Planes, trains and automobiles: a merit-less ramble about travel

This morning I took the 147 Redline bus from my hotel near Chicago’s #MagnificentMile to visit Loyola University up in Edgewater. It was a bumpy, bouncy but beautiful ride along the lake front, and frankly so much more interesting than sitting with my head stuffed in the roof-lining of an Uber! And in thinking about the merits of public transit I got to thinking about the other forms of transport that had delivered me this far since setting off from home 10-days ago.

It began at Heathrow, aboard a rather elderly 777 that had seemingly been abandoned somewhere on the outer fringes of Terminal 5.  Indeed the first bus trip of this journey was an odyssey through and to places that passengers probably rarely see, hunting down the beleaguered Boeing.

On arrival in Chicago, there was of course the usual melee that greets all travellers at O’Hare, but once allowed to enter the United States, and reunited with my bags, I made my way to the blue line ‘airport transit system’ which carted me off to a point probably as far as it’s possible to get within the same airport to await my flight to the Upper Peninsula.

It turns out that the planes servicing the upper peninsula are rather wee, with two seats either side of the aisle designed for people very much smaller than me (or from what I could tell, almost everyone else on board apart from the children). I boarded quite early and so got to witness the face of the well-built chap making his way down the aisle towards me. He looked at his ticket, saw his seat, realised that I would be his cosy companion, and I could see his heart sink a little – in concert with mine!  Despite the consternation, it was actually pretty funny.

This wouldn’t be the usual short journey to Houghton though. A large thunderstorm sat somewhere across Wisconsin and Lake Michigan and we had to take the looong way around, finally arriving at about 1am. Shortly before landing the flight attendant, reading from their script, announced “your baggage can be found at carousel number one” -  the whole plane erupted into laughter. It turns out that both the attendant and I were visiting Houghton for the first time. The airport has no carousels, let alone one of many. The baggage is simply popped into racks for passengers to collect – as the locals all well knew.

The only thing not collected was me! My taxi driver had clearly decided he had better things to do in the early hours of a freezing Monday morning. Grrr. So there I was the only person left in the whole of the airport pondering how to bridge the 6 miles or so town. Thank goodness for Tamara who was dispatched from the hotel. Thank-you the Hampton Inn, Houghton. I was eventually delivered to my room at around 2 am. The first time then that a taxi appears in this story is when the taxi didn’t actually appear, instead my carriage was a small blue, most welcome, hotel shuttle car.

The next day the wonderful Nancy Barr, PhD, NREMT took me on a fabulous excursion around the upper, Upper Peninsula in her red ‘rigged for anything’ rescue truck. We saw frozen lakes, abandoned mines, stunning vistas, lonely lighthouses, and thundering waterfalls. It was a tremendous tour.

The travel thus far all leads up to a fantastic one-day symposium held at Michigan Technological University to launch their brilliant #EssentialEducation initiative. Yours truly had the honour of delivering the inaugural Keynote - which I guess had a transport related theme, drawing upon bridges as being somewhat analogous to reflection - that is they help connect otherwise isolated islands of learning. This should be a post about the symposium because it truly was excellent with inspiring speakers doing interesting and innovative things, but I don’t want to bury that in this rambling travelogue. Does walking count as a mode of travel? I hope it does. I’ve done lots of it, and straight after the symposium Jenn McIlrath and I went for a wander around the campus we met the brilliant Brittany Buschell and learned all about #Yooperlite.

On Thursday, we met other fabulous folk throughout the day before boarding Jenn’s magnificently mediocre Malibu to drive to Marquette (the slightly less remote town that Jenn had flown into, and where the rental Malibu was to be returned). 

We arrived in Marquette broadly around the same time as all of the parents of all of the students graduating from the University of North Michigan. And that turned out to be the reason why, when I went to collect the hire car that Enterprise had promised to provide in return for some dollars, there were in fact no cars available! Grrr. Indeed it turns out that a number more cars had been hired than we were actually available! Thank goodness for Joel and Cole who couldn’t have been more helpful – though perhaps they were a little scared at the sight of this huge, unhappy foreign fellow who was expressing (reasonably politely) how frustrated he was to be stranded in Marquette with no available flights and no available cars to allow him to escape southward!

An empty-handed 25-minute trip back into Marquette (thanks for the lift Joel) awaiting word that some customers hadn’t shown, or that two frisky Fords had begat a third. My hopes and prayers were answered by the unexpected early return that night of a Hyundai Tucson (or as Mrs S insists, a Tuck-san). Back out to Sawyer Airport again, this time courtesy of the first taxi to actually turn up as requested. I was delivered to collect my welcome wheels just as it was getting dark, just as it was starting to snow, and just as the deer started to loiter around the verges. Not ideal conditions for my first left-hand drive for a while, but better than waiting until midday Saturday, which was when the rental desk next opened. Not a lot of planes fly in and out of Sawyer it seems!

Exhilarating in the freedom afforded by a compact SUV, I set off bright and early on Saturday morning, with the temperature hovering around freezing, heading south over two days via Paradise, Sault Ste. Marie, Mackinaw, Harbour Springs, Petoskey, Gaylord and on to Detroit. 841 miles in all, in my little white Tucksan.

In Detroit, I took the people mover just because I could. I was ferried in Jenn’s mom-mobile to visit Wayne State University , almost took the bus to Canada for breakfast (sadly rain stopped play) and my first Uber of the trip to deliver me and my bags to Detroit’s Amtrak station where I took the Wolverine service to Chicago. Five hours and one time zone later my second taxi of the trip delivered me to my hotel.

I mentioned already the 147 Redline bus, it also brought me back to the Omni before I set off for another part of Chicago on the Green Line, though I returned by shanks’ pony the couple of miles back along the magnificent Riverwalk.

With trains, planes and automobiles already in the bag it was clearly time to take to the water. By mid-afternoon today my work was done, the business-end of the trip concluded, and so off I set for the edu-tastic, magnificent architectural boat trip that’s a must for visitors to this wonderful city.

Tomorrow, a final Uber will usher me back to O’Hare, from where a British Airways 787 will ferry me back to Heathrow where my mate Chris will collect me for delivery back to sunny Shropshire whereupon I will, almost certainly, go for a bike ride.