Skip to main content

A quick Illinois and Wisconsin Road Trip

Image
By
Recently, I was in the Chicago area and was able to explore the area north of Chicago and Wisconsin in my downtime.  I pretty much did a loop that consisted of Interstate 94, Interstate 43, US 12, Illinois Route 120, and Illinois Route 60.  It was my first real time exploring the area.  I ended up gaining an additional five counties on the trip bringing my total to just short of 1100, 1099 to be exact.

For the entire flickr set of photos for this trip, please head here.

Just prior to entering Wisconsin on Interstate 94, you will come across this sign.  Out of nowhere, Interstate 41 appears.  And if you aren't hip to changes on your map, Interstate 41 is a rather recently new interstate that runs from Green Bay to just about a mile inside the Illinois border.  Interstate 41 is an upgraded routing of the US 41 freeway that runs from Milwaukee to Green Bay; however, it was added along Interstate's 894 and 94 South of Milwaukee to where US 41 leaves I-94.  In fact, throughout the section of I-94 in Wisconsin that I drove along you'll find these signs.

In case you're confused by which 41 is which - these signs are here to help.

Along the way, I stopped at the Mars Cheese Castle.  This cheese shop - which now has a castle themed exterior - has been around since 1947.  It is home to numerous cheeses, meats, wines, and beers.  There's even a restaurant and bar.


From there, I continued north towards Milwaukee to Interstate 894.  Where I exited 94 and headed west.  Interestingly, the overhead signs for I-894 read Bypass.  I like the designation.

I then would take I-43 South away from Milwaukee and then take US 12 towards Illinois. US 12 is a freeway from I-43 south (though US 12 reads east) towards the Illinois state line.  Just prior to the Illinois state line, the US 12 freeway comes to an abrupt end - as shown in the photos below.




There is a ghost stub for the never built extension of the US 12 freeway in Illinois.
Walworth County Route H was the original routing of US 12 prior to the freeway's construction.
This freeway was to continue in Illinois and connect to the Illinois Tollway System (1), but as you can see nothing has happened.  In fact, US 12 enters Illinois as a sleepy two lane road.

I followed US 12 to IL 120 and then to IL 60 to my hotel.   I did enjoy the Wisconsin scenery alongI-43 and also was surprised how straight I-94 is in Wisconsin.  If my travels bring me back to the area again, I would like to check out Racine and Kenosha more.  The Frank Lloyd Wright S.C. Johnson headquarters building in Racine being on the list to see.

Sources:
Labels:

Comments

Gerry said…
I don't know why, but I like the American street sign so much more than the European :) Did you ever do a road trip between Washington and Arizona? Me and my girlfriend want to start our first big road trip there. I got this idea from my horoscope, and my girlfriend wants to head western. Any tips? We would be grateful :) Since now, we only made trips in Europe.
Gerry
3:34 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paper Highways: The Unbuilt New Orleans Bypass (Proposed I-410)

By
  There are many examples around the United States of proposed freeway corridors in urban areas that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. They all fall somewhere in between the little-known and the infamous and from the mundane to the spectacular. One of the more obscure and interesting examples of such a project is the short-lived idea to construct a southern beltway for the New Orleans metropolitan area in the 1960s and 70s. Greater New Orleans and its surrounding area grew rapidly in the years after World War II, as suburban sprawl encroached on the historically rural downriver parishes around the city. In response to the development of the region’s Westbank and the emergence of communities in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes as viable suburban communities during this period, regional planners began to consider concepts for new infrastructure projects to serve this growing population.  The idea for a circular freeway around the southern perimeter of t
Post a Comment
Read more

Hernando de Soto Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
The newest of the bridges that span the lower Mississippi River at Memphis, the Hernando de Soto Bridge was completed in 1973 and carries Interstate 40 between downtown Memphis and West Memphis, AR. The bridge’s signature M-shaped superstructure makes it an instantly recognizable landmark in the city and one of the most visually unique bridges on the Mississippi River. As early as 1953, Memphis city planners recommended the construction of a second highway bridge across the Mississippi River to connect the city with West Memphis, AR. The Memphis & Arkansas Bridge had been completed only four years earlier a couple miles downriver from downtown, however it was expected that long-term growth in the metro area would warrant the construction of an additional bridge, the fourth crossing of the Mississippi River to be built at Memphis, in the not-too-distant future. Unlike the previous three Mississippi River bridges to be built the city, the location chosen for this bridge was about two
1 comment
Read more

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge (Memphis, TN)

By
  Like the expansion of the railroads the previous century, the modernization of the country’s highway infrastructure in the early and mid 20th Century required the construction of new landmark bridges along the lower Mississippi River (and nation-wide for that matter) that would facilitate the expected growth in overall traffic demand in ensuing decades. While this new movement had been anticipated to some extent in the Memphis area with the design of the Harahan Bridge, neither it nor its neighbor the older Frisco Bridge were capable of accommodating the sharp rise in the popularity and demand of the automobile as a mode of cross-river transportation during the Great Depression. As was the case 30 years prior, the solution in the 1940s was to construct a new bridge in the same general location as its predecessors, only this time the bridge would be the first built exclusively for vehicle traffic. This bridge, the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge, was completed in 1949 and was the third
Post a Comment
Read more