… until it doesn’t.
The fact that this post is coming a day late should tip you off that something went awry. All’s well that ends well, but there was a slightly harrowing moment last night.
The plan was this: I take a train from Springfield to Summit, bike to Midway, and meet Jon’s arriving flight. We fetch his bike box from oversized baggage, assemble it, and then ride west to meet up with a series of bike trails that follow the I&M Canal and then the Des Plaines River to arrive in Joliet. There were a whole lot of moving parts, and a couple of less-than-reliable dependencies (looking at you., Amtrak and Southwest), but everything went staggeringly according to plan. It took us a little longer to escape city streets than we anticipated—we averaged less than 9 mph—but we reached the trailhead with plenty of time to stop for dinner and still reach Joliet by nightfall.
We grabbed dinner at a burger joint in Willow Springs, confirmed that Joliet was reachable, and took a look at accommodations. We were a little surprised to see that nothing was as inexpensive as we thought it would be. I mean, sure, it was a Saturday night, but these prices weren’t much less (if at all) than the prices we were avoiding in Chicago. What we failed to pay attention to, was whether these expensive rooms were even available.
By the time we reached Joliet, and began looking for accommodations in earnest, it was dusk and we were fairly screwed. There was, shall we say, no room at the inn, and although we were both looking like a couple of asses at that point, we were doubtful of finding a manger, either.
We headed west toward the I-80 corridor, figuring that that would be our best bet to find something. Jon threw a “Hail Mary pass” to his wife and tasked her with going online and seeing if she could find anything. By this time, it was dark, and we were navigating unfamiliar streets. Oh, and Jon’s phone was dying, and he was using my auxiliary battery.. We pulled into the parking lot of a downscale extended stay hotel which had not appeared on any of our searches, and—at that point—Jon’s phone rang. Kelly had found one room, two queen beds, at a Comfort Inn less than five miles away. We booked a reservation immediately and started pedaling.
We were in the room a little before 9:00, but it felt much later. All the anxiety of considering the suboptimal and unsavory options was exhausting.
Day 2 was better, including a providential shortcut from our hotel to the Route 66 trail. There was a unwanted delay for tire repairs, plural, in the village of Wilmington, but Jon and I were comfortably ensconced in our respective hotel rooms by 4:15p.
That post to follow later….
Rideworthy 