Going Back to Indiana

Having spent some of yesterday in Detroit, the home of Motown Records, and spending most of today in Indiana it seemed right to use the Jackson5 version of Going Back to Indiana as the title of today's post. The family hailed from Gary Indiana through which we passed today.

Breakfast

The day began at 4.00 am Eastern Standard Time or more specifically as it is summer - Eastern Daylight Time. I mention the time as we cross a time-zone later today. By the time it will be this evening I woke up at the equivalent of 3.00 am! After writing the previous day's blog I showered and shaved. So far all the hotels have had excellent showers with high water pressure which, in my opinion makes all the difference. Luckily they have all also had a bath, something which Drew loves, but which don't occur in all hotels in the US.

I riffed about the benefit of Comfort Inn Breakfasts yesterday, and the one at the Comfort Inn in Oregon, Ohio was as good as I had expected. They had sausages that came two way - links and patties - this was served with scrambled eggs. I also had a bagal with cream cheese while Drew had three of the little doughnuts.

We went back to the room, finished packing and were ready to head off for today's adventure.

Leaving Ohio

We left the hotel and called at a BP garage to fill the car with petrol, ready for a driving day.

John Denver sings of Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio - for us it was Friday morning going through the same town and finding our way to the I80/I90 - one road two numbers - which is also called the Ohio Turnpike. Toldeo has a very striking and impressive downtown, but the route that led to the Turnpike was less salubrious. Full of run down houses, heavy industry and places that offered to 'buy Diabetic Blood testing kits' (don't ask me what for, I have no idea).

It was only a matter of 8 miles before we were on the Turnpike leaving Toledo behind and heading for Chicago. The first sign we saw reminded us it was 235 miles we would be doing today.

The blog entries of the last few days had been so busy that I'd not reflected on our driving. Just as I prefer showers and Drew baths, so I like driving when there is lots to focus on and lots to do and Drew likes driving when the road is long and you only have to point the car and click cruise control and occasionally speed up to pass a truck (lorry in UK English) or convoy of trucks. Hence for the two previous days I had done all the driving as we moved within and between large cities. Today the major part of the journey will be all done by Drew.

Having left Toledo at 8.25 we decided to stop for our first coffee at 9.25, 54 miles into today's journey. We called in to the Indian Meadows Travel Plaza in Williams County, OH, 21 miles from the State Line. In the US most Interstates don't have the UK concept of Services. Rather than a designated area you are directed off to nearby restaurants and petrol stations that might be anything from 1 to 8 miles away from the junction. But the Ohio Turnpike/Indiana Toll Road has services not dissimilar to what we experience in the UK. This Travel Plaza had a Starbucks among other things so I had a Venti Americano and Drew a Grande one. Most American's drink what they call drip coffee - coffee that as dripped through a filter machine, but in our experience this type of coffee hardly had any coffee taste to it. So two years ago we discovered by asking for a Americano we could get coffee that was strong and well caffinated. This travel plaza, as well as being exceptionally clean also had really good wifi. Drew, who had not read yesterday's blog, did so here - Note to iPhone users, the blog renders better when the phone is held sideways (landscape), I'd not noticed before but when the phone is held upright the photos end up in the wrong place/order, this problem doesn't seem to occur on an iPad or PC. As much of the time in blog posting is getting the photos to sit properly within the text it would be a pity if mobile readers weren't seeing it at its best :-)

Going Back to Indiana

Coffee and loo break over we headed back on to the road at 10.25 and headed for the State Line passing in to Indiana at 10.42. This is Drew's fourth new state of the holiday. Less than a week in and already half way through the target eight states.

I say going back to Indiana becuase this is my third visit to the state. Indeed both in 1997 and 2000 we drove along this piece of road. In 1997 having come through Pensylvania heading to Chicago and in 2000 heading from Detroit towards the I55 and route 66.

As we got into Indiana we stopped at the Toll Booth to pick up our ticket and then headed through Indiana's Amish Country. I had picked up a brochure about this area at the last Travel Plaza and was reading to Drew about it in case we wanted to visit some of the museums or other locations. Drew however regards driving on straight roads for long times as the heart of his holiday, so wasn't inclined to go off on a side road today.

Some of the museums/exhibitions in this area seemed a bit crazy. They included the RV Hall of Fame and Museum and the Hall of Heroes (as in Superheroes) Museum!! 

We stopped outside Elkhart at another Travel Plaza where we stopped at 11.45 having done another 89 miles. We made this our lunch stop - Drew having a Blueberry Scone and I an Asiago Bagel with Cream Cheese. Not being familiar with the pronunciation of Asiago I was able to get away with calling it a Cheese Bagel. The scone on the other hand proved more challenging. I know in the UK we have two pronunciations one with a short and one with a long vowel, I used the one I expected to be used out here (the long one) and got a 'You what!' from the server, when I used the other form she asked me to say it again because: 'I love your accent'. Drew was glad he had someone to do his scone buying for him!!

Gary, Indiana

Back on the Indiana Toll Road we drove another 68 miles before our next stop. This was at a service area in Portage Indiana, soon before arriving we had crossed the line between EST and CST (or its summertime equivalent) so 1.12 pm became 12.12 pm as we move from being five hours behind the UK to being 6 hours. This time change is unusual, as instead of being on a state line here six counties of Northern Indiana have adopted the Chicago time pattern. We will be in CST until next Thursday.

We again had a Americano each, this time from a Coffee Shop called Gloria Jean's this stop was more about changing drivers, as with 22 miles to go to the Illinois State Line the driving was soon to get a little more challenging. Drew had 212 miles of straight line driving; I was to take the 43 miles from here to our accommodation in Chicago. At 1.35 local time we left Portage and skirted by Gary, Indiana - this is a fascinating City, in many ways a suburb of Chicago, but heavily industrial, a real sign of the Mid-West powerhouse of the US economy.We again had a Americano each, this time from a Coffee Shop called Gloria Jean's this stop was more about changing drivers, as with 22 miles to go to the Illinois State Line the driving was soon to get a little more challenging. Drew had 212 miles of straight line driving; I was to take the 43 miles from here to our accommodation in Chicago. At 1.35 local time we left Portage and skirted by Gary, Indiana - this is a fascinating City, in many ways a suburb of Chicago, but heavily industrial, a real sign of the Mid-West powerhouse of the US economy.

I ain't already there

Toby Keith, my favourite musician sings of Chicago, that: "the only bad thing about it is I ain't already there". Well at 2pm today I was already here. We left the I80/I90 and headed onto the I94 and from there to the I55 and I I41 then on to East Wacker Drive. 

An impression of Lower North Michigan Ave
- Courtesy of http://www.itsfilmedthere.com/

Unbeknown to us East Wacker Drive and North Michigan Ave have two levels, an above ground and below ground level. Indeed Wacker has three levels!! Not knowing this we took the road in front of us, which was the underground version. So we arrived at our address, but in fact to a dark underbelly of the city. A nice tramp told us to do a U turn and go up to the above level, and could he and his young lady friend have a small contribution of small change. I know what my Sister and Brother-in-Law are saying - "It could only happen to them two". <<Co-pilot's note: They would also probably point out that he was better dressed than us, with his Cubs t-shirt and other branded clothes. I had no idea he was a homeless person until he asked us for some change!!>> But as we were safely in the car it was amusing rather than threatening, as it might have been if we were on foot.

It took another 20 minutes, given the traffic, to get to the point where we were on the above ground version of the street. By this time, thinking we weren't going to find the parking slot as outlined on the hotel information we pulled into a Parking Garage. When we told the valet that we were staying at the Comfort Suites he told us it would be much cheaper ($20 a night cheaper) to park where we were supposed to, so he gave us very clear directions and let us out the back entrance to his garage (down a street of large overfull bins and more tramps) and back round to the Valet Parking attendant for the Hard Rock Hotel, with which our accommodation has a collaborative agreement. We pulled in and a nice man called Alan, whose name tag also said Christiano Renaldo on it (we didn't ask why) took the keys off us and we crossed the road and checked in at 3.30. All of the above was accompanied by the immense noise of four jets doing a display in the sky above!

Into the Comfort Suites   

After check in we were directed to our fourth floor suite, the accommodation has 26 floors, so it is nice that we are not to far up. It is huge. Not only do we have a bedroom, bathroom, living room with kitchenette. But our own washing machine and dryer. I say kitchenette, but it has all the electrical gadgets we have in our kitchen at home plus a microwave. I'd picked the accommodation based on its location in the centre of Chicago as we have three nights here, but the quality and space it offers is completely amazing.

Drew had a bath, I showered, we both Ironed our best shirts and trousers (which as they haven't been used since last Saturday needed an iron and were ready to go out at 4.45 pm.