It’s been a wild week, but a good one for the most part..
Ok, so I’ve not done a blog myself in days—so here goes!
Monday morning we talked to the carriers at the main post office in Madison and it was a great way to start the week—Wisconsin ROCKS! We headed southward toward Illinois. We were supposed to stop just north of the Illinois border, but decided to keep going because of incoming storms and bad roads to ride on. Ended up at a motel in Barrington, IL for the night.
Tuesday was a long day. We started out with a little breakfast, then we needed a bike shop to fix a tire for Gary—thanks to Lisa and Mike at Bike’s Plus!!! They set us up with what we needed at no charge—you guys are GREAT!!! Then we made the trip into Chicago. Couldn’t ride too far before we ended up throwing the bike in and driving the rest of the way in. Nothing like Betsy driving down Michigan Avenue—yikes!! But we made it to the NALC Branch 11 building early afternoon. And we didn’t leave there. There were no hotel rooms to be had after much calling and calling. So we found a “live” outlet on the outside of the building, plugged in and called it a day. It was a little strange to be in one of the most vibrant cities in the country and to be locked in a gated parking lot, but we had electricity, internet and television, so we were fine.
Wednesday morning was a great experience for Gary. Mark Reynolds from the USPS had set us up with three of the post offices downtown—Gary talked to 500 carriers, give or take. He was very well received! Then after that, Jimmie, Phil, and Mildred from Branch 11 took us to breakfast. Mr. Canada—-THANK YOU for all your help while we were in Chicago. We headed out shortly after noon and drove to Merrillville, Indiana to get out of the city and be ready to ride the next day.
George, the NALC branch president, set us up to talk at the post office there and also with the postmaster in Gary. GREAT PEOPLE!!
Thursday morning after those stops, we headed out for Michigan City. Gary had a nice wind behind him and good riding road so we made good time. Other than that, Michigan City was a bust as far as the post office and the media. I’d emailed the newspaper several days ago, and we stopped there….the person Gary talked to didn’t know anything about it, and said it was too short notice—so who knows where my email went! And then the post office wouldn’t allow him to talk to the carriers there either–no explanation given, so who knows what’s up with that!
We left Michigan City this morning with Gary riding straight into the wind, so he had a hard 35 miles to ride. I haven’t ridden in over a week because of hurting my back, but hopefully I should be good to go tomorrow! We touched base with Paul from Fox28 television and set up a time to meet with his crew when we got into town—Gary said it went very well, so we’ll be looking for that on the news later on. Tony Flora, the Indiana NALC state president has us set up at two post offices for the morning—-THANKS Tony!! Now we’re settled in at the KOA, watching the British Open and relaxing.
We’re still trying to stay ahead on media, post offices, money, ride route, lodging reservations, etc. It gets frustrating at times, but we’re doing the
best we can and that’s all we can do! I’ve got Chicago pics to download and will do that soon.
