Today we continued our trek along I-90 and it was a big toll day, once again. We began the day at 8:10 and 64 degrees under clear blue skies. And it continued to be a perfect weather day all day long. We hopped right onto the highway and put the E-ZPass to work. We could not catch our breaths from paying one toll, when there was yet another to pay. I think we spent more money on tolls today than we spent on gas. Not sure. It will be interesting to see when the tally comes in.

We drove across the top of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and we saw miles of corn fields, some dusted with a yellow haze of corn flowers, and others, in deep dark green, not quite that mature. And alternating with the corn were acres and acres of low growing dark green soy bean plants. And peppered here and there, in the middle of these grand fields stood banks of trees and farm houses and red barns and silos with domes shining brightly under the rays of the sun. In Ohio we also saw apple orchards, with their crooked, arthritic branches twisting in different directions and reaching painfully for the ground as if to take root there.

An interesting observation this trip…those semi trucks that pull the big hauls are now towing THREE trailers behind them. Three. Most of them were UPS and Fed Ex. And it appears that they are only allowed to do this on the highway, because we saw staging areas where the trailers are removed and left, perhaps for local trucks to come and deliver, or perhaps to deliver later, one at a time. It all seems very dangerous to me, not just for passenger cars, but for the haulers themselves.

What goes on in Gary, Indiana? We saw a huge facility near the water's edge that was spewing black smoke making the air thick and heavy and a dingy grey. My research implies a steel plant or perhaps a BP oil refinery. Who knows, but who on earth would want to live nearby? Not me. It is no surprise that people are moving away from the area.

We drove into Chicago around noon time. We had just passed through our first time change and the clock said 12 but my stomach was saying 1 PM. The skyline of this great city can be seen for about 15 miles, but behind the wall of high-tension power lines…many like erector sets on steroids, rusty and old, creating a huge web, obliterating the sky and destroying the view. We saw the famous Sears Tower as we drove around the perimeter of the city, not wanting to penetrate its bounds but only admiring it from afar. Traffic was slow on the highway, halted by massive construction projects and we crept along for quite a while before escaping to the other side.

We landed a while later in Madison and had no trouble finding the State Capitol, whose massive dome towers above the city. The architecture is identical to that of the Capitol of the State of Maine, but this building is much larger. We had planned to park and walk around the area, but an outdoor concert on the capitol grounds was about to begin, making parking impossible. So we spent the rest of the afternoon looking for and touring the campus of the University of Wisconsin. It is very large and resides in the city, so it took us a while (with several miss-directions by my friend inside the GPS box) to identify it from the surrounding neighborhoods. We failed to find the ball field, sorry Rudy. This is a city of youngsters. Everywhere we looked, on and off campus, was littered with 18-22 year olds riding bikes and walking around with back packs. The bike lanes are often right in the center if the streets, oddly, and it was confusing to decide which lanes were legal for the car and which were not. We messed up several times I am certain, but fortunately, we didn’t kill anyone. I must say, however, it is very strange to see a heavy girl peddling a classic style bike up a hill in the middle of a street filled with traffic.

We settled into our hotel around 4 PM. We were pleased to find that they upgraded us to a suite again today. It is far more comfortable to have this much space, especially being on the road for many days at a time. Thank-you La Quinta. Tomorrow Sturgeon Bay.