There was a wide area there where we could pull over and get out of everyone’s way. We sent the girls back to the house to let my parents know we were stranded and then sat and waited to be rescued by my dad.

After waiting and having him show up with the car, we gathered our stuff and drove back home, leaving the cart there until the next day when it could be looked at. And coincidentally, the next day when my dad went back, he put the key in and drove it home without incident. So I have no idea what the problem was, or is, with my aunt’s cart. Maybe it has something to do with the cables going to the battery? I had a car like that once that had exposed wire around the terminal clamps that needed to be covered with electrical tape. If there was anything exposed, if it was a cool night and moisture condensed, it would cause the cables to short out, leaving you stuck. But I won’t be driving that golf cart any more. I’ll leave that for my aunt.

Driving to Florida

So this year we are heading to Florida for Christmas to visit my folks, which means driving for about 18 hours straight. It has been some time since I drove someplace of great distance. The longest I have ever gone is to St. Louis for a training session for work, which was about 6 hours. The last time I drove to Florida must have been about 1984 or ’85, so this was going to be an adventure. I had always enjoyed the driving to Florida as a kid, and I figured that with gas being as cheap as it is right now, it would be a good, cheap vacation and we get to visit my parents to boot.

We got off to a slow start. I wanted to be on the road by 3:00 AM and we didn’t get out of the driveway until about 3:20 or so. I figured that this would put us in The Villages around 10:00 PM. It would also get us through Chicago before the rush hour started. And we timed it just right, because we were thru Chicago right as the traffic volume began getting heavy. We were right around the Sears Tower (sorry, I don’t know what the current name of it is) when it started picking up and we were thru and on the south side without much trouble. We did have a little bit of a hiccup just south of Chicago, well two actually. First, we had turned onto a section of the I90 Skyway and as we came around a turn, a blind turn, there was a car pulled over in the inner shoulder right next to the center divider. The problem was there really wasn’t a “shoulder” there, so it was essentially right on the lane line. And doing 75 mph and being on the left side of the lane, to suddenly see a car stopped right next to my lane was a bit of a shock, and with another car next to me in the center lane I couldn’t really swerve out of my lane. Luckily we missed it, though it was also a little bit of a wake up call. Then a little bit past that, the Garmin was telling me to keep left on 94, which would have taken us up to Michigan. I had looked ahead and I knew that I needed to get on I65 to go south thru Indiana, so I kept right which was the right way. After we got past that exit, the Garmin corrected itself, so we were in good shape, although a little way past that exit, I hit a huge pothole, and when I say huge, I mean it was HUGE. Doing 75-80 and hitting that hole I thought I was going to blow a tire, because the bang from the right side of the car was so loud it was hard to believe we didn’t. I would be willing to bet we probably bent the rim slightly at least.

The only other blip we had was going thru Louisville. Again, I was following the Garmin’s directions, and at one point as we were going thru Louisville, it told me to go left from I65 to I265. I figured it was taking us on a way around Louisville, but as soon as we got onto I265, it started “recalculating” and told me to get off the interstate and turn around to go back to I65. I will say that was really annoying. We had been making up the time we had lost leaving late and now with the stop we had for gas around Indianapolis and the mishap with the Garmin directions we were back to where we had started, and in fact a little bit behind schedule. I was hoping we would be able to make up a little bit of that time once we got out of Louisville and were back to where we could run around 80 mph.

Once we were into Tennessee things started to get better as far as the traffic goes. I was actually surprised at how much people drove in both lanes. In Wisconsin, only the fast traffic is supposed to drive in the left lane (I’m not sure if it’s a law, but more of an unwritten rule). Once we were thru Louisville, cars were driving in both lanes, zig zagging in and out. It was weird but I figured as long as the traffic kept moving, who cares? One thing I didn’t like was that I couldn’t really use the cruise control because we would come up on slower cars and then have to slow down because there were cars in the other lane and I wouldn’t be able to pass.

We only had a couple of instances of bad traffic. First in Nashville. We rolled thru Nashville around noon and got into some heavy traffic for about 15-20 minutes going thru downtown around the football stadium. But that was just slow. We went from about 75 or 80 down to 40 mph for a stretch. But things picked up again as soon as we got out of the downtown area. Then we ran into another jam around Chatanooga. We were actually about 20 miles outside of Chatanooga when the traffic started to slow. For a time, we were in full stop. Turns out that there was a brush fire that was causing people to stop and gawk at the firemen that were working on extinguishing it. It wasn’t big, just a nuisance. Then once we got past it, we ran into more slow traffic in Chatanooga itself, right past Lookout Mountain and all the way to where we got onto I-75. It probably took us about an extra 15-20 minutes to get thru. I didn’t realize that there is one way, and only one way to get thru Chatanooga. So I guess it is to be expected. But even that wasn’t all that bad. The bad part of the trip was Atlana.

We got to Atlanta right around dinnertime. We hit the northern ‘burbs around 4:30 or so. I wasn’t sure if taking the bypass would be better, or to just stay on I-75 thru downtown. I decided on the downtown route, figuring that either way we went, we were going to be stuck in traffic. Rush hour the Friday before the Christmas holiday = brutal! We got into some heavy traffic downtown, but I figured that was going to be expected. So I just stayed in my lane, and kept moving with the traffic figuring that it would thin out eventually. When we began to move faster again and it looked like we were thru the heavy stuff, I got off to grab some McDonalds quickly for dinner. We were off the highway for about 10 or 15 minutes tops. The traffic on the city streets was just as bad as on the interstate. But then…. When we got back on the highway, we went about half a mile before we were sitting in traffic again, which just happened to be where 675 joined back up with I-75. Apparently I should have just stayed on the highway because it took another hour to go around 20 miles on the south side of Atlanta. Like I said… BRUTAL! I thought that it may be an accident or something that was causing the congestion since we saw an ambulance and a cop car with the lights on go by on the shoulder, but we never saw anything. I guess the traffic is just that bad around Atlanta. It would definitely make me NOT want to live there.

After that things were pretty smooth, traffic-wise. The only snag we sort of ran into was having to stop for gas. I was hoping to get to Valdosta for our final gas-up, but we couldn’t quite make it. We ended up needing to stop about 30 miles or so north. It was dark, and there was construction, and not a whole lot of traffic. I pulled off following a sign that said “Gas”, but when I got off the interstate, there were no gas stations to be found. What there was, was a deserted, shell of a gas station. It looked like something out of an episode of Scooby Doo. Dark, broken windows, weeds growing up around abandoned pumps. It was actually kind of scary. The sort of thing that horror movies are made of. We made a quick U-turn back onto I-75 and headed south to the next exit, which was about another three miles before coming to a place where we could fill up. We got lucky, because according to the telemetry on the Santa Fe, we were about 25 miles from being out of gas, and I don’t know how accurate the gauge is since I never took it down that far before, so who knows how much farther we could have gone. The overall drive from Macon to Valdosta was boring. It felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. Every now and then we’d come up on a city/town, but then it would be gone. Like a one exit town, then nothing. And when you get into the dark in rural Georgia, you are in the dark. Seriously dark. It would have been great for star gazing, but for anything else, not so much. It made for a very long ride.

Once we filled the tank in Vienna, we were straight thru to The Villages with no more incidents. We arrived around 11:30 PM local time and it was good to finally get to my folks’ house. I was really starting to get worn out about the last 30 or 40 miles of highway.

Overall, the drive was uneventful and I thought enjoyable. The state I enjoyed driving in Most: Tennessee, followed by Florida and Kentucky. State that was the worst: Indiana, then Georgia. Indiana by far had the WORST roads. They were very bumpy/rough and I felt like the suspension on the car was going to break with all the bumps we were hitting. Or at the very least bust a shock absorber. The roads outside of Chicago were pretty bad as well; it’s hard to believe that you have to pay to drive on them and this is what you get.

I will also note that I was told not to stop in Georgia to use rest rooms if I could help it. I have to say, that was good advice. Even in the large truck stops/service centers we stopped at in Georgia, the bathrooms were horrendous. I would have almost preferred a hole in the ground. It was like they hadn’t cleaned or updated equipment in the bathrooms of the gas stations or roadside restaurants (yes, even in the McDonalds we stopped at) for the last 15 or 20 years. Y-U-C-K! The gas stations we stopped at in Tennessee halfway between Nashville and Chatanooga were a little better, but not much. Apparently that isn’t a priority in the south. But otherwise, I would definitely make the drive again.

End of the Semester

Sarah finished her finals yesterday and I told her that I would drive up after work to pick her up.  Her friend from HS also needed a ride home and I told her I’d drive her back as well.  My plan was to finish work at 3:00, get home, change quickly, and be on the road no later than 3:30, so I would be in LaCrosse by around 6:30, and back home between 9:30 and 10:00.  Unfortunately, I had an issue pop up at work and I needed to resolve it before I left for the day since I’m on vacation until the new year.  After a lot of messing around and phone calls, etc., I ended up leaving work a little past 5:30, and I didn’t get on the road to LaCrosse until almost 6:00 PM.

I ended up calling Sarah as soon as I got home and letting her know I was way behind schedule to which I got an earful of attitude.  Gee, sorry that I have things that need doing at work before I spend six hours driving to bring you home.  I figured I’d just hit a McDonalds and eat in the car on the way.  The drive was good to start with thought it was a little bit crazy with traffic going toward Madison.  But once I got thru, traffic lightened up.  Then the only problem was the messy weather driving up because there was a little bit of a snow/slush mix.

I arrived at Sarah’s dorm around 9:00 and she and her friend had their stuff loaded up within 5 minutes, and then we were back on the road to head home.  I stopped to get gas in LaCrosse where I loaded up on coffee and Mountain Dew since I had been up since about 5:00 AM (and a few snacks, like Dolly Madison raspberry coconut Zingers, mmmmmm).  The drive home was uneventful and we were back in Menomonee Falls by midnight.

By the time we got home, I was ready for bed.  It’s a good thing that I took Thursday off so I can get a little bit of sleep before spending about 18 hours driving to Florida.

No Cookie Book

It just dawned on me that we never got our extra cookie book. What is the deal with that WE Energies? In all honesty, we don’t need one, but I thought it never hurts to have an extra one to give to someone who might want one. I don’t even know who I would complain to. Does one just call customer service and say, “uh, yeah, I got a message about a month ago from WE Energies saying that I was going to receive a 2016 WE Energies Holiday Cookie Book as an apology or appeasement due to recent power outages, but I never received it”. Is that even good manners to call up and complain about not getting something you never asked for? I would think that it is, but I also don’t want to seem like a knob. I suppose I’ll let it go since I already have my cookie book for the year, but WE Energies is now on my list.

Cold and Dark in the Desert

I remember learning in grade school, or maybe it was junior high, that the desert is subject to huge temperature swings.  I can now confirm that fact.  The first day that I crossed to Mexico for work, the temperature at the warehouse on the US side was 26°F.  I think that was actually colder than it was in Menomonee Falls that morning.  But then by the afternoon, the temp had gotten up to about 62°F.  

It was also dark.  We had to get up and leave just before 6:00 AM, and it was still pitch dark out.  And there was practically no light at all.  There were actually path lights at the resort, but I think it would have been easier to see had there been no lights at all.  I can't remember the last time I saw the stars so bright.  You have to get way out of Milwaukee for the stars to be as bright as they were last week.  Not having all the light pollution from a large metro area sure makes a difference.  If I had the good camera with me, I may have tried to take a few nighttime photos to get the movement of the stars.  Maybe next time.

Sunset in the Desert

The resort that work put us up at regularly when people have to go visit the Mexican operation is called the Tubac Golf Resort & Spa in Tubac, AZ.  In case you don't know it, it is the setting for the movie Tin Cup with Kevin Costner.  Yeah, I know, that is like being amazed that Major League was shot in Milwaukee.  BUut I have to say, the mountains around the resort were pretty nice.  On Tuesday, we got thru the border check pretty quickly, so we got back to the resort before the sun went down.  This was the view looking east as the sun was lighting the top of the mountain as it set.

Then last night, we got back a little later and as we were driving to dinner, I got this shot looking west.  

 

Hard to argue with that.

Not That Great of A Wall

So with all the hype over President Elect Trump saying he'll build a great wall along the border, I thought I would take a picture of the "great wall" we have now along the border in Arizona where I had to cross over to go to work every day.  It really wasn't much, and I don't know how we don't have more people jumping it.

 

It's hard to see, because the "fence" in the foreground is actually around the roadway into (and out of) Mexico.  I also had to be careful because technically the border crossing is a "no photo" zone.  The next one was taken the next day in a little better light.

 One of the guys who rides across on a daily basis told us that there are people called "hawks" that sit up on the hill and monitor the border patrol to get to know routines, etc. and will radio down to others when it would be "clear" to jump the fence.  I hope we do get the Great Wall Trump promised, 'cause this one just ain't cutting it.

 

Crossing the Border

Today was cross the border day to start work at the company’s Mexican facility.  I was staying at a resort in Tubac, AZ which is about 25 miles away from the Mexican plant, and 23 miles from the border.  Badger Meter has a warehouse on the American side of the border, which is where we had to go and then we got picked up by a shuttle that would take us across the border to the plant.  Once there, we had to drop our things off, and then go back to the border to the customs office to fill out temporary work visas and pay for it.  Once done, we were able to go back to the plant and start the day. 

The drive back was a little more complicated.  There isn’t much of a hassle going from the US to Mexico, the problem is going from Mexico back to the US.  It is quite a bottleneck.  We spent about 35 minutes in line in the shuttle waiting to get to the border.  It was much like a bunch of toll booths, except instead of paying a toll, you had to stop and show your passport, at which time the border agent may (or may not) take a look in and around the car.  Sometimes, apparently, if you look suspicious, or sometimes just at random, cars get pulled out of line and they do a full search of the car.  Luckily that didn’t happen.  I am told if it does, it can take as much as an hour or so to get thru.  Funny how the Mexicans don’t really care if you go across their border.  Then again, there aren’t a lot of people beating down the door to get to Mexico.

Travel Day

Today was travel day for my trip to Mexico.  I was leaving relatively early (a little after 9:00 AM) Sunday morning.  The total flight time was supposed to be 4 hours, which is a little more than I would like, but what are you going to do?  I was hoping that the flight might not be that crowed and I would have room to sort of sprawl out, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.  It was almost a full flight, so that meant I had someone sitting next to me.  Overall the flight wasn’t bad, though it was a little cramped and by the end I was glad to be able to get up and stretch my legs.

One bad thing was that the flight was right during the Packer game, and I wasn’t about to pay for wifi on the plane, so by the time we landed, there was only about 2 minutes left in the first half.  While waiting to pick up the rental car, the coworker I was traveling with googled Packer bars in Phoenix.  As it turns out, there was one about 15 minutes from the airport (a big shout out to Casey Jones Grill).  So once we got the car, we high-tailed it to the bar to catch the end of the game and grab something to eat.
                       
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as soon as we got to the parking lot I could see people with Packer gear walking in and out of the door.  Once inside, it was like being back in the Valley.  And right as we were seated, GB scored a touchdown, which prompted train whistles to blow...(get it?  Casey Jones the engineer?  Clever.) And there were trains rolling on tracks/bridges suspended from the ceiling.  It was actually pretty cool.  And they were singing some goofy polka type song.  I was really sort of hoping they would be singing the GB Packer fight song (yes, we have a fight song. Go learn it if you don’t know it so we can bring it back).  They scored again and I decided to see about actually recording the celebration.  Nice, right?  Then at the two minute morning the volume got turned down, and they started playing some silly song that sounded like Da Yoopers (but I don’t think it was) that was again, polka style, and must have been titled “Da Bears Still Suck”.  Very interesting to say the least.  But it least I felt at home cheering for the Green and Gold.

Then when we finally got to the resort that we were staying at I found out there was no reservation for me, even though I had a confirmation message and a confirmation number.  Somehow, someone canceled my reservation.  Luckily, there was still an open room, so they just gave me that one, for the same period of time, and the same corporate rate. Crisis averted, but I needed to call the company travel agency and find out what the heck happened.  So... a tiring day of travel, but I am looking forward to going over the border Monday to meet our Mexican counterparts.