quasify

From an aesthetic prospective, there is no justification for the Great State of Ohio to charge travelers $9.25 to cross their barren northern wasteland on I-80. The single Ohio highlight was looking up to see a baseball cap wearing skeleton riding shotgun in a white Chevy Impala… I imagine that leads to a lot of interesting conversations with authority figures. A greater value per soulless toll-road mile is found (just barely) in Indiana at $6.75. I spent much of the day looking forward to a stop in South Bend (I had optimistically thought to find something cool yada Notre Dame yada). This was the first time I had been back to South Bend since 1994, when my dad’s car dropped it’s transmission there during a trip up to my freshman year at Calvin. I walked into a local restaurant and the first thing I saw was large swastika tattoo on the neck of what I’m sure was a otherwise very nice man. After that I didn’t much feel like sticking around to try to find the Studebaker Museum

Since I rocked out early this morning (Clearfield, PA, not a fun place to brunch) I had excess time to kill in the afternoon, so took my mother’s suggestion of a side trip north to Michigan. I went up to New Buffalo, a small beach town, not much like the original Buffalo (NY) or Buffalo (spicy wings) but having the benefit of a gorgeous Lake Michigan backdrop. Rule of thumb as far as great lakes go: Michigan >>>>> Erie. Added bonus, seeing the coolio cooling tower for the Michigan City Generating Station.

States seen: PA, OH, IN, MI, IL.
Deer carcasses/rainbows seen: 2/4.
Total/daily miles driven: 1034.6/574.9.
Total/daily MPG: 34.8/33.8. Today’s average was a bit worse than yesterday, likely due to the lack of long downhill segments to go-go gravity boost down. But it’s probably the best that we’ll have from now on as the human anchor has joined the crew.

ps. Thanks to la papa de KKV for dinner & Chicagoland entertainment…

pps. Happy 8/8/08! Day of Flickr and Olympic opening ceremony too!

ppps. Saw Red Sox lose on TV at the bar despite wearing the hat bpoo gave me. The (exceedingly cute) waitress liked it, as she was originally from Newton.

Aside for tomorrow morning: will someone please remind my copilot to heed the following dictum…

1 And this is the law ye shall follow when traveling with brothers, whether by chariot, camel, donkey, cart pulled by slave, shoulders of slave, small boat, leviathan, silverback gorilla, or another personal conveyance. 2 The owner of the vehicle shall always be the pilot, unless leprosy hath taken his legs. The pilot must always wear a safety girdle. 3 He who wishes to have the second-best seat may only declare so after leaving the door of the temple, the tax collector’s house, a den of iniquity, or any other place. He, too, shall wear a safety girdle.