I took a long leisurely walk down Shaker Boulevard, a gorgeous street lined with utter mansions on enormous lots. The green line runs down the median of Shaker Boulevard, and I figured that if I got tired I could jump aboard a train and head back downtown. It was extremely humid, and after a while I probably would have enjoyed a ride. Unfortunately, in nearly a forty-five minute walk only one train passed in either direction--and it was headed out to the end of the line. I walked all the way out there and hopped on that very train as just before it headed out.
There were a few more passengers, maybe twenty or thirty total, on the blue line train this time. Like me, all of them headed all the way to Tower City. I got off and headed upstairs to the mall. The place had changed a lot in just a few years. When I was here before, it looked more like an idea than a mall. There were a few shops, but mostly lots and lots of available space. Most of that space has been leased, largely to trendy clothing retailers like Abercrombie and Fitch. I didn't shop here at all, but it was interesting to see how different things were.
The main reason I went into the mall at all was to access the "Walkway to Gateway", a two-block skywalk that leads to the hockey arena that is the nearest part of the downtown Cleveland sports complex. From there I exited to the street and walked another two blocks or so to the home plate entrance of Jacobs Field. I had arrived very early; in fact, it was still about ten minutes before the gates would open. So, I joined the line of early birds waiting to get into the stadium.
Promptly at noon the big iron gates swung open and I made my way to the turnstiles. Security has gotten more intense in ballparks since the terrorist attacks two years ago. Today they search all the bags and limit the size of bags you can bring in. I wasn't worried about that, since I just had a small bag with a couple of newspapers inside it. The man at the turnstile snapped at me, though, since I dared to have another banned item in my possession--my umbrella. There was nothing on the Indians' website saying umbrellas were prohibited, nor anything posted to that effect at the entrance. I checked later in the program, and it doesn't say anything about umbrellas there either. Regardless of what they say in print, though, Jacobs Field bans umbrellas. The size or style doesn't seem to matter. You'd be hard pressed to find a smaller umbrella than the one I brought with me, but it was considered contraband. The man gave me the choice of "returning to your car" or checking the umbrella at the entrance. Since returning to my car would mean a subway ride out to the suburbs, I really had no choice but to check it. Neither the guard nor the man at the check table was able to give me any reason for the anti-umbrella rule (and I've been in other parks--major and minor league--where they were no problem), but I left my raingear with the umbrellas of hundreds of other misinformed patrons.
Jacobs Field was the second of the new "retro-parks" to be built, right after Camden Yards in Baltimore. It was followed by shiny new old-looking parks in Seattle, San Francisco, Phoenix, Houston, and Pittsburgh, among other places. As in those other cities, the built the place on the "if you build it, they will come" philosophy, hoping a new ballpark would help renovate downtown Cleveland. It seemed to work, at least for a while. For its first several years in business, the Indians sold out the entire season at Jacobs Field in advance. It's only the past couple of years that individual tickets have been available at all. Lately, though, the Indians have been a very bad team, and crowds have diminished to the point that that for this weekend day game the place was only a little over half full. That still makes a crowd of 25,000 or so, though, which is a fair number of people by anyone's count.
Jacobs compares well with the other new parks; it really is a lovely ballpark. The sightlines are better than Camden Yards. Here it looked as if there wasn't an obstructed view anywhere, and even my upper deck seat didn't seem that far from the action. I also liked the fact that unlike San Francisco's Pac Bell Park (a place lots of critics rave about), Jacobs isn't overwhelmed by advertising. There are some signs here and there, but you don't get the overwhelming feeling that everything has a sponsor. The seats are comfortable, the concourses are wide, and there's a nice variety of concessions at not entirely unreasonable prices.
I couldn't help but notice that the crowd at this game was overwhelmingly white. That feeling may have been compounded by my having been in Los Angeles earlier this year, where the Dodgers drew a very racially mixed crowd. It was clear on the rapid that Cleveland's population is mostly black, and even the distant suburbs have a mix of all races. Looking around Jacobs Field, though, I saw almost no one black or Asian or Hispanic. I don't know if those groups find tickets too expensive or if the Indians just don't market to different ethnic groups. One way or another, though, "the Jake" is definitely a white island in a black city.
Many of the fans arrived late and left early. I'd heard that sort of thing happened in Los Angeles, but no one actually did that there. In Cleveland, though, not many people seemed very into the game. There was a group of three girls a couple of rows in front of me who didn't even arrive until the middle of the sixth inning. They proceeded to down two rounds of beers, flirted with some boys who were sitting nearby, and then left in the top of the ninth. I would think the tickets would be awfully expensive for such a short time, but that didn't seem to matter to these young ladies.
The Indians used to be a contending team, but they seem to have sold off all their veteran players. The guys on the field today weren't much older than Brad--it seemed more like a AAA club than the big leagues. The feeling of immaturity was compounded by the fact that several of the players had really stupid names--the kind of thing only a young athlete could get away with. The stupidest by far was "Coco Crisp", an outfielder who was just about the best hitter on the team. While he was talented, I just couldn't get past thinking about what kind of parents would name their child after a cereal.
In spite of the young players, this was a good game. The Indians were taking on the Anaheim Angels, last year's World Series champions, and both teams played quite well. In fact, the teams were so closely matched that the game went to extra innings--sort of a trend on this trip. I had originally planned to go to mass at the Cleveland cathedral after the game (I'd been there at Easter before, and it's lovely), but when the Indians finally won on a 13th inning home run, the service was already well underway.
I walked through downtown Cleveland, which was alive with street vendors after the game. I walked north about a mile to the waterfront light rail line. "Waterfront" is really stretching it in Cleveland, because you really can't see much of the lake. Everything is very solidly developed. While the modern tourist attractions (the rock hall of fame, the football stadium, and a big science museum) certainly look nicer than the grimy industry they replaced, the fact that Lake Erie is there seems irrelevant. My model for cities is Chicago, and there are few places anywhere that have made better use of their waterfront. I'm sure that for over a century people have lamented the wasted valuable real estate along Lake Michigan, but no one can argue that the string of lakeside parks is one of Chicago's greatest assets. It's too bad Cleveland couldn't follow that lead in renovating their waterfront.
I had plenty of time to stare at the lakefront development, because again I waited for what seemed like forever for a train. It's no wonder the rapid is underused, given the poor service they provide. You'd think that a station that serves the city's biggest tourist attraction would have frequent service, but I waited nearly half an hour for a train. In all that time only two other people showed up on the platform.
As I waited and waited for a train, I stared out at the big glass pyramid that houses the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and thought back to the other time I was in Cleveland. I never wrote a formal travelogue about my long weekend at Easter, 1999, but Cleveland's prime tourist attraction does deserve at least a mention. While it's not worth its steep admission price (I think it was $16 back in '99--and you know it hasn't gone down since then), it is a fascinating museum. The memorabilia they display is much better organized than, say, a Hard Rock Café, and it's all top notch stuff. It's not as interesting as the country music museum in Nashville (where you can tour a historic recording studio and get an up-close view of Elvis' Cadillac), but it is worth a trip. What I found most fascinating at the rock hall were the costumes rockers wore, which they have displayed on mannequins. What's really strange is how small so many of these stars are. The photography on record albums never really gives you an idea of whether the artists are short or tall; in fact most are of surprisingly small stature. While some famous people--like politicians and athletes--tend to be very tall, there's no question but what a disproportionate number of short people go into show business. Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury, for instance, figuratively towered over the '70s, so I'd have never guessed he was barely five feet tall. I thought back again to how strange this all was as I stood on the platform waiting and waiting and waiting some more.
As I write this in early November the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in the news. They're hosting a gala reception for the ambassador from Hungary who will be giving a speech entitled "How Rock and Roll Helped to Bring Down the Iron Curtain". There's probably a surprising amount of truth in that title. Certainly music on its own didn't lead to the fall of communism, but the increasing flood of western culture certainly helped topple that wall. If you ask me, in the long run our music, movies and TV will have much more influence in the Middle East than our army ever will.
I rode back to Tower City and had yet another long wait (more than twenty minutes this time) for a red line train. I rode back to 150th and Puritas, and headed back through the creepy underground passageways and out to the parking lot. I drove back down I-71 to Brunswick and went back to the Sleep Inn. Tonight I walked down the strip to a Taco Bell, where I picked up a Mexican pizza. I then headed back to the motel and called Margaret.
The game I had seen was the "day" part of a day/night doubleheader (day/night meaning the two games were ticketed separately, rather than being one admission). I watched the nightcap on TV and relaxed for the evening.
I was up fairly early and had a quick bagel breakfast at the motel. Then I packed up the car and headed west on I-80. I immediately noticed a major improvement they'd made since the last time I was in Ohio. The Ohio Turnpike is now six lanes across the state--a wonderful upgrade from what it was before. I thoroughly enjoyed the morning drive as I headed west toward Toledo.
I turned north at Toledo onto I-75, a dreadful highway that was under construction all the way through Toledo. They maintained four continuous lanes, but in most cases those temporary lanes came across as little more than a tunnel through a gravel pit. I'm sure that when it's done I-75 will be lovely, but I certainly can't say too much for it right now.
Toledo ends about a mile south of the Ohio/Michigan border. The construction ended in Michigan, but the road surface was certainly nothing to brag about. There were periodic signs noting that this was part of the "Eisenhower Interstate System", and they made me wonder if any maintenance had been done on this road since Ike was in office. The one good thing about I-75 in Michigan was that it was six lanes wide. Trucks were banned in the leftmost lane. Mostly they kept right, while cars that drove around the speed limit (like me) held center and the speed demons cruised by to the left. That made things flow smoothly, even with a slower truck speed limit.
I stopped at a rest area near Monroe, about ten miles inside Michigan. The rest area featured a lighthouse, something I never really associated with Michigan. I suppose there must be lighthouses on the Great Lakes, but I always associate them with an ocean setting. The interstate lighthouse made a pleasant diversion in an otherwise most generic rest area.
The road surface just became worse and worse as I headed northward through suburban Detroit. Urban roads are always hard to keep in decent shape, and they're even harder when money is tight. Michigan's economy has been struggling for decades. In the late '90s they managed to attract some high tech industries to replace the old "rust belt" factories that closed in the Reagan years. A lot of those are closing these days, though, as even high tech jobs move overseas. Today's Sunday paper noted that Michigan once again had the highest unemployment rate in America. ... What's more, even those with jobs are often earning less than they did a few years back. Less income for the people means less income for the state, which means more and more "deferred maintenance" on roads like I-75.
The main plus of I-75 is that it was built to handle huge volumes of traffic. Traffic was very light on Sunday, but I got the feeling that this ten-lane behemoth would keep things moving even at rush hour. It's only about 45 miles from Toledo to Detroit, and I covered that distance in less than 45 minutes, even counting the stop at he rest area.
I exited right in the heart of downtown Detroit, or perhaps I should say what's left of downtown Detroit. From a distance the downtown area really looks quite substantial, the sort of downtown that a city of a million people should have. Up close, though, you see that almost everything is empty and crumbling. With the exception of a couple of urban renewal projects (like the stadium that was my destination today), Detroit gives the appearance of Berlin after the War. The residential neighborhoods are nicer--pretty much what you'd find in any older city--but downtown is essentially nonexistent.
A positive aspect of an empty downtown is that there's lots and lots of parking. Not that the stadium wants you to know that, mind you. I passed lot after lot of "official" Detroit Tigers parking, at prices ranging from $15 to $25. Fortunately I had checked on the internet ahead of time and knew those prices were just ridiculous. I drove a bit further east and parked in the City of Detroit's underground ramp at Grand Circus Park, where I paid just $3.
Parking at Grand Circus required me to walk about two blocks through a neighborhood that was at best questionable (abandoned department stores with their big display windows busted out interspersed with grand old churches that today mostly serve the homeless). This was certainly no less safe than the "official" lots, though; some of them back up against public housing. There were police officers all through the area, much like they have around Chicago's Comiskey on game days, so I really didn't feel in any danger.
I made my way to Comerica Park, a shiny new ball field that is hopelessly out of place amid the bombed out skeleton that is downtown Detroit. Together with a football stadium next door, this is an attempt to lure suburbanites to the city and get them to spend time and money downtown. From the looks of things, they haven't had a lot of success yet. There were a fair number of people at the game today, but pretty much all of them just drove downtown, went to the game, and left. There's really nowhere to spend time or money anywhere near the stadium. Most cities have sports bars, diners, and gift shops where fans can congregate before or after games. Here, though, there's pretty much nothing outside the stadium gates.
While it's shiny and new, I can't say I was terribly impressed with Comerica Park. It speaks volumes that the place was named after a bank. Comerica reminded me a lot of Pac Bell Park in San Francisco, which to my mind isn't a compliment. This is one of those places where everything is sponsored--instead of being a fan at a ballgame, I felt I was a cast member in some big commercial. Beyond all the corporate logos is the fact that the concessions are among the most expensive I've seen anywhere. Programs that went for $2 in Cleveland cost $5 here. You get a hint of the food prices when you see that they take credit cards at the hot dog stands. I might have considered picking up a souvenir cap, but at $30 minimum I didn't even pick one up to try on.
While it was hard to get past the commercialism, I must say that the park is in a pleasant setting and provides what is probably the only pleasant view of downtown Detroit. Inside that $5 program they have photos giving a 360o view from all around the park, with all the buildings labeled. From a distance the Detroit skyline really isn't all that bad. There are a couple of modern buildings (most notable the '70s glass tubes of Renaissance Center, which is General Motors' headquarters building) , but for the most part the tallest towers are the spires of those old churches. When you don't have to see their plywood-covered fronts, all the old brick warehouses and commercial buildings don't look that bad either.
The crowd at this game was much more multi-ethnic than in Cleveland. The city of Detroit is overwhelmingly black, but the metro area is quite mixed racially. This crowd was probably about three-fourths white, with large numbers of blacks, Hispanics, and south Asian people. My section (again, clear up at the top) was about 50-50 white and Hispanic. I don't really think of Michigan as a place with a lot of Hispanics, but today there's a large Mexican presence pretty much everywhere in America.
There had apparently been an event to raise money for breast cancer today in Detroit. The pre-game ceremonies included having everyone who participated in that event parade around the warning track. It took nearly half an hour to get everyone out there, and during the game all those people's souvenir T-shirts made a sea of pink in the stands.
I recall almost nothing of the game itself. The Tigers were playing the Minnesota Twins, and honestly nothing of interest seemed to happen. Batter after batter on both teams either popped out or lined out, without any remarkable plays. One of the few things I do remember was that the Tigers won--something extremely unusual in a year when they set a new record for most losses in a season.
[Another thing I remember] was that we never sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" for the seventh-inning stretch. Instead we they played the Kate Smith version of "God Bless America" as a digital flag waved on the scoreboard. I don't have anything against that Irving Berlin classic, and I've been in other ballparks where they play the two songs back to back--sort of like in Wisconsin they follow "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with "Roll Out the Barrel", or how the Twins follow it with their fight song. What I do object to is just playing "God Bless America". To me that mixes baseball with politics and implies that a ballgame should be a patriotic celebration. It wasn't like today was the 4th of July, after all. Baseball is a game of traditions, and "God Bless America" just isn't one of them. The patriotic tradition in baseball is the pre-game National Anthem, not the seventh-inning stretch.
All those quick outs made this a very fast game. It was barely mid-afternoon when it ended. With plenty of time to kill, I decided to experience another of Detroit's urban renewal projects, the people mover. This was the start of a transit system that never really materialized. Today it's quite literally a train to nowhere. The people mover makes a two-mile loop around downtown, on an elevated track that runs mostly above sidewalks rather than actual streets. Where there are new buildings, the people mover often passes right through the building itself, with the "station" looking a lot like the skywalk lobbies in Minneapolis. Other places (like Grand Circus), the stations hang from the front of decrepit old buildings, providing a stark contrast between old and new.
The people mover cars are weird. They are quite narrow, with all the seating facing the aisle. Each car is smaller than a standard transit car--smaller even than the extra-short cars they use in Chicago. They feel almost more like an amusement park ride than mass transit. The two-car trains probably hold around 50 people comfortably (and probably never have to hold any more than that, even at rush hour). As you approach a station, a really bad synthesized voice announces the stop in uninflected, disconnected syllables that almost interrupt each other ("GRAND-CIR-KUS"), and the doors open automatically. After about ten seconds, there is a series of excruciatingly shrill beeps, and the doors slam shut. Then there's a loud "whoosh" sound as the magnetically-driven train is propelled forward.
While it's quite futuristic, the people mover is pretty much never busy. Weekdays some business people take it to get from a parking ramp to their office building or perhaps to get somewhere for lunch. On Sunday a couple dozen of the 30,000 Tigers fans rode from Grand Circus (the stop nearest the ballpark) to a free parking ramp adjacent to a casino (yet another struggling urban renewal project) at the Greektown stop.
En route we passed abandoned building after abandoned building. If you collected the few new towers and the old structures that are still in use, you could probably house the entire active part of downtown Detroit in an area about the size of downtown Cedar Rapids. Instead they've got a few active buildings here and there, separated by block after block of wasteland.
While it is supposed to make a loop, because of construction at Renaissance Center, the people mover now just goes back and forth in an arc. I went to the end of the line and rode back to Grand Circus. The $.50 fare certainly didn't break me, but I'll probably not be back to ride it again.
Taking the joy ride on the people mover allowed me to get behind the rush of traffic leaving the game. I exited the Grand Circus ramp and easily made my way onto I-94, known locally by the charming name of "Detroit Industrial Freeway". Again there was an abominable road surface, but there was almost no traffic on the eight-lane highway as I sped out to the suburbs.
I exited at Merriman Road, just east of the Detroit Metro Airport. My destination was an airport hotel, the Clarion Barceló Detroit, a sister to the hotel I've often stayed in at Cumberland Avenue and the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago. The Clarion Barceló O'Hare is quite a nice hotel. Under different management it was the place O.J. Simpson fled to after his wife's murder. The building is a '60s high-rise, with lovely views of both the city and the airport. There's a gorgeous hardwood lobby and a pleasant rooftop pool. The Chicago Clarion Barceló is also conveniently located, right next to both the freeway and the 'L'. A businessman's hotel, on weekends it's a bargain for tourists with rates in the $60 - $70 range.
I mention all that because it would be hard to find two hotels more different than the Clarion Barcelós in Chicago and Detroit. I drove nearly a mile from the freeway before I came to the sprawling labyrinth that was the Clarion Barceló Detroit. The entire place is two stories, all of cement block construction. From the outside it looks like a bad dorm at a state university. Hallways branch off in every imaginable direction from the lobby and meeting area in the center. Each hallway has its own color-coded carpet, all in garish shades from the '70s. My room was pleasant (pretty much all Clarion hotels have nice rooms), but the hotel's location was convenient to absolutely nothing. The airport is at least two miles away, and the strip the Clarion is on features little more than other hotels. There is no public transportation nearby, and downtown is at least a fifteen mile drive. That's probably why this hotel's rate made the prices I paid in Chicago seem expensive. In Detroit (or more precisely Romulus) I got an enormous room with a king bed and a sofa for just $41.
It intrigued me when I checked in that the desk clerk asked to see my AAA membership card to verify the rate I had booked. At Choice Hotels (Clarion, Quality, Comfort, and Sleep Inns), the AAA discount is 10% off the base price. The fact is, though, that pretty much anyone can get a 10% discount at Choice Hotels by simply booking in advance. They have an "internet users' rate", for instance, that anyone who books online can get, which is also 10% off. There's also 10% off for seniors, for visitors from foreign countries, for business travelers--you name it. There are occasionally better discounts (especially on the business rate), but 10% is pretty standard. Since the AAA rate is basically the default rate for anyone who isn't stupid enough to pay more, no one ever asks for verification of the rate. In fact, there's only one other hotel where I've ever been asked for my AAA card--this hotel's sister, the Clarion Barceló O'Hare in Chicago.
It was still quite early, and there was pretty much nothing to do at the hotel. So, for lack of anything better to do, I took a marathon walk around Romulus. Why this place is named after the founder of Rome, I'll never know. I don't think there ever was a real town in Romulus. Today there's middle class housing--old and new--a host of motels, and countless warehouses that presumably ship through the adjacent airport. Like far too many suburbs, there are no sidewalks anywhere. Instead there was a trail worn through the weeds along the side of a very busy road. I walked about a mile north, then about a mile east, and then about half a mile south. Finally I came to a branch of Tim Horton's, the Canadian doughnut and quick lunch chain that has a few outposts along the border in the States. The parking lot was absolutely empty, but the place was open. (I still wonder how the employees got there.) I took a break and had an early supper of soup and salad. I also bought a box of "Timbits", the doughnut holes in assorted flavors that are a trademark of Tim Hortons. I munched on them as I made my way back another mile and a half to the hotel.
I stopped at a Speedway convenience store next to the Clarion, where I picked up the Sunday paper and some juice. Then I went back to my room and watched some TV. Tonight 60 Minutes happened to feature the toxic waste dump in Anniston, Alabama, so I watched with more than a passing interest as they told of the problems in the place I had just been through. Then I relaxed and passed a quiet evening.
I wanted to be out of metro Detroit before rush hour, so I was up around 6:00 and had checked out of the Clarion by 6:30. Most of Detroit's industry (like all the auto factories) is in a ring just outside the city proper. The airport was further out, so headed westbound there was almost no traffic on I-94. I soon passed the beltway (I-275), and for a few miles I passed through a bit of forest.
The trees were only temporary, though, because Michigan is a very urban state. The Detroit beltway is Exit 190. Exit 183 is Ypsilanti, and Exit 180 is the beltway for Ann Arbor. The home of the University of Michigan continues to Exit 171, and then there's a bit of rural area again. Even here, though, there are exits about every two miles--most for towns bigger than Algona. Just 29 miles west of Ann Arbor is Jackson, another big yellow splotch on the map. Eighteen miles further is Albion, and nine miles from there is Marshall; both of those are also in bold type. From Marshall it's about ten miles on to Battle Creek, and twenty miles further is Kalamazoo. At Kalamazoo it's about 30 miles west to Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, which are on Lake Michigan just east of Chicago. What's more, in addition to all those cities, places like Flint, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Holland, Muskegon, Elkhart, and South Bend are all less than 50 miles from I-94.
For all that population, the interstate is four lanes almost all the way across Michigan. There are many lanes through metro Detroit, and from Benton Harbor on through Chicagoland it's a minimum of six lanes. In between, though--Ann Arbor, Jackson, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, etc.--it's just four very crowded lanes. For most of the way, it would be almost impossible to widen the highway. The overpasses are all so narrow that there's no shoulder to begin with; they'd have to completely destroy them to make any improvements. Basically they need a whole new highway parallel to this one (and, by the way, for cross-country travelers the Indiana Tollroad--I-80--about 40 miles south of here is a much better bet).
I took a break from the traffic in Battle Creek, where a sign at the exit advised there was a Big Boy restaurant. Little did I know that the restaurant would be a full five miles off the interstate. I got a scenic tour of just about every suburban housing development in Battle Creek before I finally sat down to a ham and egg breakfast. I personally think they should just list businesses that are actually at an exit on those blue signs along the interstate. A five-mile drive is ridiculous, but by the time I'd exited I was pretty much committed to doing it.
I quit grasping tightly to the steering wheel when the freeway became six lanes at Benton Harbor. While it was now truly urban (it really is the start of Chicagoland), as opposed to a string of separate cities , traffic moved much more smoothly. Things continued going well through the Lake Michigan resort towns and on into Indiana.
I had debated just how I wanted to go through Chicagoland. I've traveled through the area enough to know that here is no good route through America's third largest megalopolis, but I was hoping that at midday on a weekday things might go reasonably smoothly. I debated taking the Tri-State Tollway, which decades ago was a beltway, but now is really quite close-in. Its disadvantage would be the constant stops at tollbooths, which can be as close as 10 miles apart in Illinois. I also considered I-90, which I'd paralleled on a commuter railroad at one point. It looked remarkably free of traffic (and it's probably the route I should have chosen), but its downside was that it goes right through the heart of Gary, one of America's most blighted and crime-ridden cities.
I chose instead to stay right on I-94. It, too, heads through Gary, after merging with I-80 just east of there. However the whole route in Indiana is basically walled in with sound barriers (like parts of 380 are in Waterloo), so you really don't notice the surroundings at all. I-94 becomes the Dan Ryan and Kennedy Expressways in Chicago, and while it travels through some of the worst parts of that city, it has the advantage of providing lovely skyline views. I tend to prefer seeing those views from a stress-free seat in an 'L' train, but since my destination was beyond the city, I really had no choice but to cross it by car one way or another.
To get an idea for what I should do, I listened to the traffic reports on WBBM all the way from Benton Harbor on. They described a minor back-up on the Tri-State, which made me decide that was probably not the best choice. The Dan Ryan was described as free-flowing, and the 18-minute times from 95th Street to downtown were as quick as that route ever gets. I-90 also seemed to have no problems, and I had actually decided to follow that route. Unfortunately, the exit was poorly marked (as exits on tollroads often are), so I missed my chance to take it.
Not long after I had committed to the I-94 route, WBBM's traffic reporters started referring to "border congestion on 80/94 in Hammond". I was in Gary at about Exit 10 when I first heard that announcement, and things were still flowing well. By the time I reached Exit 5, though, I literally slammed on the brakes. The Bormann Expressway (named after the Apollo 11 command module pilot) is eight lanes wide in Hammond, Indiana's northwestern-most city. It was basically an eight-lane parking lot today, though, with a traffic jam that extended past the Illinois border. It took over half an hour to travel the five miles to the state line and about another fifteen minutes to travel two more miles to the end of the jam. The cause wasn't an accident or road construction. It was, instead, a toll booth. For a tiny stretch I-80 joins the Tri-State, and there's a three-lane toll plaza leading into the mess. I-94 is entirely a free highway, but only one lane exits northward as 94. The seven-mile, forty-five minute back-up was all the result of people paying a stupid 15˘ toll to the Illinois road commission.
By contrast, the Dan Ryan Expressway was wonderful. Although it's one of the ugliest highways ever built and it travels through one of the most hideous urban landscapes on earth, what the Dan Ryan does have going for it is that it moves traffic well. I've described this behemoth of a highway (sixteen lanes in places, plus the 'L' tracks in the median) in an earlier travelogue, so I'll just say I was grateful for all those lanes as I sailed on northward toward the Loop today. Even an accident around 87th Street didn't slow things down much at all.
While the South Side through which the Dan Ryan passes is almost indescribably bleak, the views of downtown from there are spectacular. I've been to a lot of cities, but I have yet to find one with a more beautiful commercial center than Chicago. The skyscrapers are spread out enough and varied enough to make a truly fascinating skyline, and the unspoiled lakefront turns the whole city into a park. It helps that Chicago is one of the few cities where downtown is still truly the center of things; it's almost the complete opposite of Detroit.
I made my way through the "circle", also known as the "Spaghetti Bowl" where 90, 94, 290, and several city streets come together just west of the Sears Tower. Actually, if all you're doing is staying on I-94, this route is simple; you just go straight through at the very bottom of the mess. It's certainly an impressive interchange, though.
North of the circle I-94 becomes the Kennedy Expressway, which in the downtown area is one of the most bizarre interstates ever built. It tunnels through an open trench on the west side of the Loop, with exits literally every block to all the downtown streets. The exits are all to the right, but the corresponding entrances are from the left. This makes the traffic patterns interesting, to say the least. I kept center, which I'm sure was the only wise decision.
North of downtown I encountered a bit of congestion on the Kennedy. This was mostly due to that interstate's reversible express lanes. The main part of the Kennedy is six lanes, three in each direction. There are an additional two express lanes, though, which can be switched to provide additional inbound or outbound lanes, at the discretion of the highway department. On business days, the express lanes run inbound until noon, at which time they flip to outbound to handle the afternoon rush. It was a little before noon when I left downtown Chicago. The express lanes were still running inbound, absolutely empty. There was noticeably more traffic headed outbound, which made a bit of a back-up. We never came to a stand-still, but we did slow down to as low as 35mph. At one point an ambulance came sailing by on the shoulder, definitely going faster than the bulk of traffic.
I got a bit more of the baseball theme of this trip while driving through Chicago. Baseball fever was definitely gripping the Second City this summer, as both the Cubs and the White Sox were having outstanding seasons. People on the radio were talking about the possibility of a "Red Line Series", with the two local teams facing each other for the world championship--the name coming from the 'L' line that connects Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park. There were banners across the Dan Ryan overpass by Comiskey, and billboards all over the city urged both teams on to victory. I even saw an 'L' train wrapped in advertising that supported the local teams. As it turned out, neither of the Chicago teams made it to the World Series. The White Sox (the team I care about in Chicago) choked at the end of the season, and the Cubs came one game away from the World Series, but then lost in a heartbreaker.
I'd driven both the Dan Ryan and the Kennedy in the past, but before long I got a new driving experience as I followed 94 and exited onto the Edens Expressway. The Edens starts in the gritty Irving Park neighborhood on the north side of the city, but the surroundings rapidly become more upscale. This freeway serves the wealthy North Shore suburbs--places like Skokie, Winnetka, Glencoe, and Northbrook. In place of boxy brick apartment blocks and warehouses surrounded by razor wire, I soon saw lushly landscaped office parks, upscale malls, and endless condo developments. I was too far west to see the mansions that line Lake Michigan, but it was still clear I wasn't in the city anymore.
I was, however, still in Chicagoland. The Edens merges with the Tri-State at Northbrook, but it continues to cut through suburb after suburb pretty much all the way to Wisconsin. Metra, Chicago's commuter railroad, runs regular trains all the way to Kenosha, ten miles north of the state line. (They're negotiating as I write this to extend the service forty miles further north to Milwaukee.) Past the border the highway moves a bit further inland from the lake, so it looks a tad more rural. It still moves a ton of traffic, though.
I stopped for gas at Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, just north of the state line. That was probably stupid, since Wisconsin is one of the few places where gas is more expensive than Chicagoland. It made a pleasant break, though.
I had thought the car was having some problems handling, and was starting to get a little worried again. When I stopped, though, it made sense. I hadn't realized it, but the wind was blowing fiercely. It was amazing my little car stayed on the road at all amid the gale that was raging outside. It was still difficult driving, but at least now I had a clue as to why the car seemed to have trouble going straight.
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The background music on this page is the country gospel classic, "This World Is Not My Home".