Along the Way

I couldn't help it. I was driving, camera in hand, snapping photos of these amazing places, all of them in Illinois:

I really would love to take a tour of a farm just like one of these.  I'd love to learn how all that stuff works and what it's for. Someday, I'd like to know.

The second day we continued north along the western edge of Michigan.  Our drive took us into territory that was less industrial farming and more recreational. Here are the signs to prove it:

There were loads trucks pulling campers, boats, bikes, etc. Like everyone else, were were headed north to have some fun.  We arrived on schedule, none the worse for wear.

Northward

Friday was the girls' last day of art camp. They had a very good experience with this camp and have given it an unqualified endorsement, as have I. I'm glad we tried it.

The next adventure began right away: a week in Michigan with my husband's family. The first step was driving there. I picked up the kids and set my sights on Chicago--pretty much the half-way point between St. Louis and northern Michigan.  It's a 5-6 hour drive, doable with an afternoon departure.

Traffic was terrible but I didn't mind. I would have normally, but I happened to be stuck in mostly not moving traffic right in front of what is probably my favorite view of the city. The interchange between highways 44, 55, and 70 is a place that you'll never really look at properly in optimal travel conditions. You zip through so fast that you can hardly appreciate it, much less take a picture. But traffic was terrible, stop and go but mostly stop.  All those stops were great opportunities to pull out my camera and I got a few good pictures.  Now I can show people a little bit of St. Louis from my favorite vantage point.

There's a huge controversy around that mural-sized sign that reads "Stop Eminent Domain Abuse". The guy who painted it owns that building and several others and, well, he has a bone to pick with the city of St. Louis. Here's an article about it.

Directly after that interchange, the path northward takes you across the Mississippi river into Illinois, Chicago bound.

This is what the highway sign looks like:

The picture shows highway 70 West continuing northward. Exits for downtown are also ahead just a little way. But first, everyone one who wants to continue their journey on highways 64 East, 55 North, 70 East -- All of them will have to squeeze down to one single lane.

Who thought that was a good idea?

That little bit of bad design causes traffic to back up at probably every hour of the day.  On bad days it backs up all the way to the 44/70 interchange.  So it's that little bit of bad design which enabled me to take photos of my favorite view of downtown. I guess I shouldn't complain.  It really made my day to be able to take pictures at my favorite spot.

Leaving Detroit

It started to rain before we left Detroit, but the storm wasn't in our path so we headed for the road mid-afternoon.

We hit traffic. It didn't last.

I like the look of the farms along the way. That's good, since that's mostly all you see when you travel from state to state.

We drove all the way to Cincinnati.

We went right through downtown, and then over the river into Kentucky. Our hotel was directly off the bridge, on the river between the two states. Perfect location to see the city on foot.

Toward Detroit

I absolutely scrambled Thursday evening to pull it off (with a lot of help from my parents), but when I went to bed that night our car was ready for the first leg of our road trip: St. Louis to Detroit. We left first thing Friday morning.

The drive took 9 hours. We stopped three times, and the total time we spent NOT driving was about 30 minutes. The kids were great. Like I said, they're excellent travel buddies.

Along the way we saw a lot of farmland. The road to Detroit took us diagonally across Illinois, through the northwest corner of Indiana, and then nearly laterally across most of the state of Michigan.

We were still in Illinois when I took this picture. Apart from the windmills, most of Illinois looks just like this. The windmills are unusual, and I wonder if there will be more views like this one in the future. I'm still not clear on what our future energy production will look like.

Here's another notable sight from the drive: actual construction workers! Along the way I lost count of the number of times a lane or two was closed for roadwork, but only once or twice was there anyone actually doing anything. We didn't have any significant construction-related delays, thank goodness.

The GPS did a great job. It got us to our hotel and I had almost no trouble with it during all the highway transitions. Meanwhile, the portable DVD player kept the kids happy (or the road-trip equivalent of happy) for the entire trip.

This was waiting for us at the hotel. 

It was so thoughtful--a gift basket from the Bride's family with treats made by Matthew's Aunt Beth, toys & games for the girls, chocolates, and a cute little "wedding day necessities" kit--Kleenex, a travel size stain-stick, and breath mints, and more things I'm sure I've forgotten to list.