Emacs "No route to host" :name "elpa.gnu.org"

Question

I just started getting this when I start up my Emacs (at command line with emacs --debug-init):

Lisp error: (file-error "make client process failed" "No route to host" :name "elpa.gnu.org" :buffer #<killed buffer> :host "elpa.gnu.org" :service 80 :nowait nil :tls-parameters nil)
  signal(file-error ("make client process failed" "No route to host" :name "elpa.gnu.org" :buffer #<killed buffer> :host "elpa.gnu.org" :service 80 :nowait nil :tls-parameters nil))
  package--download-one-archive(("gnu" . "http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/") "archive-contents" nil)

A restart with emacs --insecure and just emacs however seems to work. BTW, I've got everything setting up with use-package with :ensure t set. The good restarts, however, produce this in *Messages* when I do a M-x list-packages but then skip over and finish just fine:

error in process sentinel: Error retrieving: http://elpa.gnu.org/packages/archive-contents (error connection-failed "failed with code 113
" :host "elpa.gnu.org" :service 80)

I googled and saw various init setup tinkering solutions ... which I don't believe apply to this particular issue. I'm guessing there's something wrong "out there", not on my machine. Any ideas/suggestions? I'm on latest Ubuntu and Emacs 26.2.