I live in Houston, Texas, and yes, the rumors are true. Everything is bigger in Texas. But bigger ain't necessarily better. One such thing are the distances between major cities. It's a about a 4 hour drive to San Antonio at 70 mph. It's a five hour drive to Dallas/Fort Worth. It's three and a half to Corpus Christi, and another four beyond that to Brownsville. Those drives are okay, because the scenery is interesting. But if you ever must travel west from San Antonio on I-10, get ready, because west of San Antonio is a city called Junction, and beyond that is... nothing. Nothing at all. For many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, miles. This area is what I think they call the trans-Pecos. I call it hell. It's flat, desolate, dry, boring, and big, really big. It takes forever to cross. And may God help you if you break down out there, because there's nothing out there. I've made the trip on I-10 from San Antonio to El Paso six times. And it's never gotten easier. The last time was without air conditioning in July. (Did I mention there's nothing out there?) So, I've been through "the-hell-that-is-I-10-east-of-El-Paso" in considerable thermal discomfort.
Based on this, I think I can safely say I'm a veteran road traveller, and compared to a trip across West Texas, a side trip to Chicago from Detroit is a simple thing to do. I've never been to Chicago, and I've heard it's a great town.
I knew we wouldn't have much time there, but at least I could say I've driven through Chicago.
So, with this intention, we got up early on Saturday Morning, showered, shaved, checked out and hooked the boat up for the trip back home via Chicago. Jim had spied a Starbucks the night before when we were searching for dinner. It was comforting to know that after the sludge Jim was served at Denny's that there was some place to get good coffee.
There was surprisingly little traffic, which was good, considering I had an untested trailer on my truck hitch. The next to last thing I wanted was to have trouble with it. (The last thing is to have trouble with it in heavy traffic.) We filled our coffee mugs, grabbed a couple of pastries and hit the road, bound for Chi-town. The vague, and in retrospect, too vague, plan was to go into Chicago, take a look at the Chicago Yacht Club, the town itself, and get a genuine Chicago style pizza. We refilled in Michigan because we had to. At $1.79 a gallon I had the feeling of being robbed by that gas pump. We were entertained on the local graft and corruption by a grumpy old local guy who maintained everyone who owned a big truck in Michigan was skipping out on their taxes on the heavier trucks due to some loophole in the law. Maybe he's right, but with the condition of the roads, all I could do was determine to get out of the state as soon as possible, Despite the fact it's a reasonably pretty copuntryt. So, we bumped on down I-94 and left Michigan for Indiana.
The road got better a few miles before Indiana, probably because the heavy trucks don't go there. We drove through Gary, Indiana; Gary, Indiana....( sounds better when you sing it). From the highway, Gary looks pretty industrial. It was strange how we skirted Lake Michigan on I-94, yet never saw it until we reached Gary.
One observation - Northern Illinois is the land of toll roads, Even I-80, which we crossed but did not take, is a toll road. I-94 became a toll road outside of Chicago. The first toll was $.30, the next toll booth - $.70, the next- $2.00. You could tell how close you were to Chicago by the amount you paid in the toll booth. I knew we were nearing Chicago when I saw the Sears tower rise above the horizon, and that it looked almost like the scenes in Microsoft Flight Simulator. We continued up I-94, noticed the rapid transit commuter trains, and that the traffic got bad... I thought Houston drivers were nuts, but these guys (and gals) in Chicago are worse. Usually you can get a lane change in Houston by signalling and assertively moving over. The signalling is optional, actually. In Houston people ignore the turn signals. But in Chicago, if you signal, the other drivers actively take steps to ensure you can't get over, like speeding up if they are behind you, and slowing down if they are in front of you. Despite this, I managed to make two lane changes and exit onto Monroe street. We turned east and went into downtown Chicago, crossing the south Chicago river.
It's probably obvious to everyone but me, but I'm pretty convinced I was rather foolish to be towing a 17ft sailboat here, but by this time it was too late to reconsider, and I wanted Pizza... We continued east and poor Jim was trying to figure out where we were. The GPS said we were approaching Lakeshore Drive, but I couldn't tell. All I could see, and I wish I had had the opportunity to look at it closely, were the high rises, and roads under construction, and El lines running above the streets we were crossing. I found myself wondering where Elwood Blues lived...
"Oh yeah, Carrie Fisher blew it up with a shoulder fired missile, and it was only in a movie, so it never existed."
"Right, whatever, keep your mind on the road, Hunkins. "
Suddenly there it was, the Chicago Yacht Club, across the street right in front of us. We crossed Lakeshore and pulled into the driveway. Jim got out and thought he'd see if there was a way we could visit for a few minutes and hopefully find a place to put the boat for a while while we ate. After the heavy traffic and the huge number of people jogging and riding the bikes that I was desperately trying to miss hitting without destroying either myself, the truck or the boat, I was glad to just sit there in the truck, out of traffic and wait. Hopefully no one would try to make me move. I rolled the windows down, tried to relax and enjoy the fresh breeze from the lake. I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to stretch out on the seat of the truck.
"Hey! Do you you know there's no place to launch that here?" I sat up, looked over and saw a middle-aged guy, obviously very rich, graying at the temples, driving some European sports car. The car was the color of a tonka toy and had a black rag top, which was down. He was looking at me, my truck and the boat with distain. He obviously couldn't tell that the mast was broken, and probably didn't care. He just didn't want to be invaded by some hoi polloi Texan in a Chevy pickup towing a dinghy. "I know, I know, That's not why I'm here." I responded, trying to stay as deferential and polite as possible. He sniffed, said nothing more and drove into the yacht club. "Probably a stinkpotter, I thought." I tried to relax again, wondering if the cops would come and tell me to get the hell out of town.
A few minutes later, Jim came back and confirmed what I had suspected. No place to park for the likes of us. The guy said we might find a place up Lakeshore Drive, so we took off. We exited and headed toward what looked like a parking place. We pulled up to the toll gate, saw the sign "No trailers",
turned around, and got back on Lakeshore heading south.
I vaguely glimpsed a road sign for Wacker drive, and again recalled scenes in "The Blues Brothers" where they were being chased by the entire Chicago police force down lower Wacker drive, running into Daley Plaza and having the SWAT teams go "Hut, Hut, hut" while repelling down from the top of the building. They were on a mission from God. We just wanted Pizza.
But there's nowhere to park in Chicago if you have a trailer, nowhere we could find. So, I resigned myself to the fact the best thing to do would be to get out of town.
I foolishly had thought there might be a place to park, and it was worth a try. But... Mental note - Don't try to park while pulling a boat trailer in Metropolitan areas...
I was tired and a bit cranky by now, as was Jim. I barely noticed that big fountain, the one that was on the opening of that dumb TV show "Married with Children". I think I saw where Meigs Field used to be, but couldn't see the remains of the airfield itself. We got on I-55 and headed out of town. We were feeling really hungry by now. It was after 2pm, and we exited I-55 to try to figure out what to do. We found ourselves in Romeoville, southwest of Chicago and stopped at the first likely place. Pizza was no longer a requirement. We stopped at a deli called "Danny Boy". I ordered an italian sausage and beef sandwich which was just wonderful. Jim got a Gyro Sandwich. We took our ease.
With our blood sugar restored to nominal levels, and a taste of Chicago behind us, we continued into Joliet. I had hoped to glimpse the prison where they filmed part of "The Blues Brothers", but with the realization that we had a long way to goand I didn't know where it was, I didn't expect to see it. But, fortune smiled this time, and while Jim was driving, I was looking atthe countrysdie to the right. There they were; the stone turrets of Joliet Prison, jsut like i nthe movie. If I had only been quick with my camera. I'm an odd one... I go to Chicago hoping to see a prison. I must be mental. Actually, I was mostly curious as to if the buiulding was at all like it was in the movie. It seemed to be so.
We got back onto I-55, and pressed on down the road. A few hours later we arrived in Springfield, Illinois, the home of Abe Lincoln. We stopped at Lincoln's tomb, a few minutes after they closed for the evening. We stopped at Lincoln's home, which is interesting from the standpoint that they have restored the city block where he lived to be like it was in the 1860's. Gravel road, and wooden sidewalks. They did, however, have air conditioning units in the houses that were used for park service administration. I noticed that there was not much going on in Springfield. It's the state capitol, so ther's lots of lawyers, but in general, there were a lot of slums in Springfield.
We pressed on dow nthe road, stopped at a gas station, got a snack, some road cokes and headed toward Saint Louis. We got into Saint Louis just before dark, and being in need of fuel, we did our best to find a station near the Arch. The Arch is probably the coolest structure in the U.S... cooler than the Golden Gate bridge, cooler than the Sears tower, amd probably cooler than the monuments in D.C., not for it's historical significance, of course, but from the sheer architectural and engineering beauty of it. I wish I had the time to go up in it. I tried to take a picture of it out the window of the truck, but I think I just blinded poor Jim with the flash, which I didn't need, but whic hwent off anyway. We refueled, and headed down the road. South of Saint Louis we found a restaurant and ate. As I recall it was a Ponderosa or something. Okay food, but nothing to write home about. I had really wanted to find an Outback or some other steakhouse. We continued onward to Cape Girardeau and stopped there for the night in a really bad motel. I don't know if it was the motel, or the town, but I wasn't too impressed with Cape Girardeau; it looked like a kind of dirty town. I can see why Rush Limbaugh left. The room we stayed in was wall papered, but by someone who didn't bother to go to the local seminars at the Home Depot to learn. The paper was bubbled, and irregularly done. The rest of the room was old and betrayed the age of the motel, very like the way an aging Hollywood diva trys to keep looking young with cosmetic surgery, but comes across emphasizing her age as a result. One more day on the road; home tomorrow...
Posted by Bob at September 16, 2003 08:46 AM