Skip to main content

Great Lakes Road Trip Day 10 Part 2; Indiana Toll Road, dunes, and the Ohio Turnpike

By
For most part my route from Chicago had me sticking to I-80/I-90 through to the Cleveland area.  The Indiana Toll Road picks up I-80 in Lake Station but I turned off it onto I-94 given I was headed to the Indiana Dunes.  I thought it was interesting to see no tollbooth attendants and credit card readers in their place.


I-94 basically is a disaster zone with traffic shifted all over the place and 55 MPH speed limits.  Exiting I-90 I had to detour onto Ripley Street just to get to eastbound I-94.  Thankfully I wasn't on I-94 for very long before I got off on US 20 to head towards the Indiana Dunes.


I took IN 49 up to the Indiana Dunes which had a weird older style state route shield on a modern blank.  My understanding is that it has been in place for a good 5-6 years and I can't find a conclusive answer as to why it has retro styling.



The Indiana Dunes are both a National Seashore and a state park.  I stopped in the state park portion to climb the Devil's Slide.  I never had actually stopped at the Indiana Dunes to visit when I was traveling the area, I thought it was worth a quick look.







I attempted to use IN 39 to return to the Indiana Toll Road but the eastbound ramp was closed and I didn't want to take the detour.  I used US 20 and US 31 near South Bend to rejoin the Toll Road.





I took the Indiana Toll Road  east through the state to the Ohio Turnpike.  





Construction the Ohio Turnpike was heavy and the highway patrol was enforcing the 50 MPH despite no work going on.  Really it felt like the Turnpike ought to be 75-80 MPH east to the Cleveland area.  I made the mistake of stopping for food at a plaza which had a good twenty five people deep line, first time I've had Hardee's since the 1980s.  I left the Turnpike at I-71 and took it down to OH 18 for the night. 




Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
Wow! beach and coastal scenic views along the Great Ocean Road, taken by you are awesome. It shows that you enjoyed a lot.
Visit:Great Ocean Road Day Tours
12:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did Caltrans just kill the G26 cutout US Route shields?

By
The US Route System was formally created by the American Association of State Highway Officials during November 1926.  Through the history of the system the only state to which has elected to maintain cutout US Route shields has been California.  The G26 series cutout US Route shields have become a favorite in the road enthusiast hobby and are generally considered to be much more visually pleasing than the standard Federal Highway Administration variant.  However, the G26 shield series appears to have been killed off on January 18, 2026, when Caltrans updated their Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices.  This blog will examine the history of the US Route shield specifications in California and what is happening with the 2026 changes.  The blog cover photo is facing towards the terminus of California State Route 136 and at a G26-2 specification US Route 395 shield.  In the background Mount Whitney can be seen in the Sierra Nevada range.   ...
2 comments
Read more

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

By
  Over the years, I have made plenty of trips to Ontario, crisscrossing the southern, central and eastern parts of the province. Living in Upstate New York, it's pretty easy to visit our neighbor to the north, or is that our neighbor to the west? Ottawa is one of my favorite cities to visit anywhere in the world, plus I've discovered the charm of Kingston, the waterfalls of Hamilton (which is on the same Niagara Escarpment that brings us Niagara Falls), the sheer beauty of the Bruce Peninsula, and more. But I hadn't explored much of Cottage Country. So I decided to change that, and what better time to go than over Memorial Day weekend, when the daylight is long and I have an extra day to explore. On the third and final day of my trip, I started in Huntsville and made my way through Muskoka District and Haliburton County, passing by many lakes along the way. I stopped in towns such as Dorset, Haliburton and Bancroft before making a beeline down to Belleville and then over th...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ghost Town Tuesday; Nichols, FL

By
A couple years ago I spent a lot of spare time exploring phosphate mining ghost towns in the Bone Valley of Polk County, Florida.  One ghost town in particular called Nichols on Polk County Route 676 west of Mulberry caught my eye due to a relative lack of documentation on ghosttowns.com. Nichols was created in 1905 during the early phosphate mining boom in the Bone Valley region.  For the time Nichols was unusual since it had company housing in the Nichols Mine site and private residences outside the gate.  Nichols is only about two miles west of Mulberry which probably made it a somewhat reasonable commute even by the wonky standards of the early 20th Century.  Most of the Bone Valley region was relatively remote which made commuting or homesteading impractical which is why there are so many ghost towns in the area.  The company housing section of Nichols was phased out and abandoned by 1950. The Nichols town site is largely abandoned and could "possibl...
4 comments
Read more