HoneyNut, How Are Your Travels Going?
- Thread starter Leann
- Start date
Thanks for thinking of me! It was crazy hectic, I was packing my car til 3 AM the day I had to leave, then I had to be back up at 6AM to continue going through my desk and sorting things for the junk+donation truck that was showing up at 8AM. In my hurry I threw away a lot of stuff that was on my desk and realized too late that I'd thrown away the $125 gift card that my coworker gave me. I'd been saving it to use on my travels, I feel just awful to have wasted all that money of hers.
Then I didn't have time to clean the house at all except for vacuuming (so much dust where the furniture had been!), and didn't actually leave until 11 AM. I was sooo tired from lack of sleep that I was afraid I couldn't focus well enough to drive and got off at a few rest stops to try unsuccessfully to get a little nap, but at least it did help just to try for 15 minutes.
My daughter surprised me by showing up that morning to help get me out the door and that was awesome and she took the desktop and backup harddrive to take to a secure recycle place later so I didn't have to detour to do that on my way out of town. But today I changed my bank and investment passwords just in case.
Then on the road I got a phone call from the title company that the wire of the payment for the house had been rejected for unknown reason so they were cutting a check and mailing it to my new address (which is my daughter's address). So now I have no idea whether it will need to be signed for and whether it will be enough for her to sign for it, and then how will I get it, and it makes me super anxious to have a house size amount check being mailed, but I googled and apparently if a certified check is cashed fraudulently the bank will have to make good on the amount for the intended recipient. But still, it is another thing to worry about on top of everything.
I'd never practiced using a phone app to tell me the driving directions and also my daughter had showed me how to plug my cell phone into my car to charge, and it all went wrong on the trip, the phone was acting like it was giving directions but not saying anything, and the charging was too slow and every time my daughter tried to call me the phone shutdown. I'd totally depended on it working and I had no idea how to get to my destination. I stopped at a McDonald's and asked how to get to Chicago and they told me which highways and exits I would see.
But luckily I remembered where I'd packed a powerbank so at a rest stop I got that out of the bag in the trunk and charged the phone, and even though it wouldn't talk I wrote down the directions it listed, so I had to navigate 'old school' from a little piece of paper the rest of the way.
My cat was okay on the car trip from the sedative pill the vet gave me, but the calming pills the vet gave to use for the first few days at the hotel didn't do anything and he was hiding under the bed in the hotel room and not eating or drinking or going to the litterbox. I started dragging him out and squirting some water in his mouth and putting little globs of canned cat food in his mouth, and by the end of the day after our trip I unearthed an old expired valium from years ago (when I'd had a cancer diagnosis and talked the doctor into giving me a prescription) and gave the cat a quarter of it. It did so much better than the stuff from the vet, within less than an hour he came out from under the bed and ate some treats and used his litter box and sat on me to get petted, and he's been okay without any more meds since that. He has discovered a squirrel that has a nest in the tree outside our hotel window (we are on the third floor and the tree is right in front of our window), so he's spending a lot of time looking out the window.
My destination turns out to be a lot more "city" than I'd expected from watching a YouTube of Schaumburg, IL. So I'm having to deal with so much more traffic than I've dealt with in the past 22 years.
The hotel room was really kind of gross, the refrigerator had not been cleaned out and was full of old spilled food. Also it was left on coldest setting and the entire refrigerator contents were frozen. I'd brought some milk with me that I'd frozen before I set out on my travels and I expected it to finish thawing in the fridge and instead it froze solid and I had to run it under hot water in the sink to get enough melted for my breakfast. Then yesterday I'd found my way to a Walmart but it was really horrid, I guess I normally go to a 'supercenter' type of Walmart and this one was old and small.
But today my daughter suggested I try turning off bluetooth on my phone since the directions weren't talking using the car's bluetooth, and that has worked and the phone guided me successfully to a very VERY nice Kroger type grocery store today (which is called Mariano's here, Kroger was called Baker's in Nebraska, and it was King Sooper's in Colorado, kind of confusing)!
Now I've gotten 8 hours sleep the past two nights (with the normal number of nighttime bathroom visits, ha ha) and today I even went out on two walks around the hotel neighborhood. There are bushes blooming that smell really good. But Chicago really is a 'windy city', my hair is all which way!
I don't know whether I will try to go to the Metra Train to go to Chicago yet tomorrow, not sure if the holiday will make it crazy busy.
Then I didn't have time to clean the house at all except for vacuuming (so much dust where the furniture had been!), and didn't actually leave until 11 AM. I was sooo tired from lack of sleep that I was afraid I couldn't focus well enough to drive and got off at a few rest stops to try unsuccessfully to get a little nap, but at least it did help just to try for 15 minutes.
My daughter surprised me by showing up that morning to help get me out the door and that was awesome and she took the desktop and backup harddrive to take to a secure recycle place later so I didn't have to detour to do that on my way out of town. But today I changed my bank and investment passwords just in case.
Then on the road I got a phone call from the title company that the wire of the payment for the house had been rejected for unknown reason so they were cutting a check and mailing it to my new address (which is my daughter's address). So now I have no idea whether it will need to be signed for and whether it will be enough for her to sign for it, and then how will I get it, and it makes me super anxious to have a house size amount check being mailed, but I googled and apparently if a certified check is cashed fraudulently the bank will have to make good on the amount for the intended recipient. But still, it is another thing to worry about on top of everything.
I'd never practiced using a phone app to tell me the driving directions and also my daughter had showed me how to plug my cell phone into my car to charge, and it all went wrong on the trip, the phone was acting like it was giving directions but not saying anything, and the charging was too slow and every time my daughter tried to call me the phone shutdown. I'd totally depended on it working and I had no idea how to get to my destination. I stopped at a McDonald's and asked how to get to Chicago and they told me which highways and exits I would see.
But luckily I remembered where I'd packed a powerbank so at a rest stop I got that out of the bag in the trunk and charged the phone, and even though it wouldn't talk I wrote down the directions it listed, so I had to navigate 'old school' from a little piece of paper the rest of the way.
My cat was okay on the car trip from the sedative pill the vet gave me, but the calming pills the vet gave to use for the first few days at the hotel didn't do anything and he was hiding under the bed in the hotel room and not eating or drinking or going to the litterbox. I started dragging him out and squirting some water in his mouth and putting little globs of canned cat food in his mouth, and by the end of the day after our trip I unearthed an old expired valium from years ago (when I'd had a cancer diagnosis and talked the doctor into giving me a prescription) and gave the cat a quarter of it. It did so much better than the stuff from the vet, within less than an hour he came out from under the bed and ate some treats and used his litter box and sat on me to get petted, and he's been okay without any more meds since that. He has discovered a squirrel that has a nest in the tree outside our hotel window (we are on the third floor and the tree is right in front of our window), so he's spending a lot of time looking out the window.
My destination turns out to be a lot more "city" than I'd expected from watching a YouTube of Schaumburg, IL. So I'm having to deal with so much more traffic than I've dealt with in the past 22 years.
The hotel room was really kind of gross, the refrigerator had not been cleaned out and was full of old spilled food. Also it was left on coldest setting and the entire refrigerator contents were frozen. I'd brought some milk with me that I'd frozen before I set out on my travels and I expected it to finish thawing in the fridge and instead it froze solid and I had to run it under hot water in the sink to get enough melted for my breakfast. Then yesterday I'd found my way to a Walmart but it was really horrid, I guess I normally go to a 'supercenter' type of Walmart and this one was old and small.
But today my daughter suggested I try turning off bluetooth on my phone since the directions weren't talking using the car's bluetooth, and that has worked and the phone guided me successfully to a very VERY nice Kroger type grocery store today (which is called Mariano's here, Kroger was called Baker's in Nebraska, and it was King Sooper's in Colorado, kind of confusing)!
Now I've gotten 8 hours sleep the past two nights (with the normal number of nighttime bathroom visits, ha ha) and today I even went out on two walks around the hotel neighborhood. There are bushes blooming that smell really good. But Chicago really is a 'windy city', my hair is all which way!
I don't know whether I will try to go to the Metra Train to go to Chicago yet tomorrow, not sure if the holiday will make it crazy busy.
I hope so but not sure now because when I checked in the person at the desk said the stay had to be limited to 21 days and she tried to change it but it wouldn't let her (I think because I'd used the pre-paid non-refundable choice that had the lowest daily rate). One of the other people staying here said he thinks the extended stay option allows 28 days. I booked 29 nights so I hope that counts as just 28 days (due to checking in late in day and checking out early in day). I'm hoping some other person works on the desk next week and I will ask them, I need to know for sure because I need to book my next location at least 21 days before to get the best rate.