Not much of an update today unfortunately that is super interesting.
I headed out early from Peru IL and I have set down for the night in Hamburg, New York after passing through the remainder of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Roads were bad, traffic was bad, drivers were idiots and there were State Troopers everywhere. I got pulled over and was given a speed ticket warning by the Illinois State Police while I was squinting through the morning sun trying to decipher the maze of merges and exits between Chicago and Gary Indiana – they were playing with the speed limit around there and I didn’t notice that it had dropped from 65 mph to 55mph. Fortunately I was doing only 9 mph over the limit and he only gave me a warning – but I am pretty sure he pulled me out of line due to my out of state plates since I was being passed by locals at the time – that 1 mph was probably a disappointment to him. Anyway, after I got through that I was careful to drive the speed limit till I hit the state line – which is where the idiot truck drivers were blowing their air horns at me – for driving right on the speed limit – which apparently annoyed them tremendously even though I was on the right lane. Not a big deal but still annoying
Last time I passed through Gary Indiana, Cleveland Ohio and the rest of the rust belt – it was really rusty – back in the eighties, I lost track of the number of rusted out mufflers and body panels that had fallen off vehicles and were littering the break down lanes. This time through there wasn’t any of that – but I suppose the snow plows had taken care of them. The road was still terrible except for the turnpike which was merely bad. Nice rest stops though.
Needless to say, the roads in New York state are way better already than Illinois, Indiana OR Ohio.
I didn’t see anything worth taking a picture of – except the ice covered Lake Erie – but of course that was visible from the Interstate for only about 150 yards and was by before I knew it – so I pulled a shot from the web that looks very similar. The wind had been pushing the ice, just like below, up into jagged pressure ridges – definitely not ready for pond hockey!
Hamburg is in a western suburb of Buffalo NY – so tomorrow it will be a straight shot through the middle of NY state and on to Massachusetts. I will try and get some good pictures to wrap the trip up if I can find them
cheers!