Heading South and West

Today I'm in Fulton, MO.  There isn't any significance other than I was too tired to drive any farther tonight and I found a cheap motel room.  Since I haven't posted in a few days, here is a brief synopsis of my travels.

After leaving the Lake Superior area, I headed down to the west side of Lake Michigan and ended up in Greenbay, Wisconsin for the night.  It was much bigger than I expected, but overall a nice city.  Along the way, I've noticed that the leaves are really started to turn in the north, but not so much as you move to the south.  But everything seems very dry.  Since I had visited the town of Two Harbors, I just had to visit Two Rivers as well.  It is located right on Lake Michigan, and has an old downtown area and nice waterfront park.  I waded in the lake for a while, then moved on.

Just below Two Rivers and the town of Manitowoc.  The is a great maritime museum there, dedicated to the history of building WWII submarines.  I was not able to go to the museum, but did get to see the sub tied up in back.  Very impressive.  They built a total of 28 subs.  I took lots of photos, but haven't had a chance to go through them yet.

Next, I went down through Cheyboygan, Port Washington, and hit Milwaukee right at rush hour.  With a few choice moves and some helpful advice from Gwen, I made it through unscathed. By this time, it was time to start looking for a campground.  I ended up at one called Yogi Bear.  It's designed for families with small kids I guess, but it was anything but kid friendly.  The campsites are packed together with little care.  My pad was at such an angle that I kept rolling into the wall of the camper when I slept.  On top of that, the park was filled with golf carts buzzing around like bees.  That appears to be the main mode of transport.  The problem is that there were kids driving them, families driving around with little ones hanging off the back, and using the driving manners that I have been experiencing  on the road.  This was definitely not my favorite place to camp.

I wasn't really looking forward to driving anywhere near Chicago again.  According to the radio, the traffic was backing up all over town - and this was a Saturday morning.  So I thought I would go around it to the west.  I wanted to swing back through Indianapolis and Terre Haute one more time before heading home.  Looking at the map, listening to Gwen, and trusting my instincts I headed south.  Everything went fine until I hit the Illinois state line and the beginning of the dreaded toll booths.  (We don't have them in Oregon, so this take some getting used to I guess.)  Traffic was building up rapidly, and it seemed like no matter what road I chose I was being pushed toward Chicago.  In a fit of desperation, I exited the freeway and drove south according to the compass.  That put me into the suburbs - suburb after suburb after suburb.  I felt like I'd never get out of there.  Finally, the strip malls began to get farther apart and corn fields began to appear again.  Somehow or other, I made it to I-74.  I knew that would take me to Indianapolis.  Light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.

I was greeted in Indy by my friend Liza and her husband Bob.  I've known Liza since she was 9 years old.  We had a wonderful, but short visit as they had tickets to the Colts game.  It is always nice to see them, and know that in a pinch they are only an hour away from Patrick if he needs them.  After leaving their house this morning, I headed for Costco to stock up on hungry college kid food.  Granola bars, juice, apple sauce, the things needed to fill the gaps between meals.  I also bought some little cheese rounds, but left them in the fridge in my camper.  Sorry Patrick.

It was great to see Patrick again!  He seems to have grown a bit more since I saw him on 8/29.  His confidence and sense of being at home there is what impressed me the most.  We chatted for a while about school, travel, friends, and family.  I did offer to take him out to dinner or go somewhere if he wanted, but he had a bunch of homework to catch up on.  So we said our goodbyes, again.  Not quite as sad as the last one, but I was feeling pretty lonely again as I headed off down I-70.  I'm better tonight, but Christmas seems like such a long way away.

I stopped in St. Louis to see the arch and find the nonexistent Starbucks that Gwen sent me to, only to find that there was very limited parking downtown.  I managed to find another Starbucks on my own, but this one seemed to have no doors.  There were people inside, but no way to get in or out.  It was kind of like a coffee fishbowl.  In the 5 minutes it took me to determine this, I was accosted by 3 homeless men looking for money.  Since I don't like to carry change anyway, I managed to keep them happy.  Then I noticed that another guy was looking over my camper, perhaps trying to figure a way inside.  That was it for me.  I made one quick circuit of the arch park, shooting photos through the window as I went by, and hit the freeway.  I think I covered around 450 miles today.  I am definitely looking forward to small towns and empty roads.

Editorial opinion:
Perhaps it was my directional frustration, but the drivers around the Chicago area were some of the worst I've ever seen.  Changing lanes without signaling, changing lanes with a inch or two to spare, tailgating so close that I had no idea there was anyone behind my camper - these practices seemed to be the normal way of moving around there.  This was on the freeways and on city streets.  I just wonder why they are all in such a hurry.  Try leaving a little earlier.  You'll enjoy your trip a whole lot more.  This is why I'm ready for some empty space.