As many of you know, MittenDiver, Frog, and myself went to the Our World Underwater show this year.
Well, what happened after the Meet and Greet wouldn't have been believed in a Hollywood script. I'll keep the prices out of this, except to say that we got an eye-opening look at the cost of being stranded in Chicago.
We followed Nitrox Junkie and IndyScott out of the convention center and onto I-90 E planning to find some more economical food just outside of the Chicago/O'Hare area. Not more than five miles on I-90, the alternator finally went on the car that we were driving. We found ourselves on the right shoulder of I-90 looking across at the Jefferson St. train station. We didn't even have enough juice for four ways and that is a blind curve coming from in from that overpass. We used a cell phone and called for a wrecker.
Not knowing Chicago at all, we told the wrecker driver to find us a hotel and place to keep the car and (incidentally) make it close as we were getting charged by the mile.
We wound up at the Spring Hills Suites (Marriot) near O'Hare. Upon waking, we went to breakfast and got directions to a parts store roughly 1.5 miles from the hotel. Off we hiked. We got to that hotel to find out that they didn't have the alternator that we needed in stock. We bought a cheap socket set and trekked another mile down to the parts store that did have an alternator in stock.
At this point, we called a cab to find out that by the time that one got there, we would have completed half the hike back to the Marriot. So, we burned more off the soles of our shoes and luckily ran into a bus stop that was for a bus heading our direction. We got farther down the road and walked the twenty minutes to the hotel.
Mitten Diver broke open the socket set and started to tear out the bad alternator. At this point I went in and checked us out of our room to avoid the late check-out fees.
Wouldn't you know it? The deep-well, 3/8 drive, 5/16 in. socket that we needed was NOT in our socket set. Enter the building engineer for the Marriot. His name was Alex. We asked him for the tool and got an extra mechanic. He saw people with decent clothes (and killer jackets
) trying to do auto work. Alex actually put his hands into the really grimy parts and the team of Alex/Mitten Diver had the alternator replaced fairly quickly.
One jump off of the hotel van and off we went!!! We got back to Jackson, MI roughly 5:30 pm EST and I arrived back in Sanford, MI roughly 9:00 pm EST.
Overall, while there were lessons learned, this is not an experience that I would want to repeat.
Well, what happened after the Meet and Greet wouldn't have been believed in a Hollywood script. I'll keep the prices out of this, except to say that we got an eye-opening look at the cost of being stranded in Chicago.
We followed Nitrox Junkie and IndyScott out of the convention center and onto I-90 E planning to find some more economical food just outside of the Chicago/O'Hare area. Not more than five miles on I-90, the alternator finally went on the car that we were driving. We found ourselves on the right shoulder of I-90 looking across at the Jefferson St. train station. We didn't even have enough juice for four ways and that is a blind curve coming from in from that overpass. We used a cell phone and called for a wrecker.
Not knowing Chicago at all, we told the wrecker driver to find us a hotel and place to keep the car and (incidentally) make it close as we were getting charged by the mile.
We wound up at the Spring Hills Suites (Marriot) near O'Hare. Upon waking, we went to breakfast and got directions to a parts store roughly 1.5 miles from the hotel. Off we hiked. We got to that hotel to find out that they didn't have the alternator that we needed in stock. We bought a cheap socket set and trekked another mile down to the parts store that did have an alternator in stock.
At this point, we called a cab to find out that by the time that one got there, we would have completed half the hike back to the Marriot. So, we burned more off the soles of our shoes and luckily ran into a bus stop that was for a bus heading our direction. We got farther down the road and walked the twenty minutes to the hotel.
Mitten Diver broke open the socket set and started to tear out the bad alternator. At this point I went in and checked us out of our room to avoid the late check-out fees.
Wouldn't you know it? The deep-well, 3/8 drive, 5/16 in. socket that we needed was NOT in our socket set. Enter the building engineer for the Marriot. His name was Alex. We asked him for the tool and got an extra mechanic. He saw people with decent clothes (and killer jackets
) trying to do auto work. Alex actually put his hands into the really grimy parts and the team of Alex/Mitten Diver had the alternator replaced fairly quickly.One jump off of the hotel van and off we went!!! We got back to Jackson, MI roughly 5:30 pm EST and I arrived back in Sanford, MI roughly 9:00 pm EST.
Overall, while there were lessons learned, this is not an experience that I would want to repeat.
:shakehead :ignore: 
ity_part :confused2 :no :55: :l: :frustrate :crying2: :redhot:
