Yesterday in St. Louis...

Who would think just riding local transportation could be so interesting? I’ve been exploring St. Louis via the available options for me without unloading my scooter. Yes, I could ride it around here. I’m just too lazy to unload it, and why should I when I have plenty of other opportunities?
The campground has a shuttle to the Metrolink stop, and from there I can get anywhere I’m interested in going. I love visiting cities with light rail transportation. Washington, D.C. has a fantastic system that has served me exceptionally well in my 5 trips there. In New York, you can’t function without the subways. In both cities, you can exist very well without a car at all.
For the life of me, I CANNOT understand why the politicians in Milwaukee are so resistant to getting a light rail system. Instead they want to tear up scores of neighborhoods and dig up countless veterans’ graves to make I-94 SIX lanes wide on each side???? And that would just continue to add more “Ozone Action Days” and burn more fossil fuels (says the woman driving an RV around the country.)
If we had a light rail system in Milwaukee, I’m sure I’d go downtown more myself. I love downtown Milwaukee, but hate dealing with parking there. My friends frequently want to go out on the east side, but it’s too easy for me to find excuses not to go, because by the time I find a parking space I’m in a crappy mood and all tense. Even for festivals and summerfest, I seldom drive downtown. I’ll use the Park & Ride option anytime. Yes, I know I could ride the bus now anytime. But light rail would be quicker and more direct, and I would feel safer too.
Anyway, enough political rambling, and back to my point. It’s been interesting for me to ride the Metro in St. Louis. I’ve met some good folks. Like the woman who just sat next to me while we were waiting at our local stop, and we both happened to get off at the Loop stop too. We chatted for quite a while. Or last night on my way back from my day’s exploration…a whole group from Henderson, TN boarded wearing their St. Louis Cardinals garb on their way to the stadium. They were so excited and making comments about how much they must look like they “were fresh in from the sticks.” I had great fun with them, and I felt pretty city-smart in comparison! Not to mention a whole conglomeration of folks riding a shuttle. None of us knew each other before hand, but one guy in particular made the ride like a party. By the end of the run, we all could have hung out and had a great time.
Yes, I’ve had some bad experiences with public transportation, but I think so much of it depends on my attitude going in. Guess my sabbatical mood is carrying over.
Well, I’m off to the Metrolink. Today I’m going to Union Station. I haven’t shopped in months (other than for souvenirs) and I’m pretty darn sick of wearing the same clothes all the time. Must be some good summer sales somewhere there….

Darn computers

Sorry folks, my laptop problems have affected my Sprint Wireless Connection Manager, so I've been unable to get online for the last few days. Fortunately I'm at a campground tonight with WI-FI so I could get online again finally. Bills needed to be paid, and many emails needed to be weeded out and the important ones read.

I'm in Utica, IL tonight, sweating up a flood. Today's travel was so hot I ran the generator for the last couple of hours to get the a/c going in the living compartment. My cab a/c couldn't keep up with the heat being generated in the big metal box we call home. Sure am glad I got my generator fixed before leaving - even though it was a huge expense.

We lucked out getting this campground too. Weekends are tough, and I was fully prepared to find a Wal-Mart parking lot if necessary. But Hickory Hollow had a cancellation, so one space opened up just for me! Somehow things always seem to work out as they need to. I've really been very lucky with campgrounds on this trip, with my spontaneous approach. Today was only the 2nd or 3rd time I had to call more than one campground to find an available site. I really like this one too - would gladly stay here again.

We spent most of this week in St. Louis, and had great fun exploring. Well I had great fun - the boys did their usual sleeping until I got back to give them lots of affection again. Don't know what they'll do when I go back to my normal life and they have much less time with me again.

I'm going to add another post today - an entry I actually wrote yesterday in St. Louis but couldn't get online to add. I'm going to try to get around to answering some of my emails then - but don't know how many I'll get to before my battery gets too weak. So if you're waiting for one from me - sorry!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Ever have one of those days? I'm having a couple of them...

Yesterday was a long driving day (it was a 2 fill day for the gas tank.) Much of the drive was through a long, boring stretch of Ohio, but once I hit northern Kentucky the scenery was beautiful. I drove with visions of exploring this northern territory in the Louisville area. But first I had to stop at Best Buy to get my laptop checked out. I've been having problems booting up in the mornings and getting "serious error" messages that talked about an "unknown driver device." So after 5 hours on the road, I put off finding the campground until we attended to the laptop.

Best Buy should have been a sign that this was not going to be a good place for me. I was there for an hour, with a BB Geek who was not happy to be working so long without lunch. His boss had told him to go eat, then taken off himself leaving this guy alone to man the busy Geek service counter. So in between attending to the many other customers he would come back to my ill laptop, muttering about how he was going to kill his boss. He couldn't seem to figure out what was wrong, but after messing with it a while, he shut down and restarted. Started perfectly. We figured he had somehow stumbled on the issue and solved it. I should have known better. It's only in the mornings after many hours of being off that the laptop is stubborn about starting - which it still did today. Problem not fixed.

By this time, I had not eaten since breakfast either, and was just tired and ready to get settled in. As I drove into the campground, I knew it was not going to be what I expected. Surrounded on all sides by freeways and major highways, my scooter was not going to serve me well here. But still, the ad sounded like they had arrangements with the nearby Holiday Inn for ways to see local attractions. I was thinking tours or shuttles, and I'd still be fine.

Nope. The only arrangement was to use their pool. So I made my reservation for 2 nights instead of 3. Not even going to bother unloading the scooter because there's not much I can see in Clarksville and Louisville is a freeway drive away on the other side of the river.

After checking in, we head to the campsite. This campground has as many sites packed in as they can get - we're almost on top of each other. OK. Now I'm thinking there is absolutely NO reason to stay at this campground without a car to get you around somewhere. And what's that I hear? A train? Yep.

Right next to the campground - I mean right next to the campground is a train track. They go VERY slowly through here because it's a metro area and they not only blow the horns but the wheels on the track make a horrendous noise.

Can't get much worse, can it? Yep. Now I hear a plane coming in for a landing. Must be an airport nearby too. They aren't very frequent, but they're loud.

Not only that, but I managed to screw up when hooking up my hose yesterday as I was dog-tired. It worked fine yesterday, but overnight it started shooting water and one of the workers here turned it off early this morning because I was starting to flood the area. Seems I had screwed my hose in crooked and now I couldn't get it out either. So he came by with a couple of wrenches and managed to unscrew it and hook it up straight.

At least the sun is shining, so even though it's a pain in the butt to walk to the Holiday Inn (past some questionable looking houses and neighbors) I'm going to spend my afternoon there with the book I picked up at Best Buy yesterday while waiting so blessed long to get my laptop attended to. Like I don't have enough books to read! But this one is a fun one. So that, combined with a sunny day at the pool, will hopefully turn things around here.

And tomorrow is another day and another place.