Tuesday 8th November – US Election day!

I think everyone agrees that the run up to the US election feels like it’s been going on forever.  I, for one, am happy to admit that I don’t understand how this crazy system works!  All these different votes, primaries etc.  But today, finally, here we are at the climax of the whole painful process.  The radio stations are talking non-stop about it, the TV stations have been second-guessing and urging everyone to vote.  We thought we’d stay well away from voting stations and any potential rallies.  Instead, we made steady progress across Indiana into Illinois and North (I know we were meant to be heading south) towards the outskirts of Springfield to stay in a State Park for a couple of nights as we needed to decrease our spending for the end of week three.

Be prepared for many images similar to this...!

Sangchris Lake State Park is just to the South East of Springfield, placing us a short drive away from the home of Abraham Lincoln for Thursday.  It was a long drive and by the time we arrived it was getting very dark so there were no park rangers to be found.  We tried to guess what looked like a nice level site and plugged ourselves in.

There was some dramatic spooky fog on our arrival at Sangchris lake

Our access to television stations is sporadic!  Other RV’ers may ensure they stay in places with access to cable.  As we’ve never had cable we don’t know what we’re missing so we haven’t bothered with that.  Instead, our extendable aerial in the roof sometimes gets us two or three stations, sometimes absolutely nothing at all.  We had no expectations being in the middle of a State park but, by pure chance, tonight we had a perfect signal for coverage of the ABC news.  With dinner and a few glasses of wine we settled down to watch history unfold before us and try to understand what on earth the Electoral College is and how someone with fewer votes can win an election?!

I’m sure many of you watched the whole evening’s events yourselves so there’s no need to go into detail, especially as I’m writing this two months down the line!  But, right at the start of the night when Trump was ahead we were convinced it was an early blip that would no doubt be reversed during the evening.  But that point never came.  Watching the pundits on ABC was highly entertaining.  They were all in shock but then started coming out with the theories of HOW Trump was leading the race to become the next President of the United States.  It all came down to the hatred for Hilary Clinton, especially in middle America, and that Donald was the only other option who represented change - well, that’s how they reckoned it happened.  You could see how the nation was so divided with Republican red gradually filling the middle of the map with democrat blue lining the margins of the East and West coast.  As the evening drew on it was incredibly close but as Trump started taking some of the swing states his victory was becoming more of a reality.  When the cameras went live at Clinton’s headquarters or to New York or Washington there were people in tears of disbelief.  Not very rock and roll that our latest night to date has been watching the election!  It was 215am by the time the Trump victory speech occurred and we were here, watching it live.  I didn’t think he came across too badly in that speech, he was even polite in commending Hilary for such a hard-fought battle (ancient history NOW!) but it felt like such a momentous occasion.  Pundits started comparing the result to the Brexit vote in the UK. Well, if the rest of the world were laughing somewhat behind our backs at the divisions within our country, then I think the USA had just well and truly ‘Trumped’ us when it comes to shock results.