{"id":4547,"date":"2014-02-27T11:11:06","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T17:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=4547"},"modified":"2014-02-27T15:31:18","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T21:31:18","slug":"lower-midwest-trip-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2014\/02\/lower-midwest-trip-day-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Lower Midwest Trip Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Sept. 27 \u2014<\/strong> I have now been in every county in Illinois, and clinched I-70 from Denver to Maryland (temporarily), but the achievements didn’t come without a slip-up.<\/p>\n

Route: I-70, IL 130, US 40, Cumberland Road (past covered bridge), IL 121, IL 130, I-70, IL 49, CR to Hidalgo, IN 130, US 40, IL 49, I-70, I-65, US 31 across river, Louisville streets, I-64, I-264, US 31W, Ring Rd (KY 3005), US 62<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS
\nDowntown Greenup<\/em><\/p>\n

I spent the morning in Greenup, looking up some genealogical information. When I finally left, making my way through construction on I-70, I realized I had not gone south to enter Jasper County.<\/p>\n

Because of that, however, I got to see things I otherwise would not have seen, including the “world’s largest wind chime” in Casey (it was dead calm), a Casey’s in Casey, and traces of an old four-lane US 40 before I-70 came along. But I took IL 49 south, and crossed into Jasper County, #102 in Illinois, and doubled back to Greenup.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS
\nCasey, Illinois<\/em><\/p>\n

With the time jump in Indiana, I would be too late to do anything in downtown Indianapolis except see the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. (Indiana should be Central Time, but that’s another post\/rant.) I had to go downtown to finish I-70 in the state, and it was fortunate I had already traveled the shared 65\/70 segment because I found out at the welcome center it was shut down for construction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS
\nIndiana decided it was better to completely shut down an interstate segment to rebuild in a shorter time. However, taking 70 eastbound to 65 southbound was easier to down by going downtown.<\/em><\/p>\n

There’s a LOOONG “exit ramp” to I-74\/465 paralleling 70 west of the interchange, splitting off before the airport exit. Nearly all the traffic was going on to there, and 465 looked at a near-standstill. Better for me going in, then! In fact, it wasn’t a problem at all to get downtown.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS
\nSoldiers and Sailors Monument in Indianapolis<\/em><\/p>\n

I spent a half-hour at the monument. There is a Civil War exhibit inside the base, which was informative and interesting. There was also an observation tower, but I will have to do that some other time. I didn’t want to be any closer to rush hour than I had to.<\/p>\n

Indeed, there was a backlog heading down to I-70, but I suspect it could’ve been worse had 65\/70 not been closed. South of I-465, it was bumper to bumper for about 20 minutes, but Louisville would be much worse. There’s major road work on 65, digital and posted signs said. In fact, the GPS rerouted me onto US 31 across the river.\u00a0 So, once again, I entered Kentucky on the US 31 bridge. I will have to cross on I-65 some other time. But instead of returning to I-65, I got on I-264, and continued southwest on US 31W\/60 through the worst kind of stop-and-go commercial sprawl in order to grab Meade County on the way to Elizabethtown.<\/p>\n

Elizabethtown is the longest one-word city I have overnighted in (but the second-longest overall behind West Yellowstone). Two cultural points told me I was in the South: A Waffle House and an anti-ethanol TV ad. After 850 miles and five states, I had covered a longstanding gap in I-70 and\/but added only 12 new counties.<\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS\u00a0Outside Elizabethtown<\/em><\/p>\n

New counties so far: 12 (1+1 IL, 7 IN, 3 KY<\/strong>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Sept. 27 \u2014 I have now been in every county in Illinois, and clinched I-70 from Denver to Maryland (temporarily), but the achievements didn’t come without a slip-up. Route: I-70, IL 130, US 40, Cumberland Road (past covered … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-trip-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4547"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4573,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4547\/revisions\/4573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}