CC w Chris Day 2

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2014 09 03 day 2



Apparently there is a learning curve for all of the gadgets we bought for the trip. When Chris entered the address for the Hayes Presidential Center, she did something wrong and we ended up in the town of Sandusky instead of Fremont. Fortunately it didn't take us too far out of our way. It took about an hour and a half to get to the Hayes Center.



The Rutherford B. Hayes (who would name their kid “Rutherford”?) Presidential center was very interesting. It is fascinating how information can be presented to color opinions. Hayes was president when the U.S. Decided to squeeze the Indians onto reservations and steal their remaining lands. The museum presents this event as an attempt to help the Indians! My recollection of the Hayes presidential election is that he basically stole it, but the museum presents it a a corrective action to compensate for irregularities in votes for Tilden.



The house he lived in is huge and very beautiful, it is absolutely amazing . If you are ever in this area, I highly recommend that you take the opportunity to visit. His descendants lived in the house until 1965 and kept much of the furnishings and decor that Rutherford used. In each room, they had a pedestal holding a picture of the room in 1965 and a picture from the late 1800's. The similarities were remarkable. We couldn’t imagine how they managed maintain the original furnishings and décor all those years, but they did.



After the visit to the Hayes Presidential center, we went to Walmart to buy a speaker for the Kindle so we could both listen to books on tape. If I was thinking (which I seem to do with ever decreasing frequency) I would have bought a cable to plug the kindle into the car's sound system. We also bought a phone mount so Chris could attach her phone to the windshield and get better gps reception. She hasa become fascinated with the Waze app and would sit holding he phone near the window so it would get a gps signal. Was is a navigation app for the phone that incorporates social networking. It allows you to input information about traffic, police activity, road conditions, etc. and this data will then show up on the map. I have found it to be fairly accurate. When Waze displays the hazard, it allows you to confirm that it is there or indicate that it is no longer present. My next door neighbor claims that it has saved him hundreds of dollars in speeding fines.



If you add a road hazard such as a vehicle on the side of the road, or a patrol car, you get points and the more points you accrue, the higher your rank. Chris is trying to achieve the highest rank on this trip. She gets real excited when she spots something and is the first to enter it.



When Chris was driving, she was using ear buds to listen to her book on tape. It turns out that listening to a book via ear buds is exponentially more distracting than listening to a book through the car's speakers. When the speed dropped from 70 to 55 with a ton of warning signs and notice that there is a tool booth not too far ahead, she didn't notice until I told her. As she approached the tool booth it didn't appear to me that she saw the barricade and was about to drive right through it until I yelled “STOP”. She no longer uses ear bud while driving.



We drove past Gary, Indiana around rush hour, so I was not surprised to find stop and go traffic. It was only about one-half hour before wee through it, so it wasn't too much of a pita.



We stopped in Morris, Illinois for dinner and ate at Chapins Family Restaurant. The dinner was exceptional. The food was delicious and the service was stellar. Highly recommend.



As you know, I use an app on my phone, Bubbler gps, to record our locaation and upload the data to the spot-walla website. I do this to both keep a record for me and allow my grandchildren to follow our travels (and perhaps learn a little geography). My daughter was showing my grandchildren our progress when we were in Ohio, and my grandson, remembering how boring he found the state during his trip through Ohio this summer questioned “Is that where they wanted to go”?

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Comments

[Rick Liedtka]

Off to a good start
Sounds like your adventure is starting off well. Good info on those phone apps, I was wondering what you are using to post locations on Spotwalla, now I know...interesting. I'm curious to hear how well those phone gps apps work when the phone service gets very spotty further west. Enjoy the trip, keep smelling them roses...give my best to Chris too. Hey! Just thought of something, if you are going to some of the National Parks we went to where I forgot to get the stickers for my bike, maybe you could pick them up for me?

[Cheryl Cole]

Interest
Hi...Ben is the same way when driving. There is a brake on the passenger side of our car. Keep having fun.