Peru, Illinois, Oct. 6 — If I had to get a day when I spent half the time in pouring rain, this was it. The Ohio Turnpike was under construction, and the rain kept falling with one brief respite at the state line until Elkhart.
Route: I-280, OH 795, I-80, OH 49, US 20, I-94, I-65 to north end and turn around, US 30, I-80, IL 7, US 30, IL 59, US 52, IL 251, I-80, I-39, US 6, I-80
Instead of the Indiana Toll Road, I took US 20 across most of the state. After South Bend, the sky cleared up dramatically.
Beautiful button copy at the OH 49 interchange, very near the state line. The final toll plaza in Ohio is just east of the exit.
One remainder of the Lincoln Highway through Indiana is that although US 20 now has a south bypass of South Bend and Elkhart, it remains north of the four-lane IN 2 between US 31 and I-94. The two routes even “bump” each other. Swapping the routes between the “bump” and South Bend seems like a no-brainer at this point.
I could’ve, and maybe should’ve, taken 20 a few more miles, but this gave me the “easy” part of the route in the state. After getting on I-94, I took I-65 to its north end at US 12/20, then turned around to go to US 30.
Shortly after the exit for I-90, I-65 comes to end at a stoplight.
This part of US 30, between I-65 and I-57, was my last untraveled segment in five states. In Dyer, just east of the state line, is the Ideal Section, a four-lane marvel in the early 1920s that today is just a run-of-the-mill suburban four-lane arterial route. Commemorative markers are still on one side of the road. I stopped for pictures, including my 25,000th photo since June 2001 (see previous blog entry).
The Ideal Section monument is also in memory of Henry Ostermann, who died in a car crash along the Lincoln Highway in Tama County in 1920. I missed this marker nearby, though. The Federal Highway Administration has a lengthy writeup about the Lincoln Highway.
Ideal Section monuments (the arch is a separate piece)
West of I-57, US 30 is now four lanes; the last time I was here it was under construction. I checked out some new LH markers and billboards and got to the 30/80 interchange at 4.
Here’s where I made a major miscalculation. If I had resolved to hop on I-80 and do nothing else, I could’ve (but likely wouldn’t have) ended my vacation this night. Instead, I thought I would try to follow more of the Lincoln Highway in suburban Chicago, only to find out that traffic on a Sunday afternoon was just as bad as any other time. In an hour and a half, I barely covered any ground. I surrendered in Plainfield and fell back on following US 52 west of I-55.
Shortly before darkness, I stopped in Peru, and hit 3500 trip miles.
This I-80 sign gantry was replaced after US 61 was rerouted, but excludes 61 on the right so as to indicate that only 80 and US 6 are “straight ahead”.
