Illinois Beach State Park, Zion, Illinois
Our adventures today come from the road. But first – – – a riddle. Now when you ponder this riddle, you will need to think like a Middle School kid, because that’s when I learned it. 😊
What is three-sevenths chicken, two-thirds cat and one-half goat? You’ll find the answer at the end of this post.
We left Ohio early this morning and were on the road a little before 9am. Blaine was anticipating a long and potentially arduous journey to our next stop, so he wanted to get a jump on things. We traveled 265 miles in 5 ½ hours, as we darted in and out of rain showers.
Along the way, we changed time zones, so we’re now on Central time where we’ll remain for quite a while. That means we are an hour behind those of you in Ohio. In other words, when it’s 9am in Ohio, it’s 8am for us.
Before the more difficult portion of our trip, the road took us through some Amish country. It was quite a site to view buggies from our big bus! But here, the State of Indiana has seen fit to make actual lanes for them to travel on. So much safer than Amish country in Ohio!
An Amish man on his bike.
Not sure why bikes are ok for them, but not cars . . . .
Some seem to have a lot of “loopholes” like that.
Later, we ended up on a two-lane road behind a slow commercial semi-truck driver who insisted on remaining 10-15mph below the speed limit.
Small Town USA
And the slow semi
Eventually, Blaine was able to pass him – not an easy feat in a 40’ motor home! But that gives you an idea how slow this guy was driving. We concluded that he must be a new driver. The funny part is, that after a time, we stopped for a break and when we returned to the highway (yes, the road morphed into a 4-lane), there he was! Again. This time though, we had no problem getting by him.
To arrive at our final destination, we had little choice but to take a portion of a turnpike that goes along the outskirts of Chicago. Everything that Blaine researched warned about traffic jams on all the other roads, or they were just too small for our bus-sized rig. He had also read about how this particular toll road worked – stopping every few miles to pay a toll, rather than just when you exit. Weird, and slowed us down, but since we were aware ahead of time, it was okay.
We didn’t want this “exit”, but on this toll road, the “exit” is also the cash toll booth for those continuing on.
On the turnpike, we encountered a 20-minute traffic jam where everyone was forced to move at about 6-7mph, but other than that, our forward motion was only slowed by that semi. We ended up paying $22.55 in tolls for an hour and a half drive; twenty minutes of which was the traffic jam. Seems pretty steep to me. Cars paid, on average, $1.50/stop, while we were saddled with $3.65.
The jam
Moving freely again. But lots of traffic.
Today was also a travel day for our son, Chris who’s headed to Massachusetts for a two-week vacation. He had encountered a traffic jam yesterday, but had smooth sailing today.
After leaving the pike, we continued following the roads Blaine had mapped out ahead of time. He always does that, because he learned early on that he can’t always trust the gps, even though you can program it for truck routes (eliminating low bridges and unacceptable roads for a semi), it doesn’t always choose the best route. So we travel with it on, but I advise from the notes he gives me. Today was a good example of how not to trust the gps. It wanted us to take Route 120E and came with an advisement: “Warning! Your route could take you on dirt roads!” It’s really not our route, it’s yours!
And the ever-present road construction with narrow lanes!
At least this one wasn’t surrounded by cement walls.
He didn’t hit a single cone! Good job, Blaine!
As we approached our final destination, we entered the town of Wadsworth. It took us 5 hours to get to Wadsworth today! 😊 Those of you who know us and where we’re from, know that our other son lives in Wadsworth, Ohio, a community not too far from the Akron area where we’re from.
We were on Wadsworth Road, in Wadsworth, Illinois.
The entrance to the Park looked really nice!
Check in was a snap and we were on our way to our new land rental. Nice site with a path headed directly from our site to the beaches of Lake Michigan! I know you sense a “but…” here, and you’re right. . . .
But there was a catch. The power pole didn’t work. Urgh! After a long day of driving, Blaine was not happy. We were almost all set up when he discovered it. He called. They said they’d send someone out. They did. The Park Maintenance guy said it was fine, and if it was tripping our breaker, we could move to another site. We didn’t want to do that, so Blaine by-passed something and we were good to go! Another reason to full-time with an electrician!
By now, I was really hungry and feeling a bit nauseous because of it. We hadn’t really had lunch today – just a couple of snacks and breakfast was cereal at about 7am. I was planning on making dinner, but that takes time. We also needed a grocery run. And yet I suggested a short detour to see the beach.
That’s a nuclear power plant. But we’ve not seen any sign that it’s up and running, so we’re not sure if it is.
Even though the sky was overcast and spitting at us, we could still imagine the beauty of this water from a past visit to Lake Michigan. Too bad the beach is kinda rough. . .
It was McDonalds for us tonight. Near the bottom of my fast-food list (Wendy’s will always be at the top!), but we ordered the new “fresh” Quarter Pounder which was admittedly better than the previous one. The restaurant was under construction, but it didn’t really matter to us at that point. We ate and left, intended for the local WalMart Super Center, but almost right across the street from dinner, we discovered a new Piggly Wiggly! Yeah! No more driving! Besides, we were out of ice cream and we don’t care for the ice cream WalMart carries. The Pig carries Eddy’s. 😊
And now, the answer you’ve all been waiting for!
Chicago! Chi-ca-go! Get it?!? Hahahahaha! 😊