After enjoying another breakfast from the Panera Bread Restaurant, which we could see from our location in the Walmart parking lot, we headed south out of town and crossed back into the state of Ohio.
A short while later we were traveling on I-475 around the east side of Toledo where we landed in the Best Buy parking lot. When the store opened at 11:00AM I was the first one in line and headed straight for the Geek Squad service desk where I had an 11:20AM appointment.
Several days ago I made this appointment and explained what I needed done and the fact that I would have to basically wait for them to do the repair.
I had two issues that needed attention. My 8-year old iPhone SE was no longer able to detect the SIM card inside. So I had tried to eject the card to reinsert it thinking maybe it just became dislodged somehow. Well when I ejected the card only the tray that holds the card came out of the phone, leaving the SIM card stuck inside.
After unsuccessfully trying to "dig" the card out I gave up and figured the phone would have to be opened up and then remove the card from the slot. The person on the phone said they could handle that problem.
My second problem is that my brand new iPad that I bought from another Best Buy a couple of months ago has me locked out.
I've probably only had the iPad open 4 or 5 times since I bought it. It used to ask me for a PIN to login, but the last time I started the iPad it asked me for a password. I had never set a password on this device, only the four digit numerical PIN.
I tried all my usual passwords and eventually the iPad told me to reset it to factory settings, in other words, wipe out all my data and make it new again.
I followed the online directions to do just that, but had no success. I asked if that was something Best Buy could do and was once again told, no problem.
When I arrived at Best Buy and began speaking to the technician who would be doing the work I was informed that contractually Best Buy was not allowed to open up any iPhone and service it in any way. I explained my 8-year old phone was obviously not under any kind of warranty and that it had been opened previously to replace the battery by a non-Apple employee. He said he was sorry but there was nothing he could do for me.
On to problem number two, my iPad. That one he told me could be done, but I wouldn't get it back until the next day. I told him I would no longer be in Toledo after this afternoon and that I explained all of this to the person on the phone who made my appointment.
That's when he informed me that the person who made my appointment was not an employee in this store, as a matter of fact, they weren't even in the state of Ohio. It was a nationwide service that schedules all the appointments in all of the Best Buy Stores and have basically no idea what or how soon anything can be repaired. Why does that not surprise me!
He then went into the back of the office, out of my sight, and returned a few minutes later to inform me they could reset my iPad and have it done shortly after lunch. That was fine with me!
I left the iPad with him and exited the store to use Tricia's phone to try and find someone to take care of my iPhone problems.
I found that 8-miles away was an Apple Store inside of a large mall in the center of Toledo. Try finding a parking spot on a Sunday afternoon for a 20' truck attached to a 28' trailer in a mall parking lot. Their 5-story parking garage with a 7' clearance sign at the entrance was of absolutely no help, but we got lucky and found a spot to park.
On the way to the Apple Store we passed a phone repair kiosk in the middle of the mall corridor. After opening my phone up and removing the SIM card he was still unable to get the phone to detect the card. He tried a brand new card with the same results. He informed me that my phone was basically toasted and not worth repairing. He didn't charge me for the 15-minutes of work he did, but I gave him $20 and thanked him for trying.
So on to the Apple Store we went and found out they couldn't match the promotion that AT&T was running where if I were to finance my new phone for 36-months the rebates would offset the monthly payments down to just $1.99 a month. Basically I'm receiving a brand new $500 iPhone SE for $72 and will remain an AT&T customer for the next 3-years. I don't have a problem with any of that! The best part is I get to keep my old data plan that they no longer offer.
I did however have to walk another 20-yards deeper into the mall to find the AT&T Store.
After returning to Best Buy to pick up my iPad, at no charge by the way, we were back on the highway to complete our travels for the day.
An hour later we arrived at Seneca Caverns in the little town of Bellevue, OH to spend the night. Tomorrow morning at 9:00AM we'll be exploring our 67th cave.
Two weeks ago I had called the cave owner and asked if it would be possible to park overnight with the promise of the two of us taking their cave tour in the morning. Her response was, "No one has ever asked that, but I don't see why not".
So that's where we are tonight, at Seneca Caverns awaiting them to open in the morning so we can be on their first tour of the day.
This one promised to be different than the previous 66 cave tours we've done. This cave was not created due to water erosion like every other cave we've visited, this one was actually created by gravity. There was a huge underground void on this property, probably there since the Ice Age.
Several thousand years ago there was a collapse of the ceiling above the void and the rock "cracked" when hitting the floor. It created a maze of different levels in the cave with broken rocks everywhere.
Today we climbed down seven levels in the cave and came to the modern day end of the cave, but there are several more layers below that which are normally filled with ground water.
In conclusion, are we happy we took the tour? Absolutely!
Will we ever do it again? Absolutely not!
Do we recommend you visit this cave? Only if you're as interested in caves as we are.
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