Last week Jenni and I took off on Wednesday 23-April on an excursion to Pennsylvania. We went to gather my belongings from the home where I had taken refuge after that domestic assault in early 2024. It was an interesting trip. On the way there, our navigation app decided, on it’s own, to “Avoid Tolls.” We didn’t realize that had happened until we had already spent an extra hour driving back roads. We had assumed it was rerouting us to detour around some obstacle. By the time we realized what had happened and turned off that option, we were another extra hour getting back to the optimal route.
We had made plans to stay at a Motel 6 along the route the first night, with the intention of not overdoing it. By the time we got to that motel, we were exhausted. Jenni had driven ten hours, including stops for fuel, food, and stretching our legs. You may remember I don’t drive due to PTSD from a severe auto accident. So that duty fell to Jenni. She was a real trooper about it. We had booked ahead, and had an accessible room with a large bathroom and a huge walk-in shower. We enjoyed that immensely.
The next morning we arose around dawn, and checked out of the motel. We drove the rest of the way to our destination, and arrived there around 12:30 pm. We spent that afternoon sorting through, and packing, my belongings. Once packed we loaded that which we were taking with us into the SUV (Ford Escape), and went to check into the Ramada we had booked for that night. It was also an accessible room, though a bit disappointing in a couple of ways.
First, the bed was the highest one I have ever seen. I’m 5′ 9″ and my feet couldn’t touch the floor when sitting on the bed. I was an easy ten inches off the floor. The bathroom was very roomy, but the floor was the coldest tile I had ever stood on. The shower was in a bathtub, so it required a step-over to enter. All in all, though, it was a pleasant night as well. When we awoke the next morning, we checked out and headed for home.
By now, we were paying close attention to the settings on the navigation app. We ensured it didn’t change to “Avoid Tolls,” and checked that setting regularly. The trip home was just about twelve hours. We didn’t stop overnight on the return trip. That trip was not, by any means, uneventful though. We encountered some very heavy thunderstorms about halfway home, and actually had to stop at a toll road service center for over half an hour just to let one storm blow over.
About half of the trip we were plagued by construction slow-downs as well. Long stretches of the toll roads between Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were closed down to one lane each direction. It didn’t cause too much delay, but it was nerve wracking. Then, we arrived into the Chicago area. We had specifically routed such that we would not drive through Chicago proper. We traveled through Gary Indiana along I-80 to Joliet Illinois. We were shocked at how heavy the traffic was that far south of Chicago. Again, that was quite nerve wracking.
Once we got past Joliet, things settled down a bit, and we could relax the rest of the trip. We arrived home at about 7:30 pm. We were exhausted again, and left almost everything in the car. The next day we grabbed everything that was easily unpacked and put away. This morning, we woke up with mild coughs and congestion. Jenni is sicker than I am. We have OTC cold and flu medications and are taking it easy today.
There are still a considerable amount of my clothes in the car, as I really have nowhere to store them in Esméralda. I also haven’t unpacked the main computer I bought while living in Pennsylvania. I’m using a laptop I bought in Oklahoma for a temporary device. I’ll probably unpack and setup that tower and it’s dual monitors later in the week, after we are both feeling a bit better.
The registration and license plate (from Pennsylvania) arrived in the mail today from when I bought the Escape last month. I was still legally a Pennsylvania resident when I bought that. Now that those have arrived, I can begin the process of officially becoming a Wisconsin resident. I will have to get a new driver’s license, and change title, registration, and tags to Wisconsin.
Jenni changed her driver’s license last Monday, and her permanent license arrived today as well. This whole trip we were driving with temporary license plates, and Jenni had a temporary paper Wisconsin driver’s license. She would have been much happier if those items had arrived before we left on that very long trip, but things didn’t work out that way.
So the journey continues. Hopefully, there won’t be any such long excursions in our near future.
An Aging Trans Woman 
That does sound exhausting. I hate when navigation apps do weird things and take you weird places.
You were only 4 hours from us in Joliet. We live just outside St. Louis and about once or twice a year we hop the river and hangout in Grafton or Alton, IL.
Glad y’all are home ok and hope those cold-like symptoms pass soon.
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Being the programmer I am, I have a theory on what happened with that app. I think that someone restored an old copy of user profiles on the back end server. I definitely used to have “Avoid Tolls” active on that app. But I turned it off specifically before this trip, and even checked the setting the nigh before departure. Also, the sound was “Off” that whole day, which was also something I do when using it for short local trips to unfamiliar places. All of that was back to the settings I wanted on the next morning. Interesting, eh?
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And 4 hours sounds like a short distance, but after the trip we’d had? I’m sorry we missed you, but no way. 🙂
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No. That’s a lot of hours and way out of the way after a long trip. It was just wild to realize we weren’t that far away for a bit.
I’ve been thinking more and more that I do want to start meeting some of my online friends. I have several I’ve known for years and have never met. You included.
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There’s a wedding celebration in June. You’d be welcome. 😊
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I would love to take you up on that offer. Just dm me details.
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See Discord. 👍
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Yup. Got it. Thanks.
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Glad it went relatively well. That’s a lot of driving! Get well soon.
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Thanks Cass!
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That is a really long trip.
But so normal, except the illness. Here’s to quick recovery, and getting all the things in and the pics hung! (In a manner of speaking of getting unpacked.)🎶
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Thanks Ali!
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I should have put “normal” in quotes, like that. Also, so you know what I mean, when you said you’d set the navigation to avoid Chicago, my mind went immediately to images from “National Lampoon’s Vacation,” when they were in Chicago!🫣😄
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🤣
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Nerve wracking drive home is an understatement to say the least my dear. I believe I said Chicago traffic could go suck eggs. Now if I could just shake this bug I picked up.
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You’re getting there. Slowly, admittedly.
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