Toledo, Ohio, Oct. 3 — Although my start and end points were relatively close to each other, I stretched this day out to its maximum and squeezed in a museum visit along the way.
Route: I-271, I-71, US 224, US 42, US 250, I-71, US 30, I-75, US 33 to state line and back, OH 49, US 224, US 24, road east to south end of I-469, I-469, I-69, US 30, turnaround at light on US 33, I-469, US 24, I-475, I-75
I-271 splits off I-71 far enough away from the Cleveland metro area that it has a rest area near the south end. Once I rejoined I-71, I got off it again for some mileage on US 42.
The US 30 four-lane, once again wobbling around the Lincoln Highway, has its own rest areas east of US 23 and mileage signs mentioning Toledo before US 23 joins it. West of 23, I was traveling 30 for the first time, again — in 2007, 30 between US 23 and I-75 was still two lanes and still following the Lincoln Highway. Now, though, it was a full expressway running parallel to the south.
More button copy! OH 309 here, west of Mansfield, is an old part of 30 that connects to the Lincoln Highway. LH routings in Ohio are, to put it mildly, a muddled mashup.
US 30 does not have a direct interchange with I-75, because development while 30 was a two-lane road made an expressway interchange impossible. Instead, there’s an elongated trumpet interchange to OH 696, which uses old 30/the Lincoln Highway to intersect I-75. I took a few minutes at a truck stop for a big change in course: Go down to Wapakoneta to see the Neil Armstrong Museum.
It would be worth my time. There were many exhibits about the space program, following Neil’s progress through it, and a 25-minute film about the first moon landing. His backup suit was on display, as was a moon rock and newspaper front pages. I was there about an hour and a half. There is no grave to visit, as Armstrong was buried at sea.
One of Neil Armstrong’s spacesuits.
From there, I took US 35 to the state line, but turned around and went north so as to clinch US 224 in Indiana. Then I turned northeast. If I knew then how late my day would end up being, I would not have done all of I-469. Doubling back on that to further a clinch of US 30 in Indiana was more important, which I also did.
West end of US 224, Huntington IN
As you might expect, there’s a signing issue on an Indiana interstate: “West US 24” is signed on BOTH possible routings onto I-469, which itself is broken into being signed east then north then west as you go around the loop. (These two routings would be I-69/469 around the south side of Fort Wayne, and I-69/469 around the north side of Fort Wayne with US 30. In reality, US 24’s alignment in the area is ridiculous and Indiana should just sent it east from Huntington on Lafayette Center Road to run directly into I-469, then around the south side of Fort Wayne to its east-side exit.
Signs at the north end of I-469 still include US 27 with I-69, although US 27 was truncated two miles to the south in 2002.
There was one huge thing that enabled my marathon day, the completion of the US 24 expressway between Fort Wayne and the Toledo area in the previous 12 months. The sun set shortly after I crossed the state line.
New counties so far: 37 (2 IL, 7+3 IN, 11 KY, 8+5 OH, 1 PA)