Boy oh boy this just gets better and better. We find ourselves not only in the midst of attempting to cram 3 months worth of planning into a 12 hour window, but meeting some new unforeseen challenge at every juncture. Seems as though Ragbrai 07 is going to put up a fight as much as humanely possible. Ian and I have been pouring over Google maps, and Ian has been coordinating with a handful of people to keep our schedule in order. More than once, the words “fuck it, Ragbrai is off” have been IM’d today. Here’s a chronological breakdown of the various conundrums that have emerged today:
-First thing today, we were supposed to email the driver A.the location of the bus B. Who would be the contact when picking up the bus C. Where the bus needed to be driven to and D. Who would be the contact on that end. Said driver (who is a professional I might add) added last night he would prefer to meet somewhere outside the city so as to “cut down on mileage and avoid tolls if possible”. Fair enough. Last night on the phone he began dropping some highway numbers to me in a brainstorming session as to what would be the most efficient means for transporting said bus. We decided since Ian was coordinating some last minute construction on the bus, he should email Tom these logistics.
-I IM’d Ian this morning to see if he sent the email off. He hadn’t yet, but this spawned a conversation revolving around what would be the ideal route for the bus. After a phone call, it became apparent that the highway numbers driver was throwing at us would not only send the bus into the nerve center of Illinois tollways, but thrust the bus onto the Edens Expressway and right into the thick of traffic. Odd…
-Ian puts a phone call into the driver to inquire about the possibility of simply driving the bus to Pressure up in Edgewater (northern neighborhood) which is where it would be parked. Driver informs Ian that to him, Rockford was a suburb of Chicago. Calling Rockford a Chicago suburb makes about as much sense as calling an aardvark a effective steam-shovel operator. That is, it makes zero sense. Driver also informs Ian that not only does he harbor a serious disdain for tollways, but he’s also quite averse to driving in anything that could be defined as “heavy traffic”. So basically that eliminates any normal driving route into the city. Oh what a bundle of joy…
-It is determined that driver could theoretically take highway 20 all the way into Chicago if he really wanted, thus eliminating tollways and any real severe traffic. Good enough. It is determined that he will drive the bus as far as Bloomington, where we will meet and drive the bus the rest of the way to Pressure. Timing of this transition is on a hair-trigger because the absolute EARLIEST we could leave the city is 5:30, and that’s assuming nothing goes haywire. We agree to get there between 7:15 and 7:30 (26 miles swimming upstream in rush hour? Sure why not)
-Driver agrees to the terms of our meeting juncture and informs Ian he requires a pdf or some sort of copy of insurance. This launches a myriad of problems, the least of which is that nobody actually knows where the insurance papers are. This is a deal-breaker for driver, because if driving with an iota of traffic around sends him off, doing it without insurance is a recipie for a full blown conniption fit. A mad dash is made to retrieve papers that culminates in a physical meeting @ the insurance office. All seems somewhat resolved.
-The driver for the week discovers that while he has his Illinois state ID, his actual Iowa driver’s license is missing. To complicate matters Iowa and Illinois’s DOT’s don’t play nice and one cannot simply have an Illinois license printed on a moments notice (why would they?). As of right now, the plan is to get driver to a Davenport DOT sometime tomorrow to get a license printed. This problem as of right now is not rectified. If it isn’t rectified, week-driver seems very un-keen on driving while in Illinois and not exactly warm to really driving at all. While this certainly poses a multitude of problems (mostly in the way of preventing concerned parties from being drunk all the time), I take solace in the fact that the seriousness of our problems have gone from piling people into the back of a Uhaul and going across Iowa to ensuring proper alcohol consumption takes place.
We’re within 48 hours of departure and clearly not everything is in order. After attempting to launch numerous tours and this being my 3rd Ragbrai, I’ve come to pretty much expect that nothing will actually go according to plan. That won’t stop me from stressing the details all the way up until (and including) that point where I’m sitting on the bus and my bike is affixed to the roof. If I had to nail it down, I’d say we’re 60% out of the woods in this thing “going smoothly”, but it is clear the vacation gods are not smiling on us this week.
To top matters off, I come home from work today to find that OnShore has one again fucked up and our web is down. They say they can't fix it until tomorrow when a technician has to come into the apartment and "fix something" (what I don't know). Then the storm seems to have knocked the dish out of whack so I can't even watch TV. So here I am, sitting in the fucking business center. I'm so happy I could just shit.