Skip to main content

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

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. 




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

Popular posts from this blog

Abandoned Fowler Avenue in Clovis, California

Originally Fowler Avenue in the city of Clovis had a brief discontinuation approaching Herndon Avenue.  Fowler Avenue traffic heading northbound was required to detour briefly onto westbound Herndon Avenue.  During 2001 this discontinuation was removed when Fowler Avenue was reconfigured to access the Sierra Freeway (California State Route 168) via an interchange.  This led to a segment of the original alignment of Fowler Avenue just south of Herndon Avenue to be abandoned.  Despite a shopping center opening over part of the original Fowler Avenue alignment in 2016 much of the abandoned roadway remains.   The history of the abandoned original alignment of Fowler Avenue in Clovis The original alignment of California State Route 168 departed downtown Clovis eastbound along Tollhouse Road.  This original alignment did not interact with Fowler Avenue at the Herndon Avenue intersection.  Fowler Avenue north of Tollhouse Road ran north to Herndon Avenue...

May 2023 Ontario Trip (Part 3 of 3)

  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...

What's In a Name?: When the Roads Really Do Tell a Story

  Our tagline on the Gribblenation blog is "because every road tells a story". Some roads tell different stories than others. Along our travels, we may see historic markers that tell us a little story about the roads we travel or the places we pass by. Some historic markers are more general, as to telling us who lived where or what old trail traversed between two towns. During my travels across New York State and other states or provinces, I pass by many historic markers, some with interesting or amusing references to roads. I wanted to highlight a few of the markers I've seen along my travels around the Empire State and help tell their stories. Those stories may be as specific as explaining the tales of a tree that was used to help measure a distance of eight miles from Bath to Avoca in Steuben County, as referenced on the Eight Mile Tree historical marker above. They may also help point the way along historical roads first used centuries ago, or may help tell a local l...