So today was the day: we left our family in Nashville and began to look for fun and excitement on a road trip. It was a tearful goodbye. So much has transpired over the past 2 months…none of us will ever be the same. With our “new” (to us) car underneath us, we hit the road for the 3000k+ mile journey.
We have decided that we would try to make the trip fun and exciting, in so far as we were able. That being said, I am on the lookout for anything that seems off the beaten path. We are looking for fun and excitement. If you follow my Instagram account for the podcast, you can see a bunch of pictures and videos from today and for the next several days. Look for “MessItUpPodcast” or click here and follow the fun.
There has been a lot to report from Day 1. We took a foot tour of downtown St. Louis including the Busch Stadium and the Gateway Arch. We met up with some friends from Ridgecrest in Altoona, Iowa. We got caught in a torrential downpour. Finally, when it was time to bed down for the night, we wound up getting a tour of Omaha, Nebraska. That’s where we’ll pick up the action…
Upon leaving Altoona we got a call from one of our daughters, just checking in on our progress. I had her do some quick searching on the ol’ interwebs and determined that Omaha would be a great place to stay the night. Being a fan of college baseball, and also an alumnus of CSU Fullerton, I have always wanted to make a trip out to Omaha to see the College World Series. It is always held in Omaha, so I counted it a blessing that Omaha was on our path. After a tad bit more research we found a great hotel at a great price. That afforded me the opportunity to get a good night’s rest and to let Bev sleep in a bed. Due to her restless leg syndrome, car sleep is a big bummer. With the room secured, Dr. Heather (the daughter in question) sent me the necessary info for our overnight stay as well as the address to the stadium so that I could put it into tomorrow’s itinerary. This all seemed reasonable at the time.
Since I plan to get home without incident, I am trying to drive in as safe a manner as I can. That means limiting my phone contact. The unintended consequence of my actions was that I inadvertently plugged in the stadium address rather than the hotel. I dutifully followed Siri’s instructions and exited the interstate on the East side of town. Mind you, Heather said the hotel was in West Omaha, but I was not exactly processing all of the info. I was just thinking, “Dang, we are gonna be close to the stadium. Tomorrow will be a breeze!” Nice try. I quickly discovered that there were several hotels in the vicinity, none of which were the one with my reservation. No problem, that’s why we have guidance assistance in our phones. I quickly typed in the name of the hotel and hit “Go”. We went.
I found that the hotel was still relatively close. I suppose anything is walking distance if you have the time, right?!? The problem with downtown hotels is that even though we got a killer deal (thanks, COVID 19) on the room rate, we had to park in a downtown public car park. Oh well, $10 max for the day isn’t so bad. It was the walk that I was ruing. We marched ourselves down the stairs then down the street and into the hotel lobby. The front desk clerk was a bit distracted due to a large (and inebriated) group of twenty somethings that were coming in at the same time. As they crowded into the elevators, they garnered all of his attention. We finally got down to getting our keys only to find that I did not have a reservation. That is when it dawned on my that the address was all wrong.
A quick 20 minute trip across town finally got us to the right hotel. Now we have a room with wifi. I was finally able to get through to post this blog. And I can now lay my head down to rest and it’s only 2 am! Oh well, I said I wanted an adventure…looks like I got one right out of the gate. Like I said at the start, fun and excitement on road trip! I’ll be back tomorrow with more stories from the road. Don’t forget to follow the MessItUpPodcast Instagram account to see all the videos and pictures. I think you will love them!