Sluggy's Solo Road Trip.....Part 2......OH to IL

So after choking down a half stale bagel on Saturday morning at the Ramada in Elyria OH, I got onto the Turnpike heading west into Indiana.

My head wasn't in a good place that morning.
A not-so-restful night at the dingy motel combined with weather that was off and on again miserable Plus a general sense of trepidation as I drove toward the outskirts of Chicago and the clusterf*ck of traffic I'd have to dodge just took all the wind out of my emotional sails.

I stopped somewhere in IN at a turnpike rest area during a torrential cloudburst to eat a fish sandwich and some apple slices and buy a soda for the ride since I needed a caffeine boost to keep me going.
I downloaded the On Star directions that would guide me to Sonya Ann's house while I waited for the skies to let up.

I had a printed out MapQuest direction sheet but felt better having the GPS thingy on too, since once in traffic, it's hard to be looking at a paper for your next exit while driving 70 miles an hour.

I kept driving in and out of rainstorms until right before I got to the western edge of IN.

Once I got near my exit onto I-80 West I panicked when I saw that my exit was CLOSED due to construction.  And just where did the fine folks of the Department of Transportation detour me to?
The Chicago Skyway.
Crap!
Anyone who has driven this piece of Roadway Hell knows why I was crapping in my pants.

Hubs and I were sent through this Death's Highway last August when we went to IL for his sister's wedding.  But last year, HUBS was driving, not me.
Fan-so-tastic!

So I was doomed to the Skyway.  sigh

I have to say that the On Star GPS thingy worked well and other than the permanent marks left on the steering wheel from my white knuckle driving I did aok.  All those rainstorms slowed traffic around Chicago way down(which was good in a way), but it also made the time it took to get past Chicago longer.

Ok, here is where I get to rant and rave about the outrageous tolls I had to pay driving through OH, IN and into IL!

The Ohio Turnpike robbed my pockets to the tune of $17, the Indiana Toll Road for $10 and the Illinois Toll Authority/Chicago Skyway for $5.50.
$32.50 total.....and that was just one way on the trip!
Thankfully I was NOT returning along that route to get home again.

Incidentally, this stretch of the trip was the only part with toll roads in it.  Everywhere else I went had the good sense NOT to charge me to use their highways.

So my original plan would take me west of Chicago past Joliet, past the urban centers and then north, up to Sonya's house.   It was sort of a roundabout longer way but with less driving stress.
With the I-80 detour that plan didn't happen.  It was the Skyway around Chitown and then up to the suburbs. bleh.

Since the rain had stopped by the time I got to the Skyway I made a stop in Kildeer IL to do some shopping at a World Market store.

I won't go into the "almost incident" that happened in the parking lot at this shopping center when a over botox-ed anorexic old bimbo with an expiration date of 1990 walked out right in front of my car as I got between her and the overpriced shoe store she was wanting to get to, and she made a face at me(even through the Botox, what an effort that took!)and I saw red and pictured myself calling Sonya Ann from a local jail cell to come bail me out, after I had run this bitch over.
Nope we won't go there......

I "heart" WM.
I picked up 12 more gourmet sodas, which happened to be half price!

A bottle of a most excellent sparkling Moscato from Australia that is now discountined at WM

Bottles of Torani Syrup(also on sale), a couple of single bottles of craft beers for Hubs that we can't get in PA.

                                 One of the beers for Hubs--ChiTown

3 bags of dried cantaloupe fruit(love this and can't find it anywhere but WM), 2 large bars of Ghiradelli Chocolate at 55% off(A $1.26 for chocolate?  Yes, please!), and a bag of Maple Bacon flavored Potato Chips.
Mmmm....bacon......

 

This particular WM has just begun carrying hard liquor, besides the beer and wine offerings all WMs sell.  I spied a Utah based whiskey Hubs can't get in PA, so that also left the store with me as well.

You can tell Hubs likes it because it's already half gone! lol

After dropping $127 at World Market I gave Sonya a call and said I'd be arriving in about 45 minutes so get my drink ready because after the drive I just had, I really needed one! lol

And 45 minutes later I pulled into her driveway and gave her a big hug.....before taking my drink and parking myself in her living room.

The rest of the day was devoted to drinking and gabbing, then a little eating(it was a spaghetti feast & Den made a really good dip/salsa thing with sun dried tomatoes too!)and then more drinking and gabbing until we just couldn't do either anymore and we fell into bed(well, 2 different beds....get your minds outta the gutter willya?!).

Next time, Sonya makes a big impression, we go to Vegas, buy out a liquor store, frugal shop and eat cheap steak.

Sluggy






 

The Great Summer Road Trip of 2013.....Day One

The time finally arrived for the big adventure of 2013 to take place--our Summer Road Trip.

Hubs sister was finally remarrying in August so since none of the rest of her siblings/family were going to go to Illinois to see her tie the knot(again), we decided we would go.
And since we were going all the way across a third of the US for this grand event, we figured Hubs might as well take some of all that vacation time he has saved up for the year, and make this a vacation.

I put out a call to friends and family, letting them know where we were headed and said we'd like to see/visit with anyone who could stand to have us around if we could work it in.  Nothing was planned ahead at this point, except for being at the wedding, so we just let the adventure grow organically from there.

By the week before we left, all the plans/stops were firmed up.
We headed out the morning of August 13th.
It was a Tuesday.

We rented a car for this trip.  Since we were traveling so many miles and my minivan is elderly(getting where it needs work and doesn't get the greatest gas mileage), it made sense not to pile those miles up on the Mango-mobile(named after my dead Chihuahua), but to spend the cash and let Enterprise's car take the hit.
We got this mid-sized beauty for the ride.
Here is Hubs posing during our first rest stop with the Adventure-mobile.....

Another shot of Hubs at the rest stop area......

It was roomy enough for us plus had quite a bit of trunk and backseat room(which we tried out best to fill up with crap by the time we left to return home).
It even had XM Radio which was great and meant we didn't have to keep finding local station signals every hundred miles or so, amidst the static.

We were cruising along that first day, west on I-80 making our escape from Pennsyltucky, when we came upon a State Police detour.  Seems a massive accident on 80 had closed down a stretch of it totally, shortly before we got to that point, so we had to detour through beautiful downtown Brockway....population about 2,000.

You may have seen the little video I posted back during the trip when we were stuck in the traffic jam leading into Brockway.  It's a tiny little one stop light town(not even a town, a borough)with a single 2 lane main street.

 

Once we got to the main street, we hung a left onto Rte. 28 and headed through beautiful downtown Brockway.  About a 1/4 mile past the BI-LO grocery store and the middle of town I spotted this beauty of a house for sale.  It would make a sweet place to retire to, don't you think?

I looked it up online once we got to the hotel that night and I believe it was listed for under $100K.
You could walk or bike from there to the grocery store, the Dollar General or even Mickey D's for that matter.

Once we got out of Brockway, it was a hilly windy ride on country roads back to the Interstate.
I noticed some old farm houses we passed and from the clothes hung on the clotheslines and the lack of power lines around,  I could tell there was a community of Amish or Old Order Mennonite in this area.
And then we passed a gravel lane and I got off this shot.....

Yep, an Amish community of some size is located here.

Then we saw this......

and I started asking Hubs to stop so I could do a little tombstone picture taking for F.A.G.
But we had already lost so much time on the detour and it was the first day so Hubs didn't stop.

Then we hit this.....

Ah yes, the joys of road construction in PA.
It never ends.....but luckily this patch was not so large and didn't hold us up much.
And you will notice that we are STILL behind that 18 wheeler truck for the entirety of this detour.

Finally back to I-80.
Then a stop for a late-ish lunch at Pizza Hut outside the town were Daughter went to college her first year, Clarion.

Then back on I-80 into Ohio and finally we arrived at our hotel for the night, in Milan, OH.
Milan OH....birthplace of Thomas Edison.
Bet you didn't know that!
And neither did I until we arrived there and I saw directional signs to his birthplace, though we didn't have time to visit it.

Here's what we found in our room.....

A ginormous whirlpool tub IN the bedroom.
They gave us an extra large room(which we hadn't asked for)but didn't charge us extra since the whirlpool was broken.
It would have made a very nice ice bucket IF we were throwing a party in there(and believe me, there was enough space in this room to throw one!).

Then I opened the curtains and looked out our bedroom window at the view.........

Oh goody....a corn field.  How exciting!
 I guess it beats looking out onto a parking lot though, right?

After resting a bit we headed out to find something for dinner.  We drove down the highway south into Norwalk, OH.  After driving into the center of downtown, we headed back north a bit and stopped at the Fortune Buffet.
The food was pretty good except for a few items that were super spicy, which usually aren't so hot at most Chinese restaurants.
They should bottle and sell their Hot and Sour Soup as a sinus treatment.  One sip of it and my sinuses were cleared right out!!!




After dinner I had to get my photo taken to immortalize the stop.
I hope the Chinese gods don't take offense at me making bunny ears on that lion....

After dinner, we stopped along the way back to the hotel at a local K-Mart.  Partly to get some exercise and walk off dinner and partly because we needed to buy a "Church key" because we forgot to bring one from home.
And because we are who we are, we walked and shopped that store, buying various and sundry items and got into the car and realized we forgot the one thing we went in there to buy.
Doh.

While in K-Mart, I went over to the drink aisle to see if they carried any Vernor's Ginger-Ale.
Sister in-laws old boyfriend was from OH and since he has lived in Weehawken, NJ for many years now since she moved to IL, she was always stopping in OH to buy and bring him some Vernor's Ginger-Ale when she came out East, because it's just "Deliciously Different".

                  Image from groceries-express.com

And as I took the Ginger-Ale off the shelf, I turned to face the opposite shelves and saw this.....

Here's a close up since looking at adult beverages is always interesting....

The skies opened up and angels descended from the heavens.......they sell BOOZE in K-Mart in Ohio!!!
Except on Sundays because you just can't have people getting liquored up on the Lord's Day evidently.....

So needless to say, we left with some adult beverages(Great Lakes Burning River beer and Mike's hard lemonade) to enjoy back at the hotel and to cart with us to our next stop in IL.

Thus ended Day One of the Great Road Trip of Summer 2013.
We started with the Amish and ended with booze.....nice combo, huh?

Stay tuned for Day Two coming soon.

Sluggy