Finally Home!

We started today about 550 kms from home. We talked about leaving early and stopping for lunch at one of the Cracker Barrel restaurants along the way. Even with the stop we knew we would be home by around 3 pm. I also suspected that as we neared the restaurant we would make the decision to keep driving and just get home. I wasn't wrong.

The weather called for rain the entire trip, but, although overcast, the rain held off until the last hour or so of the trip
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Buffalo was the big city we had to go through today and we would be going through there close enough to rush hour to be concerned. I was pleasantly surprised when the traffic was steady, but not crazy.

As we were heading towards the city I spotted this van:

The edge of the Buffalo airport sits beside I90 and as we were passing it there was a big jet waiting to take off.

We really got the sense that we were almost home when we stopped for gas at Corfu, New York and there was our favourite coffee shop at the service center.

It was interesting to note that customer service definitely was not a part of the training at this location as I had probably the rudest person serve me that I have ever had. Being as I was a visitor in the country I did not cause an international incident by telling her what I thought of her attitude but it took all of the self control I had.


We passed through a small portion of the Seneca Nation Territory and I managed to get a picture of the Wampum belt that decorated the one of the highway overpasses.

The symbol represents the 5 tribes that made up the Iroquois Nation, one of which is the Seneca Tribe.


It seems funny to me that we can travel the same stretch of road several times and there are still new things to see. We drove by what I can only guess was a bird sanctuary and were alerted to it's presence by a statue.

We saw several slow moving or stopped cars and other people just walking along the road slowly looking at the trees. I kept my eyes peeled for an eagle or some other wonderful bird but did not see any at all. Maybe next time.

Our path this day also took us past the Old Erie Canal Heritage Park and parts of the canal itself. This will be an area we will revisit in a few years on our boat.

Although New York State still had a lot of green trees, there was still an impressive display of fall colours in some areas.

I spotted this little face in a field at the side of the road. They must have happy people in this state!

We continued on I90 past Rochester and then, to the north of Syracuse we headed north on Interstate 81 heading to Watertown. It felt like we were in our own neighborhood now!

We went past Tinker tavern Road near Pulaski New York and we said one day we would go back and visit the Tavern, just because we liked the name.

A quick check of the internet told me that there wasn't a tavern on Tinker tavern Road for us to actually visit. Bummer.

It was about this point that the rain started and the quality of the pictures got worse and worse as we got closer to home. I did manage to get a few more pictures of the scenic route, though. The sparkles in the pictures are actually rain drops on the wind shield.

When we made the turn off of Interstate 81 we stopped to top off our gas tank and I spotted a camp ground across the road with a cool sign.

We got our first glance of the St Lawrence river to the north and it told us we were getting very close to home!

We finally got to the border and, as always, we expected to be boarded and searched. That did not happen and we happily headed for our home, just 20 minutes away.

Our friend Laurie was waiting for us with a hot meal ready and our house restocked with food. It was great to be home!

Thus ends this years adventures with Meander. In many ways it was almost too adventurous this year but in a big sense I am sad to see it end.

For Rick and I our next adventure will happen in January when we head to Mexico for 5 weeks. We will not be taking Meander with us for that trip, but I think I will still bring everyone along for the adventure by writing about that journey. So stay tuned!!

The Path Home Gets Shorter

We got up this morning well before the sun and realized we were finally back in the eastern time zone. It has been almost 6 weeks since we left it and, just that one little thing makes us feel closer to home.

Today's travels will take us out of Indiana, all the way across Ohio and then through a little piece  Pennsylvania. We will end the day in Westfield New York, on the shores of Lake Erie. It sounds like a whole lot more driving than it actually is. in fact, it is just under 600 kilometers and should comfortably take us just 7 hours.

Our morning routine on travel days is very well established and we do it almost automatically - get up, have coffee while rechecking the day's weather along our route, then make breakfast, stow everything while Rick disconnects us and hit the road.

Cleveland and it's sharp turns is our big city for today. Interstate 90 runs right through the city but the traffic usually is not crazy. It is Sunday and we hope the roads will be quieter today. We have driven through Cleveland 2 other times so we are familiar with this route. I referred to it as "bendy" in my post going out west so I will try to capture some of this in my pictures.

For the third day in a row we had perfect driving weather and it was the warmest morning we had experienced since leaving Grande Prairie. We had a little more than an hour of driving before crossing the into Ohio and one of the first things I spotted was this building that had a mural painted on it.

We made a quick stop for gas in Howe Indiana and then thirty minutes later crossed the Ohio State border.

The traffic was a little heavier than i had hoped, but really not that bad.

Ohio is beautiful this time of year and Interstate 90 rolls through the countryside near, but not through many smaller towns in the northern part of the state. The drive was very scenic and uncomplicated.

We did notice that it was very, well, green for this time of year. Last year when we were returning, we noticed that the western states were pretty green and the colours changed as we headed east. This year it was the exact opposite.

Just past Toledo we crossed the scenic Maumee River

Ok so on to Cleveland. Below is a map showing how I90 winds through the city. 

There are 5 very sharp curves in the road and it can be tricky in 4 lanes of traffic. On this Sunday the traffic was light in the city so we navigated through it without incident.

While going through Cleveland I spotted the Goodyear Blimp.  It is pretty hard to take a picture of something in the sky while you are going over less than smooth roads. While attempting to get a picture of the blimp I took a perfect picture of the blue sky.

After several attempts I did manage to get the pictures

Part of I 90 in Cleveland travels along the shore of Lake Erie. We saw a number of boats that had been pulled out of the water for the winter. We did see one boat that was taking advantage of the beautiful day and having a lake season sail. 

If we had any thing that we did not like about Ohio, it was the land closures for apparently no reason. There were miles and miles of lane closures with no sign of construction at all. Then the lane would open up again only to be closed a few miles down the road. 

There were also a few interesting signs on their highways. 

From Ohio we cut across a small slice of Pennsylvania.

It was late afternoon when we entered this state and our shadow preceded us down the road.

We saw this strange pile of rocks that just appeared on the side of the road. Rick thought that it may have been old cement pavement removed from the highway. 

But our biggest find of the day.....maybe even the trip happened when we stopped for gas near Erie Pennsylvania:

That's right! We found Bigfoot!

Shortly after going through Erie we crossed into New York State. 

Our destination for tonight was Westfield New York. Up until this point all of the states we have traveled had mile markers that counted up. New York State was the opposite, starting at a higher number and counting down. It cause some confusion since we knew our exit was at New York Mile Marker 60 and that was quite close to Pennsylvania Mile Marker 60. After 8 hours on the road it almost caused a little detour. 

We did get to the proper exit and headed for the camp ground. The road took us along the shore of Lake Erie and we passed the Barcelona Lighthouse.

It was a beautiful evening and there were a lot of people out and about in the park. Several stopped by and chatted with Rick as he got us hooked up. I made dinner, we both had showers and then sat with the door and vents open, enjoying the warm evening air. 

Chicago!

We woke up this morning to much warmer temperatures than expected. It was around 4 degrees Celsius which was a log way from the -11 that we were expecting.  It was overcast, but the forecast along our route said it was going to be sunny and clear and that was good news since we were tackling Chicago today.

If you have never driven through Chicago it is an experience like no other. Last year we came through Chicago the long way by avoiding toll roads. That took us 3 hours. When we went our west we avoided Chicago altogether by driving through Iowa. This time we were taking the toll highway right through the city. Toll roads usually mean less traffic and an easier drive. Usually. But this is Chicago. We should hit the city around lunch time on a Saturday afternoon. how bad could that be? Stay tuned.

We were planning to be on the road by 8:00 and when Rick was doing our pre-trip checks he found that the Jeep's battery had not charged up overnight, in spite of being on the charger for over 8 hours, so w got it started and let it run for about 30 minutes. We decided to stop at a Walmart in Wisconsin Dells to pick up another battery. We knew it was going to be important to have a fully charged battery and working brakes as we went through Chicago. So we left a little late. We were aiming for Bristol Indiana - about 575 kms away.

As we left the campground, we notices a chicken sitting at the gate that we had not seen when we arrived the day before. The campground had real chickens and goats in a pen, not far from our site.

Wisconsin Dells was about a 30 minute drive from the camp and about a third of the way to the Illinois border. I chose that location because the Walmart was right off the interstate and definitely the easiest location to get in and out of. It was perfect. In total, it only took about 15 minutes to come off the interstate, park at Walmart, go in and get the battery and get back on the Interstate.

Wisconsin still had some interesting things to show us, Along the interstate you see many advertisements and signs for gas stations. This one caught my eye more than the rest.

There was more beautiful scenery.

And a strange and unusual rock formation.

Why was it strange? Well as you drive down the highway it is fields and trees and then all of a sudden this rock is there. No other rocks, really just this one. We saw signs that referred to Stand Rock Park, so we thought that is what it was. However, a check on the internet showed that it was a different location with similar, but smaller rock formations.

About 90 minutes after starting out we crossed into Illinois. We decided to stop at the Visitor's center to charge up the Jeeps battery since Chicago was on the horizon. The visitor's center had some beautiful trees at their autumn best.

Ok so on to Chicago. One thing I like about the toll roads in Chicago is that you drive under the transponders and do not have to slow down or go through any booths. Very easy. For a long time the traffic was light and it was actually nice driving. Then we saw this sign:

The two miles of congestion seemed reasonable. It was, however, very optimistic

As we got closer to the city we came pretty close to O'Hare Airport. We watched as the planes were coming in for a landing right over the highway. At times they seemed to be coming right at us. Every 2 minutes another plane came over and you could actually see the line of planes in the sky.

So that 2 miles of congestion that was mentioned on the sign was probably the understatement of the year....maybe even the decade. Although it did open up for about 30 seconds, it soon bogged down very badly.

We quickly identified one of the problems,

And then there was the construction. It was crazy. I think 5 lanes were turned into 2 lanes in the heart of the city. The road signs we not very helpful through the construction zone.

Finally we got through it. You can see in this next photo the traffic going the other way into the city.

As we broke out of the traffic, we crossed the state line into Indiana

But the Chicago area was not done with us yet. Have I mentioned that rick does not like bridges? Well just over the Indiana State line we went over Wolf Lake Memorial Park. I saw the bridge in the distance as we were approaching it. I said nothing. No need getting Rick wound up sooner than he needed to be. I can not remember what he said when he saw the bridge, but it was not good.

 A better perspective comes from our dash cam. You might get the impression that Rick was not happy with his navigator.  **Warning - there is a cuss word at the end

https://www.facebook.com/KnottyBuoyz/videos/1915031741879905/?t=0


On the other side of the bridge we drove through a very industrialized area that had, among other things, a big electricity generating plant and this huge water filtration plant.

After that we were on open roads again......

So once again it took us over three hours just to get through Chicago. We have decided that in the future the best route through Chicago is around it..

It was a couple more hours to our campsite for the night and by this time the sun was setting. The grassy sections beside the highway were thick with deer, even where there were no warning signs. We continued to see deer on the side of the road after exiting the freeway and heading for our campground. we arrived there at about 7:30 and after checking in, went to find our site. The one that they had assigned to us was way too small for even our RV never mind the rig with the jeep on the back. we went back to the office and I told her we did not fit and she wanted to know why. When I told her we were almost 50 feet long she said "we didn't know that" and "You never said anything about towing a Jeep" to which I replied I certainly did. Then she said they didn't have any sites that would fit us. Not what i wanted to here at the end of this day. She then directed us to the 50 amp electric and water sites. She said they had no one else there so we should be able to fit. By this time it is completely dark so Rick had to go and check it our with a flashlight before even attempting it. We did get in, but only by straddling several sights. Once hooked up, we had a quick meal, took some time to unwind and then went to bed. On the up-side, it was warm. we had e the door wide open and all of the vents open and it was completely comfortable. I think we kept the vents opened all night. Plus the worst of the drive was now done. we still had Cleveland and Buffalo to go through, but they are nothing compared to Chicago. We are just a day and a half away form home now and Rick asked about trying to do it all tomorrow, to which I said no. That would be at least a 16 hour day and there is no way that we were going to do that. We would stick with our schedule.