Museums Are Fun

to work with! You just never know what you’re going to get.

I have three museums scheduled for New Mexico and Denver in just a few weeks. It’s the first time I’m taking a train, and then renting a car, and once I got all my times and dates I made all my hotel reservations and train and car — everything in order.

Yesterday, when I had maybe just 24 hours left before I could post my 2nd edition Michigan Copper Artifact Resource Manual, I got an email from one of them wanting to change my days. Panic time! Okay, we can do this. I’ll switch two of them, and contacted one to see if that would work. I could then switch my departure back to where I arrived, adding, oh, another 7 hours behind the wheel, and switch around two or three hotels to get that all to work. Or maybe switch two other museums if … but no, I wasn’t given that option. Wait, I could extend my stay another day and still …

The easiest answer was to leave a day earlier and then just tack on another night’s stay at the first hotel. The rest of the trip would remain the same. That entailed two phone calls, first the Amtrak. I never used Amtrack, well, except for sending packages to my son in Seattle, which was fun because they were getting ready to discontinue that service so I just made it. They could not figure out how to get all the stuff they left at their house. So that was a win-win. But calling Amtrack this time, using their automated phone service was a little disconcerting. The connection must have been bad because there was a lot of scratching sound so they had to connect me to an agent who must have been upset that I interrupted her bathroom break or something. When I said we must have a bad connection, she simply hung up on me. I called back and this time the automated service worked to change my departure to 6/19, and that went without a hitch right to receiving the email confirmation.

Then I had to call the hotel, Quality Inn, and he had to put me on hold. I imagined all kinds of scenarios such as no room at the inn, to double in price, to need to book me in a separate room for each night, to maybe hang up. You know the scenario, right? You’ve been there. Have you ever tried to find a room after driving for 12 hours? You’re ready to pay anything! But when he came back he said he canceled the first, made me a new reservation and the prices for the ones were basically the same. Yay! And no additional to the Amtrak change, either. It does mean another day on the road and now I have to see if I can get from Amtrak to the university area where the museum and hotel are by public transportation, with two suitcases and a backpack. Hmmm, maybe a taxi? Or call and check with the car rental to see if I can add another day without too much extra cost? Okay, that’s next.

The museum also told me they had a data sheet of materials ready for me and would send the list. I don’t have it yet but can only hope it has some of the material I’m looking for on it. They said I only asked for 50 but my sheet has over 100. Hmmm, what happened there? They also asked for my 2015 spreadsheet but why? They also asked for my release forms and I said I thought I sent them and would look for them and then sent something I hadn’t signed and they said never mind they found them. Sure hope they send me that list they found for me. I keep thinking they have me mixed up with someone else.

I love museums. No, seriously! They have all these challenges of their own but still, I can get in and I can compile and meet some very lovely people. I only wish I still had my little 2006 Honda Insight. That’s when driving everywhere was fun. Now, with this as the bonafide last copper research trip west, I’m going to enjoy every harrowing moment.