Tuesday, June 13, 2006

I left home around 0730 hours headed for the Windy City and the home of my old friends Paige and Donna Van Vorst. I ran into a light rain outside of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. There were a number of pesky road construction projects on the way through Wisconsin that slowed traffic down to 55 mph or less. I didn’t hear much out of Madison FD as I passed through that area.

There is also a lot of construction along the Illinois Tollway as they are modifying all their toll plazas for "Open Road Tolling". I came to one tollway station that was closed due to construction and the Illinois Tollway had a sign that they were making improvements and were not charging at that plaza. Whoppee! But when I stopped at the next Toll Plaza, I was charged double. I should have known they weren’t going to give anybody a break collecting tolls. You can noe buy a $40 permir online that you put in your fromt window. Each time you pass through an electronic toll lane they charge you 1/2 of what you pay with cash. You still have to slow down as you go through the toll plaza, but the goal is to have enough lanes that you won't even need to slow down. When there is less than $10 left on your pass, the Illinois Tollway will automatically charge you another $40 and add it to your toll credit. I'm not so sure that I want any more government agencies having access to my credit card. They seem to have a hard time keeping private information from being compromised. I'll continue to pay cash.

When I arrivied in the Chicago area around 1430 hours it was sunny and warm. I decided to visit some CFD Stations on the way to the Van Vorst home. I visited CFD Stations 11, 86, 108, and 69 on the way in. I was only able to get apparatus photos at Station 69. Traffic was getting rush-hour slow as I proceeded to the Van Vorst home.

When Paige and Donna arrived home from work we went out to dinner at the Polish buffet that we all enjoy so much. We returned home and made plans for Wednesday, which include picking up Charlie Bleck and heading down to the Chicago Fire Museum, which was going to be open Wednesday afternoon. I also needed to get together with Charlie to go over the latest CFD Apparatus Roster changes for our upcoming newsletter.