Thank you EVERYONE!!
I had my wife and son try with me, youngest daughter slept and had my other daughter get on time.gov to count up. She got bewildered when I said ‘start counting at 45 seconds’ since it was counting up (like a clock), instead of down like a timer.
Being a great dad and totally stressed out (I’d been up at 2:30 reading through these posts and grabbing screenshots, positioning my app again, testing wi-fi vs cellular....you know all the usual stuff!)....and amped out of my mind, I snapped at her asking what time it was.....

Totally not my best moment!
My wife then said it was 7 so I snapped at myself and back into action... I hit all the right buttons like a well oiled machine, my fingers were taut with anticipation, I hit the join button....and it said something went wrong. At the same time my wife said should I remove you from the group? Then my 21 year old son sleepily called out from his bed...’I got us 56’.
....I apologized to my 19 year DD and my DW and then slowly shuffled back to get ready and heard my 21 DS to his 12 year old sister, ‘Audrey, I’m the hero! I saved our vacation!’
Yes, Mighty Dad struck out, but there were no tears in Mudville or the Porter family today, because on our one and only shot to get a ROTR BG, dad failed but the ‘son’ still rose this day!!
thanks again! We are at Windsor Hills and I’m on an iPhone 11 Pro but the iPhone 8+ on condo wifi reigned supreme!
good luck to all!