Warning: somewhat graphic detail of the the day today towards the end of this post. You may not want to read any further.

Well, we almost made it out of Indiana today. We’re close. We normally stay just over the border in Ohio around Bryan at a Ramada Inn that we’ve stayed in two years in a row but they did not have any pet rooms available tonight. Something about a “big group” coming in tonight. Maybe there’s a dog show around. Don’t know.

So we opted for the Ramada Inn in Angola, Indiana that we stayed at three years ago. It’s off the highway a bit, and even more so now as the road is closed and we had to detour six miles out of the way, and six more miles back. But, we’re here, the outdoor dog walking space is incredible and the room is nice and hopefully quieter than last night. Domino’s just delivered our Honolulu Hawaiian pizza to our room and we devoured it. YUM.

But what a night last night and what a day today.

That thunderstorm I talked about last night? Well, it was one seemingly continuous thunderstorm/s from 7:00 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. Every time I drifted off to sleep I was awakened by loud claps of thunder. Or by the rude people at the ice machine one door down from us. And the subsequent banging shut of their door. Rude.

And how about that stupid train? Twice it went by, blaring its horn. One time was not enough. It sounded like it was right next to the hotel (which we kind of noticed before but not like it sounded from the freakin third floor where we ended up).

Toss into that nightmare mix a cat who continually has to use the litter box and scratch the newspapers that I use around it and you have a pretty much sleepless night. I finally got up at 2:30 and tossed him in the crate (Sam) and put his crate in the bathroom and closed the door most of the way so I couldn’t hear him trying to get out of said crate.

Fast forward to a late start this morning by one hour (due to sleeping a bit later from lack of sleep from all the above), toss in the stop at the Best Buy in Coralville, Iowa to exchange my camera.

Which I decided not to do (exchange it that is but instead returned it for a refund). Why? We noticed that my camera that we had purchased two weeks ago was being sold for a reduced price from what we had paid for it. The helpful sales person told us that it was because Canon was releasing the newest version of the same camera in a few days. Since it featured a new auto-focus feature I opted to just return my new camera and get the newest Canon after we get home.

That took a good 45 minutes (combined with lunch at the Culver’s ... again YUM) out of the scheduled driving time.

Then once we were back on the road for about ten minutes, eBay decided to have diarrhea in her crate, so we pulled off. Again. While Rick was in the quick mart store at the gas station we had pulled off in to get some wipes after getting eBay cleaned up and settled back in to her crate, Sam had to join in the on the diarrhea in his crate.

At this point I swore the cats would stay home next year. Actually, I swore quite a lot.

One hour and 45 minutes now behind our usual time.

Chicago basically sucks. It took us two hours today in stop and go traffic when it normally takes 45 minutes to an hour to get through it. The temperature was 95 degrees. Thank God for air conditioning and the great truck that Big Red is.

Then as you know, we had to detour to get to this hotel.

We are glad to be settled and hopefully not thunder, people banging doors and getting ice at all hours, nor cats scratching in the cat litter box will keep us awake tonight.

I can’t tell you how glad I will be to be home. In my own house. In my own bed.

Good night from Angola (a really cute town as we learned from our detour through main street).

Tomorrow: Home Sweet Home!

(Apologizing in advance for any typos as I am so tired I can hardly see straight. It was so bizarre I had to write it down.) Sorry!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad at the cabin 8,650 feet above sea level

Location:N 400 E,LaGrange,United States