The Easterly Migration Continues

Evening all, from the Doubletree Hilton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio. Another long driving day is in the bag, with only one more to go before we reach Boston and things get a touch less hectic driving-wise for another week or so, and this one certaintly didn't come without a frustration or two along the way!!!

After posting last night's blog, the wireless internet access we were provided at our Thursday night pit-stop destination of Des Moines, Iowa, decided to kick the bucket, and didn’t work again for the rest of our stay, with connectivity issues between my laptop and their server the problem (on their server’s end, thankfully). I’m not going to rant and rave about it in the same fashion as I did about the shoddy connection at the Las Vegas Hilton the other night though, mainly because last night’s wi-fi connection was provided complimentary, and I was bought up to never complain about anything given to me for free!! It was frustrating for a couple of reasons, one being that I like to book the next night’s accommodation before we leave that night’s lodgings, so that I have a destination address to input into my GPS, and so that I can feel comfortable knowing that I have things already organised. The second reason was that I was hanging to find the results of Friday night’s (Melbourne time) AFL match between the mighty Western Bulldogs and perennial losers Richmond (yep, it’s my blog, and if I want to comment about Richmond’s inability to win, then I can). A quick check on Telstra’s Pocket News was required via my mobile phone, and whilst I know that it will cost me a dollar instead of the usual four cents, it was all worth it when the phone beeped at me to let me know the Doggies had defeated the Tigers by a whopping 68 points to make it two from two this season against Richmond!!! This next part is a bit of an in-joke that only a handful of people will get, but even on the other side of the world, it’s so worth gloating about – Dad, put your hand up if your team won this week!!!!

In order to try and find a connection, we headed a couple of miles down the road to a nearby McDonald’s, who I remembered offered free wi-fi hot spots (or Wireless Internet Connectivity Spots, for those of you over 40). Unfortunately, whilst my memory was correct, it’s the Aussie Macca’s restaurants that offer this privilege, and their American cousins don’t seem to offer the same services (or at least this one didn’t – and the Macca’s waitresses weren’t all that pleased when we walked in and out without buying anything!!). Unfortunatility number two (and yes, I’m allowed to make up words too!!) occurred when Sarah went to locate the road atlas that she uses to keep a track of our proceedings during the day, only to not be able to find it in the car, so a trip back to the America’s Best Value Motor Inn was required, where it thankfully lay, before we could continue on our way.

I had a back-up plan for the wi-fi thing though – I remembered seeing on signs advertising freeway rest areas yesterday that some of them offered wireless hot spots, and was hoping that this could be my saving grace. Thankfuly, we had driven no more than about 15 miles out of Des Moines on Interstate 80 before such a rest area appeared, complete with a wi-fi hot spot, so we pulled over, pulled out the laptop and were able to do what we had to do before re-commencing our journey, this time with a destination address for the Doubletree Hilton in Cleveland, booked through an awesome discount hotel website called Hotwire, where we booked the room for $49 plus tax – a bargain for a 3.5 star room!!

As per yesterday, this will be reasonably short and sweet again, as we spent the whole day driving through some unremarkable scenery as we continued to traverse America’s mid-west and started reaching some more populated areas. Whilst there weren’t many memorable photo opportunities, the camera-woman was back to bringing her “A” game, although she didn’t get much chance to show off her talents, save for pictures like this below of yours truly in mid-drive, taken just near the border between Iowa and Illinois on Interstate 80.

This was our first border crossing of three for the day, as evidenced below…

…on a day when we didn’t stray from Interstate 80 until our approach into Cleveland (save for a twenty-minute trip on a beltway freeway in Davenport, Iowa – one that skirts the outer fringes of the town rather than going down the main freeway which cuts through the town limits – to enable through traffic quicker access to the rest of their journey). This caused some frustrations in Illinois though, as the Illinois Department of Roads are currently undertaking freeway upgrades procedures along their portion of Interstate 80, which slowed traffic down quite significantly in some places. One such place was on the outskirts of Chicago, one of America’s largest cities, and one that has sprawled out so far that even 30 miles from the town’s epicentre, the traffic was packed. These delays had added about 30 minutes to our travel time (plus an extra hour that we would gain further down the road when we crossed into our fourth time zone in as many days. We’re now on Eastern time, which means we are 14 hours behind Melbourne time in Australia, and will be on Eastern time for the best part of the next ten days). We then decided to pull off the freeway and stop to re-fill the car with petrol and grab lunch, which we did at a place called JJ Fish and Chicken in Joliet, Illinois, one of Chicago’s suburbs, where the servers had obviously never come across Australian’s before (“Are you folks from England” is the question I was asked!!)

Upon re-entering the freeway, our route took us back on Interstate 80 to where it turned into the Indiana Toll Road just after crossing the border between Illinois and Indiana. Or at least that’s what we thought. Instead, our GPS navigator instructed us to get off the freeway, drive through some of suburban Chicago’s back streets, before re-entering the freeway about fifteen minutes later at a small Illinois toll point which cost us 80 cents to drive down – and which was part of Interstate 80 all along!! Even now as I write this, I can’t explain why that happened. Perhaps the GPS system had tired of directing us through freeway after freeway, and wanted to explore some new sights!! In the end, we got back on track, and crossed the border from Illinois into Indiana, as shown below, only to run into more delays as traffic crossed onto the Indiana Toll Road.

Most of the driving we did in Indiana was on tolled roads, with the Indiana portion of Interstate 80 and 90 (they had merged by this stage) being deemed the Indiana Toll Road. Unlike in Melbourne, where you can fly through the freeways either with your toll transponder or the option to pre-and-post purchase passes, the Indiana Toll Road still requires cash to pass through. We collected a ticket not dissimilar to a train ticket by entering a gated gantry and plucking the ticket from a machine, then had to hand over cash at the gantry at the other end of the freeway, which, in this instance, was $6.75. Here’s the gantry that we entered at the eastern end of the tollway, near the Ohio border, to pay our money to the little lady behind the ticket window.

From there, we crossed the Ohio border about a mile down (after having run parallel with the border of Michigan for most of our journey through Indiana – so closely in some spots that I thought the road may have crossed into Michigan for a fleeting moment)..

..only to run into another tolled section of I-80, which was tolled until we switched onto Interstate 90 about 25 miles out of Cleveland. Toll roads are common in America’s eastern states, and I expect to see a lot more of them in the coming days, although it’s worth the time savings to travel the tolled freeways rather than the alternate options. The Ohio Turnpike worked in the same way as its Indiana neighbour – we took a ticket at the gantry, then handed over six bucks when we exited I-80. From there, it was a nice 20 minute drive into Cleveland, although by that stage it was approaching 9:00pm, and we were both pretty tired. Hence why I am currently typing this from the comfort of one of the two beds in our Doubletree Hilton room, as I forgot to ask for a one-bed room at check-in, with Sarah sleeping soundly alongside of me.

That’s it for another day, as Fenway Park draws ever near. The hotel that we booked in Boston (again through Hotwire at $70 per night cheaper than if I’d gone through the hotel’s website) is walking distance from Fenway Park, which will be very handy for Sunday (and maybe tomorrow night…hmmm, while Sarah sleeps, ideas form – we should get into Boston about 40 minutes before tomorrow night’s game between the Red Sox and Rangers kicks off…hmmm).

Hope all are well – as mentioned last night, it’s been great keeping tabs with everyone so that you all know we are OK and having a ball!! See you tomorrow night from Boston!!!